Canada National Dishes

CANADA

It’s really fun to try national foods of the country you’re visiting. You can really begin to understand the culture from the inside out (your gastronomy). Canada is a great country with many different types of people living there. This causes the Canadian cuisine to be very diverse from province to province, but there are a few famous national dishes that can be seen all throughout the country.

Beaver Tail Pastry

Beaver Tail Pastry

A whole wheat pastry is made of fried dough that flattened to shape in the form of a beaver tail and sprinkled with sugar and cinnamon.  They can also be topped with maple butter, chocolate spread, ice cream, whipped cream, jellies, apple puree and even melted cheese. Beaver Tails are a brand name food. Look out for little green kiosks across the country – particularly in winter and at special events, when temporary kiosks shoot up to cope with demand.

Butter tarts

Butter tarts

A butter tart is a type of small pastry tart highly regarded in Canadian cuisine and considered one of Canada's quintessential desserts. The tart consists of butter, brown sugar, maple syrup, raisins and egg filled into a flaky pastry and baked until the filling is semi-solid with a crunchy top.

Nanaimo Bar

Nanaimo bar

The Nanaimo bar is a dessert item of Canadian origin popular across North America. It is a bar cookie which requires no baking and is named after the West Coast city in British Columbia. It consists of a wafer crumb-based layer topped by a layer of light vanilla frosting or custard flavored butter icing which is covered with melted chocolate. Many varieties exist, consisting of different types of crumb with different flavors of icing (e.g., mint, peanut butter) and different types of chocolate. Two popular variations on the traditional Nanaimo bar involve mint- or mocha-flavored icing. This is a mandatory staple of any Christmas cookie tray, church ladies bible study group, and birthday party.

Pancakes with Maple Syrup 

Pancakes and Canadian Maple Syrup

The maple tree is a national symbol and the syrup that it produces is scrumptious. It’s what we usually put on our pancakes but can be used to sweeten yogurt and cakes, too. The syrup is pretty inexpensive in Canada and makes for an excellent souvenir to bring back home.

Peameal bacon

Peameal bacon (cornmeal bacon)

Peameal bacon, also known as cornmeal bacon, is a type of bacon originating in Canada. Peameal bacon is made from boneless pork loins, short cut from the leaner portions of the loin, to ensure a more uniform product. Smokeless and tender, this product is sweet pickle-cured and rolled in a traditional golden cornmeal coating.

Peameal bacon is often served on a Kaiser roll as a sandwich. It is usually a general practice to add mayonnaise, lettuce, and tomato. Peameal bacon sandwiches are often considered to be a signature dish of Toronto, with the most famous vendors located at St. Lawrence Market.

Another common way of consumption is simply roasted and glazed with maple syrup.

Poutine

Poutine

Poutine is a fast food dish that originated in Quebec and can now be found across Canada. Poutine is made with french fries, topped with brown gravy and cheese curds. Sometimes additional ingredients are added. Poutine may also contain other ingredients such as beef, pulled pork, lamb, lobster meat, shrimp, rabbit confit, caviar, and truffles. It's a great cheap snack fast food that is served at any restaurant or chip wagon throughout Canada. You can find Italian poutine (served with Bolognese sauce and sometimes Italian sausages), Greek poutine (served with feta, Mediterranean vinaigrette and gravy) and New Jersey poutine (served with mozzarella). If you're ever visiting Quebec I would highly recommend trying one.

Tourtière

Tourtière

Tourtière is a meat pie originating from Quebec, usually made with finely diced pork, and/or veal, or beef. Wild game is often added to enhance the taste of the pie. It is a traditional part of the Christmas and/or Christmas Eve réveillon, New Year's Eve, and Thanksgiving meal in Quebec, but is also enjoyed and sold in grocery stores all year long.

There is no one correct filling, as the pie meat depends on what is available in regions. In coastal areas, fish such as salmon is commonly used, whereas pork, beef, rabbit, and game are often used inland. The tourtières of the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean area and Eastern Quebec are slow-cooked deep-dish meat pies made with potatoes and various meats (often including wild game) cut into small cubes.

Tourtière in Montreal is made with finely ground pork only (which can be hard to find as the meat is often ground too coarsely elsewhere). Water is added to the meat after browning and the addition of cinnamon and cloves is what makes it unique. Many people use ketchup as a condiment, though the tourtière is also often eaten with molasses.

Pemmican

Pemmican is a concentrated mixture of fat and protein used as a nutritious food. The specific ingredients used were usually whatever was available; the meat was often bison, moose, elk, or deer. Fruits such as cranberries and saskatoon berries were sometimes added. Cherries, currants, chokeberries and blueberries were also used, but almost exclusively in ceremonial and wedding pemmican.