HIGHWOOD CROSSING: STRIKING LIQUID GOLD
C
anola oil, the product that comes from the great yellow crop of the prairie provinces, has never been as sexy as olive oil, its Mediterranean cousin. Despite its usefulness, canola gets a bad rap from the anti-GMO crowd and is often downplayed because of its relatively neutral flavour and general ubiquity. But canola is one of Alberta’s key crops and something that food lovers are increasingly embracing, thanks to pioneering organic producers like Highwood Crossing in High River, Alberta. Although they make plenty of other grain-based goodies, Highwood Crossing’s calling card is its organic hard-pressed canola oil, an unrefined and non-GMO
18 Culinaire | March 2020
BY ELIZABETH CHORNEY-BOOTH
oil that’s packed with distinctive flavour. Popular with home cooks and restaurant chefs alike, the oil may be what put Highwood Crossing on the modern map, but owners Tony and Penny Marshall’s story goes much deeper. A relatively small farm on the Highwood River, Tony Marshall’s family has been farming at Highwood Crossing since 1899, but the company’s roots as an organic grower started in the late ‘80s when the couple took over the farm. In the past the mixed-use farm had been used for grain, cattle and heavy horses—Tony’s great grandfather and his neighbour, George Lane of the Bar U Ranch, brought the first Percheron horses to Canada from France—but the younger Marshalls
wanted to do something different, while still paying homage to the roots of the farm. “When Penny and I got married and took over the farm, we fairly quickly made the transition back to organic production,” Tony says. “My grandfather and great-grandfather would have farmed organically, but it would have been organic by default. We wanted to use many of the same practices that they would have used.” The Marshalls didn’t have one definitive reason for going organic, but they did have young children at the time and were conscious of what they were putting into the world, and as a professional home economist, Penny understood
