Ahhh...The Cottage Life!

I was thinking about what I had said in the last post. About there not being very many truly Canadian Foods. As I pondered this, one food kept leaping into mind. One that was making my mouth water as I thought of it. One that is Canadian and the best there is right in our capital city Ottawa. Beaver Tails! Not the largest rodents tail in Canada, although I have had them as well.(Roasted over a fire)It is a wonderful doughnut like, flat dough, deep fried and then sugared. Looks something like the shape of a beaver tail. I had my first taste of this on the Rideau Canal skateway.
So this really got me thinking, what else are truly Canadian foods?

I went searching and actually found that there are quite a few! The East Coast has many foods to call their own. The Western Provinces, Quebec and the Prairies as well. Ontario has a couple. Who knew?
I have made a list of all the ones I could find. If anyone knows of more let me know. I am sure there are plenty out there. Later I will put up a recipe for Beaver Tails. If anyone is interested in any of the other foods here let me know and I will endeavor to get the recipe. It would be fun as well to hear truly traditional foods from other countries.

East Coast first:

1. Figgy duff is a traditional Newfoundland bag pudding. It typically contains butter, flour, sugar, and raisins, and is boiled in a bag.

2. Toutin (or Tiffin or Touton) is a Newfoundland term for a dough cake fried in fat and made from fresh bread dough.

3. Flipper pie is a Canadian dish made from seal flippers. It is specific to Newfoundland and commonly eaten at Easter.

4. Jigg's dinner is a traditional meal commonly prepared and eaten on Sundays in many regions around the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada.

5. Rappie pie is a traditional Acadian meal. Its name is derived from the French "patates râpées" meaning "grated potatoes". Potatoes are grated and the water removed, a hot broth made from chicken or pork is then added along with meat and onions and then layered over with more of the grated potatoes to make a casserole-like dish.

West Canada Food and Drink

1. The Nanaimo bar is a dessert of Canadian origin popular across North America. A type of chocolate no-bake square, it receives its name from the city of Nanaimo, British Columbia.

2. A Caesar, sometimes referred to as a Bloody Caesar, after the similar Bloody Mary, is a cocktail popular mainly in Canada. It typically contains vodka, clamato (a blend of tomato juice and clam broth), Worcestershire sauce, Tabasco sauce, and is served on the rocks in a large, celery salt-rimmed glass, and typically garnished with a stalk of celery and wedge of lime. The cocktail was invented by bartender Walter Chell at the Owl's Nest Bar in the Calgary Inn.

Quebec Food and Drink:

1. A tourtière is a meat pie originating from Quebec, usually made with ground pork and/or veal, or beef. It is a traditional part of the Christmas and/or Christmas Eve réveillon and New Year's Eve meal in Quebec, but is also enjoyed and sold in grocery stores all year long. This kind of pie is known as pâté à la viande (literally, meat pie) in the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean region.

2. Poutine: a dish of fries topped with cheese curds and gravy; a Québécois specialty.

3. Oreilles de crisse is dish in Québec. It is simply deep fried smoked pork jowls. It is generally served at cabanes à sucre (sugarshacks) in spring time, often, but not always, topped with a generous quantity of maple syrup.

4. Oka is a Canadian cheese named after the small village of Oka. Quebec Oka cheese has a pungent aroma and soft creamy flavour, sometimes described as nutty and fruity.

5. Yukon Jack is a "honey based Canadian whiskey advertised as the "Black sheep of Canadian Liqueur". Yukon Jack is made in Valleyfield, Quebec.


Ontario:

1. A butter tart is a type of pastry best known as a Canadian treat. The English Canadian tart consists of butter, sugar and eggs in a pastry shell, Butter tarts were a staple of pioneer Canadian cooking, and they remain a characteristic pastry of Canada, considered one of only a few recipes of genuinely Canadian origin. One of the earliest known Canadian recipes is said to be from in Eastern Ontario around 1915.

2. Persians -somewhat like a cross between a large cinnamon bun and a doughnut, topped with strawberry icing, unique to Thunder Bay, Ontario


Manitoba:

1. Red River Cereal -It was first created in 1924 in Manitoba. The cereal takes its name from the Red River of the North, more specifically the valley around Winnipeg.

Territories:
1. Akutaq or agutak, also known as Eskimo ice cream, is a common food consisting of whipped fat mixed with berries, with optional additions such as fish and sugar. The word comes from Yupik and means "something mixed".[1]

And of course there are foods from the beginnings of Canada:

1.Pemmican is a concentrated mixture of fat and protein used as a nutritious emergency foodstuff.
2. Bannock is a bread dough cooked over an open fire.

I think I am going to make some Beaver Tails for desert! Tomorrow I will post the recipe!




Inuit woman making bannock.