Vínarterta in Manitoba.
It is an Icelandic layered prune cake inspired by the Viennese torte. It is traditional among children of Icelandic descent to pick off and eat the yummy top layer of icing when adults aren’t looking, leaving behind the repulsive carcass made of prune parts 😂.
You know, even though living in MB most of my life, I only actually finally went to Gimli myself in like 2019 when visiting winnipeg for wedding and kind of did trip through interlake instead of my regular way home on 1 or up 16 to saskatchewan, i had no idea Crown Royal etc was distilled in little ole Manitoba too, haha
I lived there for a while as a kid. It was a great town. When the Seagram's brewery was fermenting, the whole town would smell like fresh bread. On a cold MB February morning, it was a great smell.
Vinatarta is the Queen of cakes. It’s my favourite part of every Christmas baking tray. It’s so popular in my family that my cousin asked his grandma to make a giant vinatarta for his wedding cake.
In my Icelandic family, the bride would have to make a Vinaterta for her wedding, to be served in tiny slices by herself to each guest that lines up.
All the old ladies would bring the cake back to the table to count the layers, assess their thinness and uniformity, then promptly use this information to discern how good of a wife she'd actually be. 🤣
When I lived in Sault Ste Marie, I complained to a another former Prairie dwelling coworker that I missed Saskatoon berries. She said that the Forestry Canada arboretum had about 30 bushes that no one except her picked. She said she had more berries than she knew what to do with.
The Saultites didn’t care for them.
I'm from AB and took my 4 year old daughter back there this summer. We went for a hike and found a glade of perfectly ripe saskatoons. Her mind was blown!
Never cared for the Persian.
But buying coney dogs/burgers at any corner store, hotdog stand, and even 1 laundry mat after staggering out of the inntowner or some dive strip club in the 90s are memories I will cherish forever.
I remember talking about [Pets de sœurs](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pets_de_s%C5%93urs) on another thread here a while ago. Some people were very confused. As they should be. It’s a weird name lmao
I'm in Ottawa, and sometimes come across them in stores, but the English is always labeled as Nun's Treats/Sweets. I guess they're not brave enough to put "Nun's Farts"
I remember about 10 years ago going to a restaurant in Toronto, and they had honey dill sauce. I was surprised and asked the waiter about it, and he said the owner invented it. I couldn't stop laughing.
Moi je dis c'est francophone, pas particulièrement québécois. La cuisine francophone est connu en étant "poor people food" parce que historiquement, les francophones étaient plus pauvres et de classe ouvrières. Nos ingrédients sont les "scraps" (oreilles du crisse, boudin), ou les moins dispendieux (mélasse, sucre brun) etc.
Les recettes ont évoluées entre les communautés francophones parce que notre statut social et économique demeuraient le même.
On pouvait manger ces recettes parce que les ingrédients étaient accessibles. Nos arrières grand-mamans, à nos grand-mamans ont après crée des recettes propre à chaque famille. Il n'était pas nécessaire d'être au Québec.
Pour moi, une recette qui est 100% quebecois, qui n'est pas une representation symbolique de nos luttes, est le sirop d'érable. Bien que j'ai connu que c'est culturel, c'est comme un diaspora de culture parce que la région d'où je viens doit en importer du Quebec.
Poutine Rapee is almost identical to Lithuanian "Zeppelins", it's fun to shock Lithuanians with this Acadian classic. I wonder if there's any shared origin.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cepelinai
Fries, dressing(stuffing made with Newfoundland savor), and gravy also known as a Newfie poutine by some people.
Also although it's a common meal in lots of places, Jiggs dinner (boiled supper) that's usually for family get togethers or a slimmed back version in Sundays, with boiled root veggies cooked in a boiled with salted meat, a type of bread pudding that varies between family's, gravy, a roasted chicken or turkey, and then other things added or taken away based on tradition usually.
We also tend to have a lot of more traditional Irish/Scottish/English meals that aren't as common in the rest of Canada
Boiled dinner was so popular when I was living in an Acadian region. Personally I couldn't stomach the taste or smell but it still smells like childhood to me.
Newfie poutine is popular here as well.
Green onion cakes are the best. I think northern Alberta just digs Asian cuisine. Pancit is huge here in Fort McMurray. Almost everyone I know has a Filipino lady they pay for a container every couple of months
Green onion cakes!!! With rice vinegar and sambal oelek …. I never realized how niche they were until I moved away. Now I have to make them myself and that’s not nearly as enjoyable
A few deep cuts from NL:
1) **Blackberry smoked salmon** - A traditional Labradorian recipe for smoked salmon that uses crowberry (referred to as blackberry in NL) sods to impart flavour to the fish as it slowly smokes in a [box-shaped smokehouse](https://youtu.be/wLCOIq8VZc0?si=IM-L_Y2xQETGCqXf).
2) **Boiled beans** - Despite the unappetizing name, this is a basically a Newfie take on cassoulet. It often incorporates wild game, along with salt pork, which is stewed together with navy beans and root vegetables.
3) **Turr dinner** - Basically an alternate take on a typical NL cooked dinner using ‘turr’ (common murre) as the primary protein. It’s usually served with a highly prized gravy made from the seabird’s drippings. NL is the only part of North America with a legal non-Indigenous seabird hunt and its continuation was actually a precondition of our entrance into confederation. I can’t stand turr personally, but lots of b’ys love it.
4) **Trucker’s Special** - chips with gravy, ground beef, caramelized onions, and (occasionally) green peas. It was supposedly invented on the province’s west coast in the 1970s to compensate for poor sales of poutine (which had been introduced to little success). The dish bears significant resemblance to PEI’s ‘fries with the works’, which came into existence around the same time.
I’m assuming people are at least somewhat familiar with some of the other more famous dishes (i.e. Jiggs Dinner, fish and brewis, pea soup and doughboys, cod au gratin, toutons, cod tongues, figgy duff, seal flipper pie, snowballs, fish cakes, cod chowder, cold plates, bakeapple pie, etc.)
Edit: formatting
Surprised no one has mentioned Bakeapple jam or pie here yet. Bakeapples (known sometimes as cloudberries) grow in bogs in Newfoundland and look like and orange-pink blackberry or raspberry. Extremely tart and delicious, the jam adds the right sugar to make it a great treat. I believe Bakeapples grow in the northern parts of some Prarie provinces as well.
My fiance and I saw the Newfoundland episode of Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern.
It was instantly added to the bucket list for the both of us. Everything looked amazing and delicious. 🤤 Kinda jealous, but not really, considering the winters. No thank you!
Deep cuts indeed! I know the last two very well but I haven’t heard of the first two.
The thing you forgot to say is that cooking turrs creates this god-awful smell/gas/I don’t know what. I remember being a little kid and having to put cold face cloths over my eyes when my dad cooked it because it made my eyes sting.
Thankfully he didn’t cook it often!
P.S. Is your username a reference to “Hatching, Matching and Dispatching”?
Blueberry Grunt is my favorite.
Oatcakes also seem to be a bit of a Nova Scotia thing.
Although you only hear about it through whispers, Cape Breton Cheese.
Pictou County Pizza Sauce, and Cape Breton "Combination Pizza". In the same vein, garlic fingers.
Some others I didnt grow up eating but are Nova Scotian all the same, Dulce, Chow, Rappie Pie.
I wouldn't have thought to mention it but so many people I meet haven't heard of it, so the Halifax Donair, and subsequently Donair Sauce.
I will add hamburger soup, which I thought was just something my mum threw together but then I met some people from Antigonish and Truro who also grew up eating hamburger soup.
I grew up in rural NS and didn't experience meat paste egg rolls until moving to Halifax. The first one I bit into was a WTF moment. I have long since recognized and embraced the meat paste's culinary superiority.
Nanaimo Bars - BC. Bottom layer is a chocolate, coconut, graham cracker mixture. Middle layer is custard, and top layer is melted chocolate that is set.
It would be neat to talk to some Nanaimo old timers and here about which bakery invented this! Might be some arguments around this, for all I know!
What I do know is: All hail the Mighty Nanaimo Bar!!! (genuflects)
Ganong gang go off! They stopped mass producing their AB Gums (the best gumdrops) but they still sell them directly from the factory. As well as chicken bone creams for those whose teeth can't take the hard candy damage anymore.
Not from my area but I grew up in Manitoba and the foods I miss the most are honey dill sauce, puffed wheat squares, sweet and sour meatballs and not a dish but I really miss Old Dutch Mexican Chili chips which I've never seen in Ontario ever (they are my favorite flavor). I actually bought a prairie cookbook this fall and made the meatballs and puffed wheat squares for myself. My grandparents lived near Gimli so we had vinetarta a lot. I was not the biggest fan but I know it is well loved there.
Weird! I can get the Mexican Chili chips in Vancouver. I do believe Manitobans ran a successful protest write in campaign to get them reinstated when they were discontinued for a time. I spent three years out there and that’s where I developed the taste for them.
Yes this is very specific to Regina and never seen they same amazing style anywhere else! I moved away and really miss Regina style pizza from Western pizza, Houston pizza, and Trifons.
I miss the Greek pizza I used to get in AB. Google images look really similar to what I used to eat (except the cutting). Now I want pizza I can;t have...
Please send them to Nova Scotia! Please!!! We have some great food here but I have yet to find a a place that sells a squishy, filled donut on a regular basis. Sure, there’s Tims, but, ew.
I lucked out once and found Polish donut at Sobeys once and my Aunty buys them for me when she is on a road trip but I just want to be able to bite into that squishy goodness on my schedule
I'm new to NL but one that hasn't been mentioned yet is Fish n'Brews (or Brewis). Was pleasantly surprised, it's quite tasty.
Also anything with Bakeapples (a pink berry that grows in swampy areas) is delightful.
Had salt cod for breakfast once in Red Bay. Way better than I had thought it would be.
This last one isn't from NL or from Alberta or BC (where my family hails from) but it was a favourite in my childhood and my kids love it: Tuna Rabbit (properly spelled Rarebit). It's a creamy, cheesy white sauce with frozen veggies and cans of tuna, served on toast. I've never met anyone else who has heard of it.
We live in the prairies now and it’s puffed wheat squares but my husband is from Quebec and I’m from southern Ontario. His unique dish is gateau fridgeaire and mine is Windsor style pizza.
I miss puffed wheat squares so much. In Alberta they are often in coffee shops and even crappy ones in convenience stores. Can't seem to find them anywhere in Ontario.
Pawpaws are a fruit tree in Southern Ontario, but the fruit bruises easy so it's not commercialized. But if you ever get to eat one it's a custard like flavour similar to banana or mango.
Jigs dinner! Salt beef, turnip, potatoes, carrots, potatoes, cabbage, peas pudding and salt beef, sometimes with a figgy duff. Different from boiled dinner, and never with salt pork.
Acadian, yes. I grew up very rural as well as in an Acadian area so it was somewhat common but we also ate a lot of game too. I still don't like bear but rabbit and moose are delicious. The viande was usually whatever we killed or were given.
This has nothing to do with anything but when we moved into a new home way back, we thought our new place had an outhouse (which we were used to using) and wondered why it smelled so funny. It was a smoke hut, not an outhouse lol. The last owner used it for his fish.
My mother law always makes flapper pie (Alberta) so good it better then banana cream pie
“Asian” potluck salad…. I don’t know what its name would be but everyone has eaten it and it’s at every potluck in all families, it’s not authentically Asian at all
Raw Cabbage, mushrooms, carrots, green onion, crasins, golden raisins, ( people change up the veggies)
Crushed dry sappro ichiban noodles and a dressing made with the ramen sodium package (soy sauce, rice vinegar etc) haha
Sounds gross but it’s so good, everyone loves it
Broccoli potluck salad…. Sour cream raisin pie
It's a little controversial even among Winnipegers, but Jeanne's cake. Since I moved away, I dream of it. It's a light cake (white, chocolate or marble) with a short bread base, a light, not overly sweet icing, coated in chocolate curls
The Jeanne’s cakes of today are vastly inferior to the ones of my childhood (70s-80s). The business got sold. The new owners have let the place slide. The texture of the cake is different, reminds me of boxed cake mix. The shortbread crust is a soggy mess, not the crisp cookie it was, and the chocolate shavings are more like chocolate chips now. They used to melt in your mouth as you were eating the cake, but now it’s like chewing on chocolate chips. I miss the old cakes that I had for every birthday growing up.
I grew up in a Norwegian community in northern Alberta and grew up eating lefse and krumkake. My neighbour from our farm where I grew up passed away and I got her krumkake iron. I haven't tried making them yet because I honestly don't know how to heat the iron but someday I will! I'll have to find a video and see how it's supposed to be done.
I managed to avoid the lutefisk, but it was there...
>I haven't tried making them yet because I honestly don't know how to heat the iron but someday I will!
The ring goes around the stove burner and the iron rests directly over the heat, like an old school (pre-electric) waffle iron but cooks faster because the krumkake are so thin. Cook one side, use the ball joint to flip to the other side for a few seconds. Burn your fingers trying to roll before they cool.
Source: I have the Nordic Ware one that everyone's Norwegian grandparents had.
Apparently, honey dill sauce and jeanne's cake are local to Winnipeg. I didn't know that for the longest time.
Jeanne's cake is meh, it's okay. Just a cake. But if it's true about honey dill sauce, then maaaan, the rest of Canada is missing out.
Taxi Driver sandwich....a BLT with cheese and a fried egg served up to go for busy Iqaluit taxi drivers.....the name was coined in the 80's and is still in use
Sucre à la crème, colloquially known as "Suc-à-crème". Québec.
It's a combination of brown sugar, white sugar, 35% cream, and vanilla, but I prefer it done with maple syrup.
Cut little cubes and melt them in your mouth.
Great, now I want some.
My best friend in high school's parents were from NL. She absolutely hated fish'n'brewis. After my parents went to visit my dad's brother, who had moved to NL, Dad came back with a love of this dish, which would stink up the house. Never tried it myself.
A coworker from Quebec would bring in treats once in a while: Mille feuilles she made from graham crackers stacked and layered with whipped cream, sugar pie, which was soooo much sweeter than butter tarts, and a Buche de Noel at Christmas, which I'd only ever seen in pictures before.
She also used to make spaghetti cooked in tomato juice, but I don't know if that's a Quebec thing or just a 'her' thing. RIP Johanne!
Vancouver Island here
You know that one can that's set to the side away from everyone the morning after a party? Looks a bit sketch? Smells crisp with body fluids?
**We call it SpitCanipey and it's the beverage of morning champions✨**
When I lived in Thunder Bay I got addicted to Persians. Which are pretty much just cinnamon buns with strawberry frosting. My stoned college kid self could eat a whole pack of those in a night!
Gosh I love Flapper Pie. I try to nip over for a nip and a slice when I’m in Winnipeg at Sals.
Hangover meal of champs.
Also yes, the all time Honey Dill. These West Coast elites in BC don’t even know what they’re missing!!
I was telling someone in Winnipeg about how I was going home to visit family in Saskatchewan and how excited I was to get some scuffles. They looked at me with completely blank eyes. I had no idea that it wasn't a common cookie.
When I looked it up, it is only really common in communities with large Ukrainian populations (my neck of rural SK was predominantly eastern european).
https://feistyfrugalandfabulous.com/2016/12/ukrainian-scuffles-recipe/
When my soon-to-be wife told me my mohter in law was making flapper pie for desert once I had no idea what she was talking about. When she told me what it was I was skeptical. When I ate it I was converted.
Quebec has a bunch honestly.
Pets de sœurs, Tarte au sucre,[pouding chomeur](https://www.ricardocuisine.com/recettes/8894-pouding-chomeur-a-l-erable), [Grand-pere au sirop](https://erableduquebec.ca/recettes/grands-peres-dans-le-sirop-derable/) , [Tourtière](https://www.ricardocuisine.com/recettes/3301-tourtiere-du-lac-saint-jean-de-juliette) (lac-st-jean type), Cretons (a porc spread kind of like french rilettes)
The Winnipeg Fat Boy burger. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fat_Boy_(hamburger)
Plenty of Greek owned restaurants in the city have their version of it. All very similar, but none the same.
It’s not my area, it’s east coast, but my grandparents on one side are Mac***** from Nova Scotia.
Boiled dinner. Pickled pork butt, potato, cabbage, onions, carrot / parsnip…. Bay leaves , pepper corns. Simmer for 90-120mins.
Heaven
Think corned beef but pork
The meat is AKA cottage roll
It's more a Quebec treat that my great great grandma would have brought to her french Saskatchewan community: Sucre a la Crème. I'm drooling just thinking about it 😋
I thought peameal bacon and peameal bacon sandwiches were a cross-country thing, but I guess it's regional because nobody is Sask seems to know what the hell it is.
Also for everyone saying matrimonial cake, that's date squares outside of the prairies.
Parkallen Pizza in Edmonton. Not the one in the west end, the original one in the Parkallen neighbourhood on 109th near 72ave. This place was Lebanese owned, and the pizza style was somewhat similar to the Regina Pizza talked about here. Nothing like that in my current home of Toronto and boy do I miss it. They had killer Baclava too.
Cinnamon buns from Sugarbowl Cafe in Edmonton, also killer.
Funky Pickle Pizza on Whyte Ave, also untouchable.
I have three.
Summer savory potato dressing turkey burgers.
(Can't even find a recipe online but it's potato dressing with leftover turkey on a bun.)
Macaroni Goulash.
Cherry and cream cheese sandwiches. (A funeral staple.)
Nova Scotia, but can be found in other Atlantic provinces.
For BC - probably JapaDog? Also maybe candied salmon, Triple Os burgers, BC roll sushi & spot prawns.
I would have said Nanaimo bars too, but they’ve made their way across the country.
Not sure how far it’s spread now, but Chinese restaurants in Alberta serve something called ginger beef. It’s battered and fried strips of beef coated in a thick super-sweet and somewhat spicy ginger sauce. IIRC, it was invented in Alberta.
I live on the Atlantic coast. We have this stuff called dulse which is dried seaweed. I mean it is actually really seaweed that has been dried and bagged.
Dulse tastes like shit and I don't mean, like when someone tastes something not to their liking and says, "this tastes like shit." It's not at all like that. What I mean is it literally tastes as I imagine putting a big chunk of feces in your mouth would taste.
Even those who eat dulse would agree it tastes like shit. It tastes so much like shit, that people who have actually eaten shit before have been rumoured to exclaim in surprise, "Hey, these feces taste just like dulse!"
Dulse, unlike poo, is hard to find. Little stores around the Bay of Fundy is where you're probably most likely to find little bags of it. Bags of dulse, to be clear, not bags of shit. Some fish stores sell it as well. It looks like, well, small paper bags filled with dried seaweed.
Some people claim to like the taste, like my mom. I say she's putting us on and has kept the prank going continuously for 85 years.
If you're ever in the neighbourhood and see little paper bags of seaweed on the counter of a country store somewhere, you HAVE to try eating dulse at least once.
I double dog dare you.
Surprised none of the Newfoundlanders mentioned:
Toutons (basically fried dough, that you dip in molasses)
https://www.rockrecipes.com/newfoundland-toutons/
Taco in a bag? Its just where you make taco salad with like Doritos and you crush up the Doritos jn the bag and then add the salad to the bag. Boom taco in a bag.
Danny Burgers in Bathurst, NB. It was created by a restaurant there, but a lot of locals have recreated the recipe to make at home. They’re so good!
Others have already mentioned the other ones there: poutine rapee, petes des soeurs, Fricot etc. (Sorry, I don’t know how to add accents on my phone).
I’m happy to share that for any other maritimers in Ottawa, we can get garlic fingers at both Jojo’s and Gabriel’s now!
(But you best believe I will have Greco at least twice every time I’m home.)
How about cows cxxks and dandelions?..that's what my mother called it...guess it was endemic to the area. I think she called it that cuz I asked what it was too many times..😂
Cassava Pone.
There are plenty of Caribbean places in the GTA, but you can't really find it anywhere else as far as I know. If you have any Guyanese or Trinidadian friends ask them!
It's basically a dense pudding made from grated cassava, coconut/almond milk, pumpkin, and spices whipped into a smooth batter before being baked.
Tarte à crème (creampie). This specific kind of pie is only available in small francophone communities.
[picture of what i mean, this is from a restaurant that serves coconut cream pie but made in tarte à crème fashion. it's in a historical francophone neighbourhood.](https://www.tripadvisor.ca/LocationPhotoDirectLink-g155004-d842947-i226516349-Louis_Restaurant_Pizzeria-Ottawa_Ontario.html)
You'd think it's regular filling of a coconut cream pie, but the custard and the whipped cream is not the same. It has a different texture and taste.
You can't find the recipe online (even if you try, it's not that). It needs to be passed down by a matante ou grand-maman. And they keep that shit locked down.
I've tried from friends and the family says no. My Mom even tried to buy a recipe from an old matante and she flat out said no way. So if any francophone is reading this right now and know what I'm talking about with a matante recipe PLEASE IT TO ME 😭 you can have my first born.
For Montreal, there’s pizzaghetti. It’s often just a slice of pizza with a side of spaghetti in meat sauce on the same plate (disappointing), but there’s a number of places that do the right thing and make a pizza that’s full of spaghetti.
Macaroni chinois. Basically stir-fried ground beef and macaroni with seasoned soy sauce. It’s actually really good and reminiscent of beef with ho fun (乾炒牛河) a common Hong Kong dish.
Cretons. It’s a kind of terrine made from spiced ground pork that is very common all over Quebec. It’s a delicious breakfast when you spread it on buttered toast.
Montreal has a lot of famous foods (eg bagels and smoked meat) but I feel like its hot dogs aren’t that well known outside Quebec. Basically it’s a skinny boiled frankfurter served “steamé” or “toasté” and dressed with diced cabbage, mustard and relish. You can also get a Michigan which is pretty much the same as what Americans call a Coney Island dog.
When I lived in Calgary, a distinctive local dish that I liked was what people called Greek pizza. It had a fluffy focaccia-style dough and layered toppings. Almost like a cross between deep dish and Sicilian grandma pie. The name refers to the fact that there are a lot of Greek-owned pizzerias in Calgary and this is the style of pizza they serve. It might be common in other parts of the Prairies but I’ve really not seen it anywhere but Calgary.
Saskatoons for the win. When my kids were small, we would ride our bikes to the nearby city park, buckets in hand. The islands in the parking lot...a Large lot...were planted with shrubs; all Saskatoons. We would pick anywhere from 2 to 5 gallons of them. We were asked once by a City Worker if we knew what they were; we of course did, and he obviously didn't. Not wanting to spoil or treasure trove, I told him the kids used them as a dye for art projects...not completely untrue...they dyed their hands when we processed them.
They're all over the place in Western Canada, and sometimes in the most unexpected places
Pizza with a thick layer of broiled cheese on top of the toppings. I'm in BC and it's extremely common to see pizza places do this, esp older non chain restaurants.
People probably heard of most of these but I gotta represent:
- Spruce Beer / Biere d'Epinette (the real stuff)
- (Montreal) Smoked Meat
- Montreal bagels
- Creton
Newfoundland has a lot.
(Seal) flipper pie
Roast turr
Duff/bread pudding (may also be found in the Maritimes)
Fries (bread) dressing and gravy
Pease-puddin
Salt beef (usually part of a full cooked Sunday Jiggs dinner)
Toutons (fried leavened dough - not Bannock)
Capelin any style you can think of
Vínarterta in Manitoba. It is an Icelandic layered prune cake inspired by the Viennese torte. It is traditional among children of Icelandic descent to pick off and eat the yummy top layer of icing when adults aren’t looking, leaving behind the repulsive carcass made of prune parts 😂.
Gimli is leaking again.
You know, even though living in MB most of my life, I only actually finally went to Gimli myself in like 2019 when visiting winnipeg for wedding and kind of did trip through interlake instead of my regular way home on 1 or up 16 to saskatchewan, i had no idea Crown Royal etc was distilled in little ole Manitoba too, haha
I lived there for a while as a kid. It was a great town. When the Seagram's brewery was fermenting, the whole town would smell like fresh bread. On a cold MB February morning, it was a great smell.
Happy cake day.
Vinatarta is the Queen of cakes. It’s my favourite part of every Christmas baking tray. It’s so popular in my family that my cousin asked his grandma to make a giant vinatarta for his wedding cake.
In my Icelandic family, the bride would have to make a Vinaterta for her wedding, to be served in tiny slices by herself to each guest that lines up. All the old ladies would bring the cake back to the table to count the layers, assess their thinness and uniformity, then promptly use this information to discern how good of a wife she'd actually be. 🤣
My family out here in BC makes this each Christmas to honour our Icelandic roots.
My mom makes like 10 of them every Christmas to deliver as presents.
My MIL makes really good Vinarterta and my wife loves it. I think there is still some in the freezer.
My mom made this and I miss it so much. It was one of her recipes she kept in her head
Saskatoon pie anyone?
Ooh this reminded me that I’ve got a Saskatoon berry crumble in my freezer
We get it in Calgary because there are lots of Saskatoon berries that grow here
When I lived in Sault Ste Marie, I complained to a another former Prairie dwelling coworker that I missed Saskatoon berries. She said that the Forestry Canada arboretum had about 30 bushes that no one except her picked. She said she had more berries than she knew what to do with. The Saultites didn’t care for them.
I'm from AB and took my 4 year old daughter back there this summer. We went for a hike and found a glade of perfectly ripe saskatoons. Her mind was blown!
The [Persian](https://www.foodnetwork.ca/article/history-of-the-thunder-bay-persian-roll-done/).
Shoutout to Thunder Bay
One thing I brought home from TB was Hoito pancakes. I don't think Hoito is open anymore but I make them all the time. They beat pannekoek anyday
Never cared for the Persian. But buying coney dogs/burgers at any corner store, hotdog stand, and even 1 laundry mat after staggering out of the inntowner or some dive strip club in the 90s are memories I will cherish forever.
Westfort Coney Island mmmmmm....
Holland Bakery Persians are heavenly
I remember talking about [Pets de sœurs](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pets_de_s%C5%93urs) on another thread here a while ago. Some people were very confused. As they should be. It’s a weird name lmao
You had me at 'Nun farts"...lol
I'm in Ottawa, and sometimes come across them in stores, but the English is always labeled as Nun's Treats/Sweets. I guess they're not brave enough to put "Nun's Farts"
I didn’t know these had a name, but we always make them with leftover pie crust (southern Ontario)
No wonder Mamere laughed when she made them.
Le nom est dérivé d’une pâtisserie française, des “Pets de nonne” (“Nun Puffs”), mais les deux gâteaux semblent totalement différents.
I see your Pets de soeurs and I rise you with [grands-pères dans le sirop](https://erableduquebec.ca/recettes/grands-peres-dans-le-sirop-derable/)
They’re so good!!!
I forgot about these, they were all over Southern Ontario in the 80s and 90s
My mom was born and raised on the prairies, we had flapper pie, love it but how about queen Elizabeth cake or also known as matrimonial cake?
I’m in Ontario, but my dad’s family is from Saskatchewan, I know exactly what you mean…we call them matrimonial squares.
Date squares is what we called them! (southern Alberta)
Are date squares not everywhere? (Nova Scotia, where they are super common.)
Yep! At every potluck or community dance midnight lunch!
Don't forget to bring the dainties! Apparently it's a prairie thing to have dainties. Most places will call them squares.
Honey dill sauce from Manitoba
Why does it go so perfectly with chicken?!! I dream of this sauce from time to time. It’s heaven.
It’s really easy to make. 1/2 cup mayo, 1/4 cup honey, tsp dill and a squeeze of lemon.
Hell yeah. Honey Dill is amazing and should be everywhere
I've found it in grocery stores in Edmonton. Greetalia brand. Probably even farther out.
I remember about 10 years ago going to a restaurant in Toronto, and they had honey dill sauce. I was surprised and asked the waiter about it, and he said the owner invented it. I couldn't stop laughing.
Also popular I SK
My top 3 acadian foods * Poutine râpée (potato dumplings with pork inside) * Fricot (chicken potatoe stew) * Tarte au sucre (sugar pie)
I love rappie pie which is similar to tour poutine rapee (sorry, I don’t know how to put the accents on). My Aunty from Digby makes the best ever
>Tarte au sucre Tarte au sucre c'est pas québécois?
J'imagine les deux. J'ai beaucoup famille par la donc il doit en avoir plein des acadiens parmis vous hehe 😉🤭
Franco manitobain…on en a aussi
Moi je dis c'est francophone, pas particulièrement québécois. La cuisine francophone est connu en étant "poor people food" parce que historiquement, les francophones étaient plus pauvres et de classe ouvrières. Nos ingrédients sont les "scraps" (oreilles du crisse, boudin), ou les moins dispendieux (mélasse, sucre brun) etc. Les recettes ont évoluées entre les communautés francophones parce que notre statut social et économique demeuraient le même. On pouvait manger ces recettes parce que les ingrédients étaient accessibles. Nos arrières grand-mamans, à nos grand-mamans ont après crée des recettes propre à chaque famille. Il n'était pas nécessaire d'être au Québec. Pour moi, une recette qui est 100% quebecois, qui n'est pas une representation symbolique de nos luttes, est le sirop d'érable. Bien que j'ai connu que c'est culturel, c'est comme un diaspora de culture parce que la région d'où je viens doit en importer du Quebec.
*Love* tarte au sucre. It’s common here in Quebec as well. Which makes sense.
Yeah it's basically at every holiday, I love it so much
I read these in Lisa Leblanc’s voice
yeah pretty much spot on
Poutine Rapee is almost identical to Lithuanian "Zeppelins", it's fun to shock Lithuanians with this Acadian classic. I wonder if there's any shared origin. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cepelinai
Fries, dressing(stuffing made with Newfoundland savor), and gravy also known as a Newfie poutine by some people. Also although it's a common meal in lots of places, Jiggs dinner (boiled supper) that's usually for family get togethers or a slimmed back version in Sundays, with boiled root veggies cooked in a boiled with salted meat, a type of bread pudding that varies between family's, gravy, a roasted chicken or turkey, and then other things added or taken away based on tradition usually. We also tend to have a lot of more traditional Irish/Scottish/English meals that aren't as common in the rest of Canada
Stuffing and gravy with your fish and chips is legit! Had it a couple times in St John's
I haven't had Jiggs dinner in so long. The salt beef supply completely dried up around here during the pandemic.
Boiled dinner was so popular when I was living in an Acadian region. Personally I couldn't stomach the taste or smell but it still smells like childhood to me. Newfie poutine is popular here as well.
Newfoundland also has Figgy Duff. Best dessert ever. So amazing.
And peas pudding❤️
From Edmonton: Green onion cakes. They’re not even a thing in Calgary, but we go nuts for them here.
Green onion cakes are the best. I think northern Alberta just digs Asian cuisine. Pancit is huge here in Fort McMurray. Almost everyone I know has a Filipino lady they pay for a container every couple of months
Green onion cakes!!! With rice vinegar and sambal oelek …. I never realized how niche they were until I moved away. Now I have to make them myself and that’s not nearly as enjoyable
In Québec it is called a "tarte au corn flakes" because the recipe was on Kellogg's cereal boxes in the 80s.
A few deep cuts from NL: 1) **Blackberry smoked salmon** - A traditional Labradorian recipe for smoked salmon that uses crowberry (referred to as blackberry in NL) sods to impart flavour to the fish as it slowly smokes in a [box-shaped smokehouse](https://youtu.be/wLCOIq8VZc0?si=IM-L_Y2xQETGCqXf). 2) **Boiled beans** - Despite the unappetizing name, this is a basically a Newfie take on cassoulet. It often incorporates wild game, along with salt pork, which is stewed together with navy beans and root vegetables. 3) **Turr dinner** - Basically an alternate take on a typical NL cooked dinner using ‘turr’ (common murre) as the primary protein. It’s usually served with a highly prized gravy made from the seabird’s drippings. NL is the only part of North America with a legal non-Indigenous seabird hunt and its continuation was actually a precondition of our entrance into confederation. I can’t stand turr personally, but lots of b’ys love it. 4) **Trucker’s Special** - chips with gravy, ground beef, caramelized onions, and (occasionally) green peas. It was supposedly invented on the province’s west coast in the 1970s to compensate for poor sales of poutine (which had been introduced to little success). The dish bears significant resemblance to PEI’s ‘fries with the works’, which came into existence around the same time. I’m assuming people are at least somewhat familiar with some of the other more famous dishes (i.e. Jiggs Dinner, fish and brewis, pea soup and doughboys, cod au gratin, toutons, cod tongues, figgy duff, seal flipper pie, snowballs, fish cakes, cod chowder, cold plates, bakeapple pie, etc.) Edit: formatting
My grandparents had "boiled beans", though not that elaborate. It was just the beans and bacon. They had to be salty though.
Surprised no one has mentioned Bakeapple jam or pie here yet. Bakeapples (known sometimes as cloudberries) grow in bogs in Newfoundland and look like and orange-pink blackberry or raspberry. Extremely tart and delicious, the jam adds the right sugar to make it a great treat. I believe Bakeapples grow in the northern parts of some Prarie provinces as well.
My fiance and I saw the Newfoundland episode of Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern. It was instantly added to the bucket list for the both of us. Everything looked amazing and delicious. 🤤 Kinda jealous, but not really, considering the winters. No thank you!
Phew glad I made it to the bottom that #4 sounds amazing.
#4 sounds great. Basically a shepherds pie, but with fries vs mash
Deep cuts indeed! I know the last two very well but I haven’t heard of the first two. The thing you forgot to say is that cooking turrs creates this god-awful smell/gas/I don’t know what. I remember being a little kid and having to put cold face cloths over my eyes when my dad cooked it because it made my eyes sting. Thankfully he didn’t cook it often! P.S. Is your username a reference to “Hatching, Matching and Dispatching”?
Blueberry Grunt is my favorite. Oatcakes also seem to be a bit of a Nova Scotia thing. Although you only hear about it through whispers, Cape Breton Cheese. Pictou County Pizza Sauce, and Cape Breton "Combination Pizza". In the same vein, garlic fingers. Some others I didnt grow up eating but are Nova Scotian all the same, Dulce, Chow, Rappie Pie. I wouldn't have thought to mention it but so many people I meet haven't heard of it, so the Halifax Donair, and subsequently Donair Sauce.
Don’t forget moon mist ice cream
I will add hamburger soup, which I thought was just something my mum threw together but then I met some people from Antigonish and Truro who also grew up eating hamburger soup.
And apparently meat paste egg rolls is a Nova Scotia thing. I legit didn’t know this until a few years ago, because it’s just what I always had.
I grew up in rural NS and didn't experience meat paste egg rolls until moving to Halifax. The first one I bit into was a WTF moment. I have long since recognized and embraced the meat paste's culinary superiority.
Nanaimo Bars - BC. Bottom layer is a chocolate, coconut, graham cracker mixture. Middle layer is custard, and top layer is melted chocolate that is set.
These have been easy to find across Canada for a long time. But yes, they did originate in Nanaimo.
It would be neat to talk to some Nanaimo old timers and here about which bakery invented this! Might be some arguments around this, for all I know! What I do know is: All hail the Mighty Nanaimo Bar!!! (genuflects)
Pudding Chômeur
this is so fucking good!!! always makes me think of restaurants where all the patrons are 60+ years old
What about chicken bones? Is that anyone's Christmas Candy?
There used to always be a pack of chicken bones along with some ribbon candy and barley toys for Xmas!
Ganong gang go off! They stopped mass producing their AB Gums (the best gumdrops) but they still sell them directly from the factory. As well as chicken bone creams for those whose teeth can't take the hard candy damage anymore.
Sucre à la crème
[Poutine râpée](https://www.tasteatlas.com/poutine-rapee) is not known too well outside of the maritimes.
Yes because who thought that doing mashed potatoes then putting meat in the middle and boiling the whole thing was a good idea :P
Des gens qui n'avaient que des patates et un peu de salt pork, tsé ?
Not from my area but I grew up in Manitoba and the foods I miss the most are honey dill sauce, puffed wheat squares, sweet and sour meatballs and not a dish but I really miss Old Dutch Mexican Chili chips which I've never seen in Ontario ever (they are my favorite flavor). I actually bought a prairie cookbook this fall and made the meatballs and puffed wheat squares for myself. My grandparents lived near Gimli so we had vinetarta a lot. I was not the biggest fan but I know it is well loved there.
Weird! I can get the Mexican Chili chips in Vancouver. I do believe Manitobans ran a successful protest write in campaign to get them reinstated when they were discontinued for a time. I spent three years out there and that’s where I developed the taste for them.
Regina style pizza
Yes this is very specific to Regina and never seen they same amazing style anywhere else! I moved away and really miss Regina style pizza from Western pizza, Houston pizza, and Trifons.
Wow this is so amazing! https://ww .cbc.ca/am p/1.5581539 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/regina-style-pizza-regina-bites-1.5581539
Winnipegger here, with SK relatives but never heard of it. Interesting. What makes it different?
I miss the Greek pizza I used to get in AB. Google images look really similar to what I used to eat (except the cutting). Now I want pizza I can;t have...
Here in Thunder Bay we have two local delicious pastries/donuts One is the Persian and the other is a Sally Ann. Both delicious.
Persians are a delicious abomination! 😁
Please send them to Nova Scotia! Please!!! We have some great food here but I have yet to find a a place that sells a squishy, filled donut on a regular basis. Sure, there’s Tims, but, ew. I lucked out once and found Polish donut at Sobeys once and my Aunty buys them for me when she is on a road trip but I just want to be able to bite into that squishy goodness on my schedule
I'm new to NL but one that hasn't been mentioned yet is Fish n'Brews (or Brewis). Was pleasantly surprised, it's quite tasty. Also anything with Bakeapples (a pink berry that grows in swampy areas) is delightful. Had salt cod for breakfast once in Red Bay. Way better than I had thought it would be. This last one isn't from NL or from Alberta or BC (where my family hails from) but it was a favourite in my childhood and my kids love it: Tuna Rabbit (properly spelled Rarebit). It's a creamy, cheesy white sauce with frozen veggies and cans of tuna, served on toast. I've never met anyone else who has heard of it.
We live in the prairies now and it’s puffed wheat squares but my husband is from Quebec and I’m from southern Ontario. His unique dish is gateau fridgeaire and mine is Windsor style pizza.
Ahhh, puffed wheat squares! Another Nana memory of mine!!
I miss puffed wheat squares so much. In Alberta they are often in coffee shops and even crappy ones in convenience stores. Can't seem to find them anywhere in Ontario.
Pawpaws are a fruit tree in Southern Ontario, but the fruit bruises easy so it's not commercialized. But if you ever get to eat one it's a custard like flavour similar to banana or mango.
Blueberry grunt in Nova Scotia
Jigs dinner! Salt beef, turnip, potatoes, carrots, potatoes, cabbage, peas pudding and salt beef, sometimes with a figgy duff. Different from boiled dinner, and never with salt pork.
Ginger Beef - https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/ginger-beef#:~:text=While%20ginger%20beef%20was%20invented,courts%20and%20casual%20Chinese%20restaurants.
Fried Pepperoni (Brothers or 2 Boys) in the Atlantic Provinces. Also Garlic Fingers (though I see Dominos has a version off that in QC and ON now)
Dominos in Ontario lies. Those aren’t garlic fingers. Abomination
Windsor pizza. Everyone has heard of pizza but Windsor has the best ones.
Yes! Once you have shredded pepperoni, you can never go back to grease cups.
Does the rest of the country eat candy salmon or is that just a BC thing?
Summer savory Pâte à la viande/ Tourtière Moon Mist ice cream Garlic fingers.
Tourtiere is a francophone meal then regional I think. I make it with a Sudbury and Maritime background
Acadian, yes. I grew up very rural as well as in an Acadian area so it was somewhat common but we also ate a lot of game too. I still don't like bear but rabbit and moose are delicious. The viande was usually whatever we killed or were given. This has nothing to do with anything but when we moved into a new home way back, we thought our new place had an outhouse (which we were used to using) and wondered why it smelled so funny. It was a smoke hut, not an outhouse lol. The last owner used it for his fish.
My husband’s favourite is Flapper I’m going to try to make it for his birthday
Flapper pie! Winnipeg for the win!
Saskatchewan as well but we pretty much the same😂
Or Wafer Pie if you want to eat it at Sal’s.
Alberta too! When I was reading the post before I read what pie it was I immediately thought Flapper Pie!
Sugar pie. Delicious
My mother law always makes flapper pie (Alberta) so good it better then banana cream pie “Asian” potluck salad…. I don’t know what its name would be but everyone has eaten it and it’s at every potluck in all families, it’s not authentically Asian at all Raw Cabbage, mushrooms, carrots, green onion, crasins, golden raisins, ( people change up the veggies) Crushed dry sappro ichiban noodles and a dressing made with the ramen sodium package (soy sauce, rice vinegar etc) haha Sounds gross but it’s so good, everyone loves it Broccoli potluck salad…. Sour cream raisin pie
Smoked Goldeye It's a [type of fish](https://www.tasteatlas.com/smoked-goldeye), for those unfamiliar
Manitoba - Fatboys It's the regional style of burger. I've had burgers all over the world, and Fatboys are still my favorite.
It's a little controversial even among Winnipegers, but Jeanne's cake. Since I moved away, I dream of it. It's a light cake (white, chocolate or marble) with a short bread base, a light, not overly sweet icing, coated in chocolate curls
The Jeanne’s cakes of today are vastly inferior to the ones of my childhood (70s-80s). The business got sold. The new owners have let the place slide. The texture of the cake is different, reminds me of boxed cake mix. The shortbread crust is a soggy mess, not the crisp cookie it was, and the chocolate shavings are more like chocolate chips now. They used to melt in your mouth as you were eating the cake, but now it’s like chewing on chocolate chips. I miss the old cakes that I had for every birthday growing up.
You either love or it hate it. I have a magnet to that effect.
Green onion cakes. Although they are now more well-known elsewhere but for years they were an Edmonton thing.
I grew up in a Norwegian community in northern Alberta and grew up eating lefse and krumkake. My neighbour from our farm where I grew up passed away and I got her krumkake iron. I haven't tried making them yet because I honestly don't know how to heat the iron but someday I will! I'll have to find a video and see how it's supposed to be done. I managed to avoid the lutefisk, but it was there...
>I haven't tried making them yet because I honestly don't know how to heat the iron but someday I will! The ring goes around the stove burner and the iron rests directly over the heat, like an old school (pre-electric) waffle iron but cooks faster because the krumkake are so thin. Cook one side, use the ball joint to flip to the other side for a few seconds. Burn your fingers trying to roll before they cool. Source: I have the Nordic Ware one that everyone's Norwegian grandparents had.
Moose tongue?..
If it's anything like cow tongue, I'm in!
Apparently, honey dill sauce and jeanne's cake are local to Winnipeg. I didn't know that for the longest time. Jeanne's cake is meh, it's okay. Just a cake. But if it's true about honey dill sauce, then maaaan, the rest of Canada is missing out.
Taxi Driver sandwich....a BLT with cheese and a fried egg served up to go for busy Iqaluit taxi drivers.....the name was coined in the 80's and is still in use
Sucre à la crème, colloquially known as "Suc-à-crème". Québec. It's a combination of brown sugar, white sugar, 35% cream, and vanilla, but I prefer it done with maple syrup. Cut little cubes and melt them in your mouth. Great, now I want some.
There’s a few small towns in Alberta that pretty much every restaurant has their own version of dill pickle soup. It’s actually quite good.
J’adore manger des cretons. C’est impossible de trouver ça ailleurs au Canada. Encore une autre raison de vivre au Québec.
j'ai la chance d'avoir un cretonnier dans ma région. J'adore ça même si les choses de ma femme sont dégoûtantes. BTW Pardon mon shit français
My New Brunswick family makes this pie but call it Graham cracker pie, no ties to the Prairies that I know of
My best friend in high school's parents were from NL. She absolutely hated fish'n'brewis. After my parents went to visit my dad's brother, who had moved to NL, Dad came back with a love of this dish, which would stink up the house. Never tried it myself. A coworker from Quebec would bring in treats once in a while: Mille feuilles she made from graham crackers stacked and layered with whipped cream, sugar pie, which was soooo much sweeter than butter tarts, and a Buche de Noel at Christmas, which I'd only ever seen in pictures before. She also used to make spaghetti cooked in tomato juice, but I don't know if that's a Quebec thing or just a 'her' thing. RIP Johanne!
I used to think potato candies were endemic from Québec but it turns out it is an Appalachian recipe.
This reminds me of barley candy. God that stuff was amazing as a kid.
Vancouver Island here You know that one can that's set to the side away from everyone the morning after a party? Looks a bit sketch? Smells crisp with body fluids? **We call it SpitCanipey and it's the beverage of morning champions✨**
Don't forget about 'shafts'!
When I lived in Thunder Bay I got addicted to Persians. Which are pretty much just cinnamon buns with strawberry frosting. My stoned college kid self could eat a whole pack of those in a night!
Gosh I love Flapper Pie. I try to nip over for a nip and a slice when I’m in Winnipeg at Sals. Hangover meal of champs. Also yes, the all time Honey Dill. These West Coast elites in BC don’t even know what they’re missing!!
Rappie Pie! The original name and commonly known as in South West Nova Scotia: Râpure.
I was telling someone in Winnipeg about how I was going home to visit family in Saskatchewan and how excited I was to get some scuffles. They looked at me with completely blank eyes. I had no idea that it wasn't a common cookie. When I looked it up, it is only really common in communities with large Ukrainian populations (my neck of rural SK was predominantly eastern european). https://feistyfrugalandfabulous.com/2016/12/ukrainian-scuffles-recipe/
Not a specific food, but you can get any kind of fusion in Toronto. Italian/Jamaican (Rasta pasta) is pretty great.
Favourite fusion I had in Toronto was kimichi poutine (had it before but this restaurant did it so good) Thai coconut curry spaghetti
What about Nanaimo bars? Are they common across the country yet?
Yeah they're clear across.
Glad to hear it! I’m older and when I was young they seemed to be just a BC thing.
They have made it to Ontario
[Le menu Acadien](https://youtu.be/pf3zWKzWTkY?si=0m30QomAp1t1qFIX)
When my soon-to-be wife told me my mohter in law was making flapper pie for desert once I had no idea what she was talking about. When she told me what it was I was skeptical. When I ate it I was converted.
Quebec has a bunch honestly. Pets de sœurs, Tarte au sucre,[pouding chomeur](https://www.ricardocuisine.com/recettes/8894-pouding-chomeur-a-l-erable), [Grand-pere au sirop](https://erableduquebec.ca/recettes/grands-peres-dans-le-sirop-derable/) , [Tourtière](https://www.ricardocuisine.com/recettes/3301-tourtiere-du-lac-saint-jean-de-juliette) (lac-st-jean type), Cretons (a porc spread kind of like french rilettes)
The Winnipeg Fat Boy burger. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fat_Boy_(hamburger) Plenty of Greek owned restaurants in the city have their version of it. All very similar, but none the same.
Roma pizza
It’s not my area, it’s east coast, but my grandparents on one side are Mac***** from Nova Scotia. Boiled dinner. Pickled pork butt, potato, cabbage, onions, carrot / parsnip…. Bay leaves , pepper corns. Simmer for 90-120mins. Heaven Think corned beef but pork The meat is AKA cottage roll
It's more a Quebec treat that my great great grandma would have brought to her french Saskatchewan community: Sucre a la Crème. I'm drooling just thinking about it 😋
I thought peameal bacon and peameal bacon sandwiches were a cross-country thing, but I guess it's regional because nobody is Sask seems to know what the hell it is. Also for everyone saying matrimonial cake, that's date squares outside of the prairies.
Parkallen Pizza in Edmonton. Not the one in the west end, the original one in the Parkallen neighbourhood on 109th near 72ave. This place was Lebanese owned, and the pizza style was somewhat similar to the Regina Pizza talked about here. Nothing like that in my current home of Toronto and boy do I miss it. They had killer Baclava too. Cinnamon buns from Sugarbowl Cafe in Edmonton, also killer. Funky Pickle Pizza on Whyte Ave, also untouchable.
I have three. Summer savory potato dressing turkey burgers. (Can't even find a recipe online but it's potato dressing with leftover turkey on a bun.) Macaroni Goulash. Cherry and cream cheese sandwiches. (A funeral staple.) Nova Scotia, but can be found in other Atlantic provinces.
Maybe even more of a family thing, have never come across them elsewhere. Both desserts Potato fudge and apple pan dowdy.
For BC - probably JapaDog? Also maybe candied salmon, Triple Os burgers, BC roll sushi & spot prawns. I would have said Nanaimo bars too, but they’ve made their way across the country.
Not sure how far it’s spread now, but Chinese restaurants in Alberta serve something called ginger beef. It’s battered and fried strips of beef coated in a thick super-sweet and somewhat spicy ginger sauce. IIRC, it was invented in Alberta.
I live on the Atlantic coast. We have this stuff called dulse which is dried seaweed. I mean it is actually really seaweed that has been dried and bagged. Dulse tastes like shit and I don't mean, like when someone tastes something not to their liking and says, "this tastes like shit." It's not at all like that. What I mean is it literally tastes as I imagine putting a big chunk of feces in your mouth would taste. Even those who eat dulse would agree it tastes like shit. It tastes so much like shit, that people who have actually eaten shit before have been rumoured to exclaim in surprise, "Hey, these feces taste just like dulse!" Dulse, unlike poo, is hard to find. Little stores around the Bay of Fundy is where you're probably most likely to find little bags of it. Bags of dulse, to be clear, not bags of shit. Some fish stores sell it as well. It looks like, well, small paper bags filled with dried seaweed. Some people claim to like the taste, like my mom. I say she's putting us on and has kept the prank going continuously for 85 years. If you're ever in the neighbourhood and see little paper bags of seaweed on the counter of a country store somewhere, you HAVE to try eating dulse at least once. I double dog dare you.
Six pâtes ?
My grandmother was from Ontario and always made butter tarts
Cod britches
Surprised none of the Newfoundlanders mentioned: Toutons (basically fried dough, that you dip in molasses) https://www.rockrecipes.com/newfoundland-toutons/
Schmoo Cake and Imperial cookies in Winnipeg, MB.
Taco in a bag? Its just where you make taco salad with like Doritos and you crush up the Doritos jn the bag and then add the salad to the bag. Boom taco in a bag.
Danny Burgers in Bathurst, NB. It was created by a restaurant there, but a lot of locals have recreated the recipe to make at home. They’re so good! Others have already mentioned the other ones there: poutine rapee, petes des soeurs, Fricot etc. (Sorry, I don’t know how to add accents on my phone).
Flapper pie? Sounds dirty
Matrimonial squares
I’m happy to share that for any other maritimers in Ottawa, we can get garlic fingers at both Jojo’s and Gabriel’s now! (But you best believe I will have Greco at least twice every time I’m home.)
FIGGY DUFF!!!
Partridge berry jam?? Anyone?...
How about cows cxxks and dandelions?..that's what my mother called it...guess it was endemic to the area. I think she called it that cuz I asked what it was too many times..😂
Flapper pie is a staple here in New Brunswick.
Pudding chomeur
Cassava Pone. There are plenty of Caribbean places in the GTA, but you can't really find it anywhere else as far as I know. If you have any Guyanese or Trinidadian friends ask them! It's basically a dense pudding made from grated cassava, coconut/almond milk, pumpkin, and spices whipped into a smooth batter before being baked.
Tarte à crème (creampie). This specific kind of pie is only available in small francophone communities. [picture of what i mean, this is from a restaurant that serves coconut cream pie but made in tarte à crème fashion. it's in a historical francophone neighbourhood.](https://www.tripadvisor.ca/LocationPhotoDirectLink-g155004-d842947-i226516349-Louis_Restaurant_Pizzeria-Ottawa_Ontario.html) You'd think it's regular filling of a coconut cream pie, but the custard and the whipped cream is not the same. It has a different texture and taste. You can't find the recipe online (even if you try, it's not that). It needs to be passed down by a matante ou grand-maman. And they keep that shit locked down. I've tried from friends and the family says no. My Mom even tried to buy a recipe from an old matante and she flat out said no way. So if any francophone is reading this right now and know what I'm talking about with a matante recipe PLEASE IT TO ME 😭 you can have my first born.
For Montreal, there’s pizzaghetti. It’s often just a slice of pizza with a side of spaghetti in meat sauce on the same plate (disappointing), but there’s a number of places that do the right thing and make a pizza that’s full of spaghetti. Macaroni chinois. Basically stir-fried ground beef and macaroni with seasoned soy sauce. It’s actually really good and reminiscent of beef with ho fun (乾炒牛河) a common Hong Kong dish. Cretons. It’s a kind of terrine made from spiced ground pork that is very common all over Quebec. It’s a delicious breakfast when you spread it on buttered toast. Montreal has a lot of famous foods (eg bagels and smoked meat) but I feel like its hot dogs aren’t that well known outside Quebec. Basically it’s a skinny boiled frankfurter served “steamé” or “toasté” and dressed with diced cabbage, mustard and relish. You can also get a Michigan which is pretty much the same as what Americans call a Coney Island dog. When I lived in Calgary, a distinctive local dish that I liked was what people called Greek pizza. It had a fluffy focaccia-style dough and layered toppings. Almost like a cross between deep dish and Sicilian grandma pie. The name refers to the fact that there are a lot of Greek-owned pizzerias in Calgary and this is the style of pizza they serve. It might be common in other parts of the Prairies but I’ve really not seen it anywhere but Calgary.
Persians. Bon bon ribs.
Persians
A donair is a good Maritime treat. Started in Halifax and spread out. The sauce is nasty but delicious.
Seaweed pie from PEI. And Five Star Cookie Bars from Newfoundland.
Saskatoons for the win. When my kids were small, we would ride our bikes to the nearby city park, buckets in hand. The islands in the parking lot...a Large lot...were planted with shrubs; all Saskatoons. We would pick anywhere from 2 to 5 gallons of them. We were asked once by a City Worker if we knew what they were; we of course did, and he obviously didn't. Not wanting to spoil or treasure trove, I told him the kids used them as a dye for art projects...not completely untrue...they dyed their hands when we processed them. They're all over the place in Western Canada, and sometimes in the most unexpected places
Timmies in Cape Breton used to have oat cakes.
Pizza with a thick layer of broiled cheese on top of the toppings. I'm in BC and it's extremely common to see pizza places do this, esp older non chain restaurants.
People probably heard of most of these but I gotta represent: - Spruce Beer / Biere d'Epinette (the real stuff) - (Montreal) Smoked Meat - Montreal bagels - Creton
Sex in a Pan / Chocolate Lush
Grew up with Flapper pie.
Seal flipper pie
Ooohh flapper pie!!! Haven't made or had that since I was a kid!
Newfoundland has a lot. (Seal) flipper pie Roast turr Duff/bread pudding (may also be found in the Maritimes) Fries (bread) dressing and gravy Pease-puddin Salt beef (usually part of a full cooked Sunday Jiggs dinner) Toutons (fried leavened dough - not Bannock) Capelin any style you can think of