The many colours of Canadian cuisine
Fireworks explode in the sky above me and fall away into the rows of vines.
The sky, tumultuous with thunderheads and sideways rain only a few short hours ago is now clear, save for the bright pinholes of stars beginning to show. It is Canada Day, this one celebrating 150 years of nationhood.
As I gaze at the bright and varied colours, I am reminded of my Grade 4 teacher, Mrs. MacNevin, who was so proud to tell us how Canada was distinct from our much larger southern neighbour because Canada is a mosaic of cultures and not a melting pot; one could be a proud Canadian and still hang on to cultural heritage from other places.
I know now that this is not completely true, that Canada and Canadians share a shameful blemish of eroding our First Peoples’ culture to within the brink of extinction. This very serious subject of mistreatment and reconciliation is not the subject of this short essay, though I am pleased to write that in considering ‘Canadian’ food, I am immediately drawn to celebrating Canada’s indigenous peoples, who taught newcomers from Europe the lay of the land and waters and gave them — us — the means to survive and flourish in this ragged land.
In every corner of the globe, national cuisine is dictated by what can be grown, hunted or fished, and the lifestyle of the people who grow, hunt or fish it. Canada is no exception, though the vibrant and diverse mix of our population today means that Canadian food can now be as much Tandoori as poutine, as much Szechuan as salt cod.
The size of this great land also makes it difficult to pigeon-hole exactly what is Canadian cuisine. The varied growing regions and disparate landscapes of this nation, and the different animal populations inhabiting them, means a traditional meal in St. John’s will be very different from one in Nanaimo, and different again from one in Regina.
I am undertaking two special Canadian dinners this summer at my restaurant in celebration of our 150 years as a nation. My concept is to ‘chase the Canadian sun’ from East to West. The first dinner, East, tracing from the Atlantic provinces to Ontario, and the second, West, from Ontario to the Rockies and the North. In writing the menus for both dinners, the common thread I have found is the impact of our First Peoples on all aspects of our national cuisine. Techniques such as salting and smoking foods for longevity, typically Canadian, drying berries or the fishing of salmon, cod and crustaceans all come from our native populations. The hunting of ducks, moose, bison and caribou was all introduced to us by our First Peoples and now are celebrated as iconic Canadian ingredients. Even the first breads consumed in the new world by Europeans was most likely bannock twisted around branches and baked gently over the coals of an open fire.
No matter how colourful and diverse food is in this country, I have found that for it to be truly Canadian, there will doubtless be a connection to our true founders who have inhabited this land far longer than 150 years.