The gastronomy of Canada owes its origin to the indigenous cultures that have inhabited the country throughout the centuries. It is due to this fact that today Canadian food is so varied and includes all kinds of ingredients and flavors. Apart from this ethnic origin, it is also under the influence of two great gastronomies: the French cuisine and english kitchen.

Below you have an index with all the points that we are going to deal with in this article.

Main courses

Canadian cuisine has come to be described as a collage made from taking parts of other cuisines, namely: English, Scottish and French, mainly.



There are also Asian and Caribbean influences due to immigrants from these areas of the planet who have lived in Canada since the XNUMXth and XNUMXth centuries.

With this, most traditional dishes have a bit of each culture and are usually taken to go. We show you the highlights below.

fiddleheads

These are fern leaves when they are yet to mature and are rolled up. They are cooked with chicken, potatoes and other vegetables. This dish is very typical of New Brunswick (Canada). In addition, it is a very healthy dish, since fern leaves are a source of omega 3 and omega 6, as well as iron and fiber.

macaroni and cheese

Also know as Kraft Macaroni & Cheese o Kraft Mac and Cheese It is a food marketed by the company Kraft Foods in Canada and the United States since 1937.

It's actually an extremely simple dish, since they are nothing more than macaroni and cheese. Its popularity in Canada is such that it is considered a national dish. In addition, it is very cheap and remains edible for up to a year.

montreal bagels

A bagel or beige It is a type of traditional bread made from wheat flour and largely reminiscent of a donut, as it is characterized by having a hole in the center. However, the difference is that the bagels are salty and on the outside they have a crunchy texture thanks to being cooked in water for a short period of time before baking.

Thus, Montreal bagels are characteristic because they are made by hand and baked in a wood oven. Its flavor is slightly sweet, unlike the bagel of New York, whose size is higher.

poutine

This dish is originally from Quebec (Canada) and consists of French fries spread with lightly aged cheddar cheese and meat sauce. The cheese is added when the potatoes are freshly cooked and is covered with the very hot meat sauce, so that the cheese stays melted and the fries soften.

Poutine is considered a fast food or fast food within Canadian gastronomy and can be found in restaurants, street stalls and even school canteens, as well as in the main fast food chains (for example: Burger King, KFC o McDonald's).

Meat

In Canada, meats are often characterized by being high quality and also have good price. In all supermarkets, the meat section is very wide and includes a wide variety.

In addition, you can find organic beef, that is, farms where the cows have been raised taking maximum care of their well-being and have been fed without chemicals. With this, below we show you four dishes that include meat and are especially typical of Canada.

Smoked boeuf sandwich

Smoked beef is French and literally means smoked beef. In this way, this dish is nothing more than a sandwich of whole wheat or rye bread that is filled with smoked beef, mustard and pickles. It can be accompanied by coleslaw. It is a dish that can be ordered in any restaurant as a snack.

calgary beef hash

Calgary is located in the central part of the country and is one of the regions with the highest meat production. The typical thing is to take it roasted and in steaks or hamburgers and accompanied by fries or a salad. Thus, the calgary beef hash It is one of the most typical dishes of the central area of ​​the country, which is characterized by also including beans.

peameal bacon

Also called cornmeal bacon, consists of bacon loins made from pork loin cut into thin slices, pickled and rolled in cornmeal (hence the name of cornmeal bacon).

Its origin is due to the company William Davies Company, a Toronto-based pork processor. This type of meat is eaten in a sandwich and it is common to find this dish in St. Lawrence Market, one of Toronto's main markets.

The first idea for the elaboration of peameal bacon was taken from the emigrants who settled in Canada from Wiltshire (England).

Tourtiere

Commonly called meatloaf, is a dish originally from Quebec, Montreal (Canada), where in fact it is referred to in French as pà ¢ tà © à la viande, which literally means meatloaf.

It consists of bread dough filled with minced meat, which can be pork, venison or beef. Traditionally, this kind of savory cake is served at special events, such as New Years or Christmas, although today its popularity is such that it can be found in the country throughout the year.

Fish and seafood

The Canadian territory is delimited by three oceans: the Atlantic, the Arctic and the Pacific. Therefore, it is not surprising that it has great gastronomic wealth in terms of variety of fish and shellfish.

The cold waters of Canada contain more than 160 different marine species, of which tons are exported each day, whether fresh, frozen, canned or smoked. With this, in what follows we list a series of dishes that contain seafood or fish and are the most typical in the country.

Herrings

Herring is especially popular in New Scotland, where the dish known as Solomon grundy, which consists of herring served with onion, aria cream and crackers (small, crunchy breads made from unleavened cereal flour).

Arctic char

The Arctic Char can be found in the province of British Columbia, on the coast of the Pacific Ocean. Due to its texture and flavor, it is largely reminiscent of salmon. It is a very healthy fish rich in omega 3.

It can be included in stir-fries, baked or grilled, etc. In addition, it is usually accompanied by different spices or sauces to taste, including butter with fine herbs or spicy or citrus sauce.

Lobster

Corn-boiled lobster is Canada's most popular recipe and is traditional to the maritime province of Prince Edward Island. In English, it is called steamed lobster with corn.

Salmon

Canadian salmon is famous for its high quality and is commonly eaten in the country's maritime provinces. It is either raised on fish farms or fished in the wild.

As with the Arctic Char, the versatility of salmon supports a wide variety of recipes and is prepared fresh, frozen, smoked or canned. Canada is one of the largest producers and, therefore, exporters of salmon in the world. Many indigenous communities of Canada live off salmon fishing.

Oysters, clams and scallops

Oysters are a mollusk that can be found in all restaurants on the country's coast, as well as other seafood such as clams or scallops. They are usually taken boiled and with a little lemon juice, so that they acquire an acid touch.

Desserts

Canadian gastronomy includes a great variety of desserts, among which its cakes stand out. Canadian desserts and sweets vary from end to end of the country, so that in each region a different dessert is considered traditional.



Thus, in the east the traditional sugar pie, in Ontario, the butter tarts and the west zone, the Nanaimo Bars. These are just some of the typical desserts that we will list below.

berry cream pie

This forest fruit tart is homemade and is made with a biscuit base spread in cream cheese and with a topping of strawberries, blueberries and raspberries. It is a calorific cake, as it includes a wide variety of ingredients and confectioner's sugar.

Beaver Tails

Actually, this is the name of a very popular bakery chain in Canada alongside Beaver Queues. Its star product are beavertails, a kind of sweet made with fried dough that is given an elongated and flattened shape reminiscent of a beaver's tail, hence the name of this sweet, which literally translates to Beaver tail.

They are spread with different ingredients, such as cocoa cream, apple pie, cinnamon ... The BeaverTails chain was established in 1978 in Killaloe, Ontario for the first time and is currently a franchise that can also be found in the United States, South Korea y Japan.

butter tarts

This dessert is one of the most popular in Canada. It is a small sweet paste made from butter, sugar, maple syrup and eggs, all baked until the filling is semi-solid and the top is crunchy.

Traditionally, butter tarts They have a rounded shape, with a wider diameter in the upper layer than in the base, but the recipe may vary according to the family tradition of each house where they are cooked. The most popular variant are butter tart squares, which are the same but their shape is square.

Cupcakes

Although cupcakes can be found anywhere in the world today, they are a very traditional Canadian dessert. There are countless flavors, colors and shapes, but the base is always the same: a small piece of cake designed for a single person covered in a cream, which can be chocolate, vanilla, strawberry, pastry cream, cream ...

This top layer is known as frosting. As modern as they may seem, cupcakes were taken as early as the XNUMXth century because there were no molds to make cakes and, therefore, cups or small clay pots were used as molds. Hence the name cupcake, which literally translates to cup cake.

Maple syrup

Maple syrup (in English, maple syrup and, in French, Maple syrup) also called maple syrup o Maple syrup, this last name as a traced translation of English, is possibly the best known product worldwide and from Canada.

It is usually eaten with pancakes or trempettes, but also as a condiment in a wide variety of desserts. It is made from the sap of the sugar maple, red or black maple.

mint cookies

The mint cookies, literally mint cookies they are made with chocolate, peanut butter, and minced mint. They stand out for their flavor, in which the freshness of mint contrasts with the sweetness of chocolate, and for this reason they are popular. They can be found with or without a dark chocolate coating, although they are more commonly coated. They are usually taken with tea.

Nanaimo Bars

The Nanaimo bars or Nanaimo bars are original from Canada, but today they have become popular throughout North America. They are square, made of chocolate and are not baked. As their name suggests, they come from the city of Nanaimo, located in British Columbia, on the west coast of the country.

Its ingredients are: crumbled wafer (base layer), custard or butter flavored butter glaze (center layer) and melted chocolate (top layer). Of course, there are several variants of this popular dessert, like the one that adds mint glaze, for example.

pouding-chômeur

The name of this dessert comes from French, as it is originally from Quebec and literally means pudding for unemployed, since it was created during the crisis of 1929 known as crash of 29 (name adapted to Spanish).

The name of this dessert comes from the fact that it was very inexpensive and was prepared by working women during the period of massive layoffs from Montreal's industries. It's actually a variant of the popular breadcrumb pudding in England, where it's known as bread crumbs pudding.

Red Velvet Cake

The name of this cake literally translates to red velvet cake and it is due to its color, which is dark red, sometimes reddish-brown. To obtain this color, beet dye is traditionally used, although a red dye can also be used.

It is prepared in layers and has a vanilla or chocolate flavor. Each layer is covered with a creamy white frosting, usually cheese or buttercream.

raspberry layer cake

This cake is usually eaten during the celebration of Canada Day or Canada Day and in Spanish it is known by the name of raspberry three layer cake. The production process is long and can take up to 4 hours.

Various ingredients are needed, including: unsalted butter, granulated sugar, eggs, vanilla, sifted all-purpose flour, yeast, salt, milk, raspberry jam and wild raspberries, as well as cream cheese and icing sugar for the middle layers (the White color).

Tres leches cake

The tres leches cake, tres leches bread or tres leches cake is a cake whose base is a sponge cake soaked in three different types of milk: evaporated, condensed and heavy cream.

To avoid that there are too many bubbles in the cake, butter is used, so that it acquires a more consistent texture. This tart or pie is not only popular in Canada, but in North America in general, as well as Latin America and the Caribbean.

Dips

All the dips They are pancakes similar to the pancakes but they are fried in oil, so that their texture is more crunchy. They are served soaked in maple syrup and usually topped with cream or a little butter.

Native products

Canada is the world's largest producer and exporter of wild blueberries, which are also called in English lowbush blueberries. They are grown mainly in Quebec, Nova Scotia and also in the Atlantic coast provinces.

Also very popular are saskatoon blueberries or saskatoon berries, which are grown on the Canadian prairies (canadian prairie), British Columbia, and northern Canada.

On the other hand, although white garlic is also grown in Canada, it is the most popular purple variant, as it is not popular around the world. It is grown especially in Ontario and British Columbia. Purple garlic cultivation takes place in the fall and is not harvested until the following summer.

All the virgin cherries (in English, chokecherries o wild black cherries) are also a genuine Canadian product. They are grown in the provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, British Columbia, Quebec and Newfoundland. They are used to make juices, jams, jellies and even wines.

The McIntosh apple variety, known simply as Mac It is traditionally grown in eastern Canada, as well as the Cortland, Gala, Fuji or Golden Delicious varieties are of Canadian origin. Apples were imported to Canada during the XNUMXth century by European colonizers.

Finally, Canada is the world's largest exporter of mustard (mustard in English) and the second in terms of production. It is estimated that between 75 and 80% of mustard exports come from Canada.

This high level in terms of mustard production is largely due to the favorable climatic conditions in the country, which favor the cultivation of seeds of this plant.

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