Quentin Glabus isn’t just a chef. He’s a time traveller.
Since he graduated from NAIT more than two decades ago, he’s travelled the world. He’s cooked at Canadian consulates in New York, Rio de Janeiro, Beijing and Tokyo (to name a few). He’s even cooked at Disney World in Florida.
But, despite his jet-setting ways, he wants to take food back in time. When he speaks about cooking using “pre-colonial” ingredients, it’s as if he could jump through the Zoom screen from his home in Japan. The smile doesn’t leave his face.
What is pre-colonial cookery? It’s about dedication to using ingredients — and even cooking methods — that existed before settlers came to North America. It’s about cooking as Indigenous people did for centuries. No processed flours or sugars; no dairy products; no pork, no chicken, no beef.
“I don’t want to say it’s new. It’s not,” says Glabus. “It’s cultural, right? These are all ingredients that were introduced to North America.
“Because of my First Nations background, I always try to bring in Indigenous flavour and cuisine to everything I do.”
Since 2017, Glabus has been part of I-Collective, an international grouping of Indigenous chefs that promote traditional cookery. And, Glabus makes as many visits as he can with his mom at the Frog Lake First Nation, near Lloydminster, to soak up as much as he can about the history of Indigenous cuisine.
“I was blown away by it all,” says Glabus of his work with I-Collective. “And I started to think. How can I take something like a French dessert, say a crème brûlée, or a dessert like a pavlova, and make it pre-colonial?”
And I watch Glabus, with his child on his shoulder, work it out in his head, in real-time. His dream for a charred corn-husk pavlova, with corn custard, an acorn cake base, with either cedar or wild rice ice cream.
For the meringue, he’d need duck eggs. Maple syrup or honey would replace the sugar. The custard would need duck eggs and a walnut or almond milk. Acorn flour would be needed.
“It’s just trying to figure out the switches in your head and what that would look like. When I’m farting around in the kitchen, when I do get the time to tinker and play, I’ve actually had this thought come up in my head — I’m stepping back in time. I’m time travelling. I’m trying to think traditionally. If I didn’t have a spatula, how I would I flip this over? If I didn’t have a frying pan, how would I do this? If I didn’t have pots, stove or an oven to do this all, what would this have looked like hundreds of years ago?”
In March, Glabus will return to his alma mater to be this year’s Hokanson chef-in-residence. When he gets back to Edmonton, he makes sure to go back to NAIT, to walk the halls, to meet with old instructors. But, this time, it’s special. He’s being charged to work with the culinary students – and to share his philosophy on Indigenous cooking.
And, he’ll be leading a three-course lunch and a four-course dinner on March 20 at Ernest’s, NAIT’s on-campus restaurant, that’s open to the public (tickets on sale, now). There’s also a March 21 four-course dinner.
Glabus recalls attending NAIT events when famed Canadian chef Susur Lee was the Hokanson chef. So, to be given that honour, well, it’s massive.
“In a million years, I never would have thought that I’d be asked to come back as a Hokanson chef-in-residence,” says Glabus. “I thought I would have had to have come back as a culinary student again, to take part in this kind of setting.
“I’m freaking out a little bit. It’s nerves. I want to make sure that I do my best and that I meet and exceed expectations. What I hope to share with the students is just my culinary adventure, and how I did it.”
Glabus is enthused about how, globally, there’s been rising interest in Indigenous chefs and cuisine over the last decade. And he hopes to get together with two pre-eminent Edmonton chefs, Shane Chartrand, who just competed on the latest season of Top Chef Canada, and Scott Jonathan Iserhoff, the chef behind Bernadette’s, the new-ish Edmonton eatery that’s already earned national recognition. The hope is that they’ll be working together during Glabus’s NAIT residency.
For Glabus, it’s a second chance to meet Chartrand, who he’s idolized for a long time. Years ago, when Chartrand was cooking at the River Cree Casino, Glabus and his wife made sure to stop there during an Edmonton visit. But, when Glabus saw Chartrand walking the floor, he was too nervous to actually get up and introduce himself. (We’ve profiled Chartrand a few times, he’s a friend of the magazine, and I can state with 100 per cent certainty that Chartrand would have been thrilled to meet Glabus.)
“My wife and I were back in Edmonton, from being in Rio, and I was like ‘hon, we have to go. I don’t care if I get to meet him, I just want to eat his food.’ We made a reservation, we went, and when we saw him come out of the kitchen, my wife is poking me, telling me to go say hi, but I couldn’t. I geeked out a little bit and I was like ‘I can’t go see him, I can’t introduce myself.’
“I still want to. And I want to be able to meet him.”
