The humble breadcrumb finally gets its dues in the new cookbook, All That Crumbs Allow (Good Egg), from Camilla Wynne and Michelle Marek.

First of all, please introduce yourselves to Scout readers: who are you; where do you live; what’s your background; and what is currently keeping you busy?

Camilla Wynne: I’m Camilla Wynne, an award-winning cookbook author, writer, recipe developer and cooking teacher specializing in preserving and pastry. I also work as a recipe tester and make fancy cakes. I went to pastry school in Montreal at the turn of the century, worked in fine dining, left to be in a band called Sunset Rubdown, opened a preserving company called Preservation Society, worked in a few bakeries, then moved to Toronto. Currently I’m touring All That Crumbs Allow, working on a new book, doing a lot of writing and testing work, and parenting a preschooler.

Michelle Marek: My name is Michelle Marek and I live and work in Montreal. I spent over 20 years working in restaurants as a chef and pastry chef, and now do food styling and recipe development – and cookbook writing, it seems! I have TOO MANY HOBBIES which cycle in and out of season depending on the weather. I love mushroom hunting, knitting, sewing clothes, painting, and generally making things with my hands.

Tell me about the epigraph from Patience Gray. I hadn’t heard of her before, but she seems like an incredible food icon, although her books are hard to come by. How did you discover her, and what does she mean to you? Are there any other food icons – big or small – that you want to give credit to?

CW: I’ll let Michelle respond about Patience Gray specifically. MFK Fisher’s book How to Cook a Wolf came up as we were writing this, since it’s about cooking with very little. I think in general we were inspired for the format of the book by all our beloved old illustrated paperbacks by authors like Elizabeth David and James Beard.

MM: Patience Gray is someone who created a life for herself, which I truly admire. I have a penchant for cookbooks with a real tone to them, one where we get a sense of the author in an authentic way. I cannot list my faves without mentioning Richard Olney, who never wrote a recipe without adding his particular (and to me, delightful) tone. He also eschewed where he was born and moved to France, settling in the south of France in an old shepherd’s hut which he slowly renovated into his idea of perfection. Daniel Spoerri is another one I love, though he is more of an artist who wrote a cookbook. He and his girlfriend picked up and moved to the Greek island Symi and made do, and wrote a completely unique cookbook. If you are sensing a pattern, there is one.

Right off the bat, from the dedication, epigraphs and introduction, you set the tone for All That Crumbs Allow as being much more than simply a clever, utilitarian cookbook – it’s also something rooted in history and age-old struggles, with revolutionary potential. Although there’s nothing really new about breadcrumbs, this book is in large part inspired by the modern day context of rising food costs and unaffordable housing. Why did you decide to take a “cute” concept like breadcrumbs and make it personal-political? And why now, in particular?

CW: Well the reason that we started writing this was because we were both underemployed, but it was also around the time of the US election and all the talk about tariffs, the price of eggs rocketing… I think we’ve both always been interested in the sort of cooking that makes use of every possible crumb – most cooks are. Then “peasant” food turns up in fine dining at outrageous prices! But there’s something both practical and beautiful about using every bit of food you can salvage.

MM: If you don’t see the writing on the wall, I don’t know what to say. Our society is so wealthy as a whole and we lack nothing, but the distribution of capital is getting more and more uneven. We waste an obscene amount of food while families go hungry, we fetishize peasant cuisine while making it impossible for farmers to make a living. The pandemic put all of this in sharp relief, though I have to say I was never what you would call an optimist. Food and shelter are a right, in my opinion.

How do you think that taking to the home kitchen and working breadcrumbs into our recipes – and All That Crumbs Allow – can help empower others, and maybe even inspire political change outside of our homes?

CW: I think it would be a very bold claim that this book will produce any political change! But it is an invitation to consider something that you might otherwise throw away in a different light, as a potential source of both savings and deliciousness.

MM: I think that respecting food enough to not waste it requires a societal shift. Those people who taught themselves to bake bread during the pandemic learned what a precious resource bread is. Turning any leftover heels into a whole meal is alchemy. We need to rethink the place that producers play in our world, especially those doing it the “hard way”, which as far as I am concerned is the right way. We mistook abundance for unimportance. Without producers, we have nothing.

Resilience, cleverness, frugality, originality, hardship – or, in your own words, “grit and ingenuity” – the breadcrumb represents a lot! What myth about breadcrumbs do you want to bust open here and now?

CW: I suppose the myth I’d like to dispel is that they’re difficult to make, or that it’s a lot of extra work. Throwing some stale bread onto a drying rack and forgetting about it until you need to crush it up could not possibly be easier, but will add a new dimension to your cooking.

MM: I think that the belief that making your own breadcrumbs is somehow hard or extra is wrong. My preferred way to process dried bread into crumbs is to place them between two tea towels and smash them with my rolling pin. That doesn’t seem precious to me. And it will definitely make better crumbs than you can buy.

Virtually everyone I know has a recipe (or pseudo-recipe) that they fall back on when times are tough – from students living off of pasta and butter, to un(der)employed stretches surviving on eggs and rice, etc. When times are/have been at their toughest, what has been your go-to dish?

CW: I’m lucky that those times are long behind me. Mostly it makes me think of how Michelle and I used to keep a jar of chili crisp at work in a restaurant we worked in together to enliven a common staff meal of nothing more than plain rice. At another restaurant without staff meal we sustained ourselves on baguette and butter, pilfered almonds, and the end cuts of meat cadged from cooks.

MM: Instant ramen. When I worked in restaurants, the last thing I wanted to do when I came home late at night was cook something. If I was feeling fancy, I would add some cheese on top.

What are your favourite and least favourite kitchen tasks?

CW: I’d say all of cooking generally is my favorite – even monotonous tasks can be valuable for their meditative quality, though I’d prefer not to do dishes or participate in anything too visceral – gutting fish, cleaning suet, etc.

MM: Favourite: segmenting citrus. Least favourite: dishes!

Who is this book intended for? Were you writing it with someone, or some group of people, in particular in mind? If not, then who do you expect it to resonate with the most?

CW: I’m not sure whether it’s a flaw as a writer, but I primarily write for myself and just assume that there are enough like-minded people that there will be an audience for my work! I do, however, think this book is of particular value to bread-bakers, who are inevitably rich in stale bread.

MM: I didn’t have an idea who this book was for, but I had a vision that it would be found 50 years from now in a used bookstore and come across as timeless, unplaceable.

What is your favourite recipe from this collection for the winter season ahead?

CW: That’s a tough one! This is basically a collection of beloved recipes, many of them cozy. I suppose I’d say Michelle’s Thanksgiving Salad and my Bread-Stuffed Roast Chicken Dinner… but Michelle’s Celeriac Schnitzel is a close third.

MM:I will definitely be making the panade all winter!

Which entry level recipe do you recommend for beginners to start with?

CW: Michelle’s Smazenka is one of my favorite recipes in the book – it’s dead simple (an open-faced omelette sandwich made using one egg bolstered with breadcrumbs) but so much greater than the sum of its parts. I really fell in love with it. On the sweet side, I think the Toast & Jam Twice-Baked Croissants is much more impressive than the effort that goes into it.

MM: Cookies are a great place to start!

How about a more advanced or “weird” and unexpected recipe for those who really want to push breadcrumbs to the next level?

CW: If you know someone with a mill (or if you loooooove sifting), the breadcrumb flour pasta is very cool.

MM: Try the breadcrumb pasta! It is a very fun winter project.

Lastly, do you have any favourite local breads, bakers/boulangeres and/or bakeries/boulangeries that you want to shout out? What makes them so special?

CW: Robinson Bread is my top bakery in Toronto. Patti’s team makes amazing bread and she’s committed to using excellent ingredients. I worked there as a pastry chef during opening and through the first year. But Mattachioni is closest to me and saved me on multiple occasions with their excellent housemade breadcrumbs when I had so much testing to do!

MM: I love the bread at Automne and Meunerie Urbaine in Montreal. I am deeply enamored by the rye caraway at Automne, and love the simple country bread from Meunerie Urbaine… Both amazing bakeries. Sourdough, long fermentation, and freshly milled flour, that’s the secret.

All That Crumbs Allow is available to order directly from Good Egg, in Toronto. Get yours HERE.