Vancouver chef Marie Grapé creates ready-made plant-based meals for a positive impact on the world
MANNA Sacred Meals founder connects with her Filipino heritage through food, sees Asian Heritage Month as a time to honour descendants who helped shape Canada
Marie Grapé is the founder of MANNA Sacred Meals.
VANCOUVER CHEF MARIE Grapé’s MANNA Sacred Meals was born out of a perfect storm: increasing demand for ready-made meals, growing interest in the health and social benefits of making plant-based diets more accessible, and the impact of COVID-19 on the restaurant industry and event catering. With a background in fine dining, the Dubrulle Culinary Arts alumna is doing things differently as a business owner, with progressive employee benefits and environmental practices (including a B.C. first). The seed for a life and career in the culinary arts was planted as far back as she can remember, owing to her Filipino heritage.
“In our culture, food is life,” Grapé tells Stir. “You never show up to a house empty-handed, and you always ensure that anyone who enters your home is well fed. The first thing you would hear my mom or grandma and even our relatives when we visit back in the Philippines say when coming into their presence is ‘Have you eaten? Come and eat.’ The table is always set at any time of day.
“This is how I’ve grown such a strong passion for food,” adds Grapé, who was born and raised in North Vancouver. “We were constantly surrounded by food. Even till this day, my mom comes by the kitchen to drop off food for us all just because. It has always been our way to show we care. My mom and grandma would make everything from scratch. It felt like they would be cooking all day, but it would always give us a reason to invite people over to share and create memories. By age eight, I was regularly helping out in our home kitchen concocting my own recipes—some which ended up burning a hole through our microwave. Once I found my way around our kitchen, I haven’t looked back and appreciate the power of bringing people together through food.”
Historically, “manna” was food miraculously supplied to the Israelites on their journey through the wilderness; the term referred to divinely supplied spiritual nourishment. It was also a sweet, organic food that formed the building block for many plant-based dishes, Grapé says, while in some cultures, the term means to leave an inheritance. For Grapé, the name is a reminder of the company’s purpose: to provide nutrient-dense plant-based meals for singles, couples, or families and help people protect their most sacred resources: time, health, and the environments they call home.
“Smoked Salmon” Fondant is an example of the thought Grapé puts into her elevated dishes. Fondant potatoes slow-cooked in layers of fat and flavour and truffle mushroom duxelles are paired with balsamic-marinated tofu steaks, greens, and a smoky vegan lox. For Sichuan Chili Eggplant with Tofu, Grapé fuses the concepts of chili eggplant and mao po tofu for added protein, finishing the dish with steamed greens and quinoa-cauliflower brown rice. She transforms green jackfruit into sesame pulled “pork” for a rice bowl with bok choy and sweet potato.
As summer approaches, Grapé points to the BBQ Meatless Ribs as a menu highlight. Smoky, sweet, and sticky, they consist of protein-packed house-made seitan and are served with mashed potatoes and veggies or on a fresh white bun for her play on the McRib, the McManna Rib.
Although she was meant to follow in her mother’s footsteps and become a nurse, Grapé started her culinary career 15 years ago straight out of high school. After cooking school, she went straight into fine dining at the Beachside Café, where she met Vancouver chef Dennis Peckham, whom she considers one of her mentors. She went on to work at Hollyburn Country Club, Hart House in Burnaby, Horizons on Burnaby Mountain, Wedgewood Hotel, and Chambar, among other places. “At each restaurant I was working as a chef de partie and was dedicated to learning from each head chef that I worked under,” she says.
Feeling the effects of years in the high-pressure, fast-paced world of fine dining, Grapé transitioned into corporate catering with her friend Gabrielle Frese’s family at the Deli Family Gourmet. The two then Frese ‘n’ Grape, creating turnkey events featuring delicious food with whimsical flair. Their food was such a hit that by popular demand Grapé started to create ready-made meals in sous-vide pouches for clients.
“When COVID hit, it was clear that a pivot away from events was the right direction,” Grapé says. “I also began my own journey to incorporate more plant-based meals to help treat my autoimmune disease. Having a Filipino-Canadian background has influenced my high-meat, high-sugar, and high-fat diet; eating plant-based was not introduced to me until later when I felt compelled to defy traditional medicine and normalize my autoimmune disease through transitioning to majority plant-based eating.
“Watching documentaries on the environmental benefits of plant-based eating and seeing the excessive consumption of unethically sourced meat has also helped influence the direction I took with MANNA,” she says.
MANNA Sacred Meals’ Filipino-inspired Jackfruit Tofu Coconut Curry comes with wild rice and ginger stir-fried vegetables.
Environmental sustainability is a business pillar; MANNA is the first ready-made meal-delivery company to be a member of the Recycling Council of BC. Grape says another way the venture is sustainable is in the way it treats it staff. Team members work a maximum of 30 hours a week over three days and are paid for a regular 40-hour work week—unheard of in the food-service industry—with each role paid at 15 to 25 percent more than market rate. A partnership with Charitable Impact means five percent of subscription fees are donated to a Canadian charitable organization of the customers’ choice, while an ongoing subsidy for frontline workers gives those at the forefront of the pandemic 40 percent off weekly meal delivery subscriptions.
For Grapé, Asian Heritage Month is an opportunity to honour early Asian descendants who helped shape Canada—and it also brings attention to work that still needs to be done.
“There are over 60 Asian ethnicities represented in Canada, heroes of our time whose names I don’t even recognize but through learning have come to grow pride and gratitude for how they have made this country a better place,” Grapé says.
“The theme for Asian Heritage Month this year is Recognition, Resilience, and Resolve,” she says. “These 3 Rs bring back memories of what I have witnessed through my life, how my parents have dealt with situations when looked down upon being treated as a minority, moments that I have even personally experienced to this day. They also deeply resonate with what I currently practice in various moments as a female BIPOC new business owner these powerful words act as tools for improvement. They speak to me as a call to action through grace and appreciation for the many colours of our world, but for the Month of May, my fellow Asian community.”
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