The 2018 International Plowing Match (IPM) may be two years away, but its commemorative cookbook launched Nov. 23.
“A Taste of Chatham-Kent” came out in time to be showcased and sold at the 70th annual Rural-Urban Dinner at the John D. Bradley Convention Centre.
The book features recipes submitted by Chatham-Kent residents, made with ingredients grown right here, Simon Crouch, a spokesman for the IPM committee said.
“This is one of the big souvenirs that will be on the roster for 2018. And you can now buy it locally,” Crouch said.
It took two years of effort to get the cookbook from concept to reality, Crouch said.
“We got two recipes the first week and panicked,” he said. “Soon, we had them come in by the hundreds.”
In all, they had more than 1,000 recipes to sift through, almost all of which came from C-K residents. The ones used in the book contain locally grown ingredients.
“We wanted to stress the good crops grown here,” Crouch explained.
Leon LeClair, who along with Darrin Canniff is chairing the IPM, described the book, which is more than 500 pages, as top notch.
“I’m very proud. The influx of recipes is a testament to how many people want to be involved in the plowing match,” he said, adding the people in charge of putting the book together knew what they were doing. “These folks didn’t call us once and they did a great job.”
Canniff expects to sell 15,000 of the cookbooks between now and the IPM.
“I went to the 2016 match in Minto. I can tell you how popular they are,” he said.
The books are $15 each and all funds raised go towards the plowing match. Any leftover funding after the 2018 event will be distributed to local charities that supported the event, Crouch said.
The recipe books are for now only available at North Kent Mutual Insurance, but Crouch said there will be an announcement soon about other locations where they will be sold.
Creating the recipe book is but one small element of the efforts underway for the 2018 IPM. LeClair said there are 40 active committees working on various logistics issues for the match.
“It’s exciting and scary,” he said of the effort that will be required.
Canniff said the current focus is high-level planning, but for the week of the event, organizers will need about 1,200 volunteers.
“Basically, we’re creating a city in the middle of a farmer’s field,” he said. “And we will generate $15 million to $20 million into the Chatham-Kent economy.”
He added organizers are confident it will be a success, and said they have been told they are well ahead in several elements of the planning stages in comparison to past IMP efforts.
