A Journey Through Canada`s Culinary History

From Pemmican To Poutine
A Journey Through Canada’s
Culinary History
Canadian Cuisine???
• Does Canada even have a Cuisine?
• Is it the Roasted Arctic Animals and boiled Backyard
Critters ?
• Or is the same as the American Cuisine?
YES !!!!
YES
• Canada does have a Rich and Diverse Food
Culture, that has spanned, the whole of its
History.
• The uniqueness of Canadian Cuisine is that,
it is primarily based on Ingredients, as
opposed to flavours – the ingredients that is
native to different regions of Canada, and the
ones that is acquired from various early
settlers.
But, where did it all start?
• Was it John Cabot or Jacques Cartier?
• Was it the Vikings?
• Archaeologists have discovered Viking houses
in Labrador as early as 1000 CE
• As early as 1199 Europeans have been coming
to Canada to hunt whales and cod.
• In 1605 the first French settled in Nova Scotia
and proclaimed the area as New France
(L’Acadie) – Nova Scotia, Prince Edward
Island, New Brunswick and Eastern Quebec.
How did the French Canadian Cuisine
get its existence?
• In 1534 Jacques Cartier came through Labrador to PEI and then
turned into the Gulf of St Lawrence towards Quebec City.
• The French settlers could not bring with them the delicate, rich
flavours due to the harsh weather.
• The traditional French cooking methods & utensils had to be
adapted to the local ingredients and lifestyle.
French Canadian Cuisine
• Not only the weather and the land, religion had a huge role to
play in development of this Cuisine.
• French Settlers were generally Catholic, and the church calendar
included 165 “no-meat” days.
• Hence seafood played a very important role in the diet.
• This accounts for, why very few French Settlers ventured far from
the Eastern Coast
The Import
• Major imports from France and
Europe included Salt pork, Game
meats, butter, cheese.
• As settlements became well
established, people diversified into
farming crops, raise cattles and pigs.
• Potato and Turnip crop flourished
and became a strong part of Quebec
cuisine.
Some Traditional Acadian
Ingredients
• Cheeses
• Game meats
• Potato & Turnips
• Berries – Partridgeberry, BakeApple
(Cloudberry), Squashberry, Blueberry
• Seafood – Cod, Flippers, lobsters,
mussels
Modern Acadian Ingredient
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Duck
Fiddlehead
Maple
Eel
Some Traditional Acadian Menu Items:
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Rappie Pie
Fricot
Grunt
Figgy Duff
Toutons
Oreilles de crisse (Salt Pork Crisps)
Soupe aux pois jaunes (Yellow pea soup)
Pate Chinois
Rappie Pie
• Exclusive to Acadian communities of southwest
Nova Scotia
• Its name comes from patates râpées, which is French for “grated
potatoes”
• some of the Acadians who spent their exile in Boston met Germans who
taught them their nation’s recipes for using grated potato in meat dishes.
• These Acadians returned to Nova Scotia where the rocky soil and
harsher climate of the lands left to them turned out to be good for
growing root vegetables like potatoes and turnips.
• This and other dishes developed in this time period make good use of
potatoes as filler, to satisfy stomachs while conserving meat.
Fricot
• The word fricot originated in France in the 1700s meaning a feast; by the
1800s it had come to mean specifically “meat stew” and later it became a
general term for prepared food.
• The Acadians largely lived off the land and preferred to keep their
recipes simple; a few local ingredients cooked together in one pot
• A fricot uses potatoes, onions, and whatever meat was available by
season – rabbit, Hens, pork, clams, beef
• A strong part of Acadian food culture that the phrase used to call the
family to dinner is often “Au fricot!”
GRUNT
• Primarily local Blueberries were used for this.
• The name “grunt” comes from the sound the berries make while they
are being cooked down.
• Blueberry grunt is thought to have come about when British settlers
tried to adapt their favourite puddings to the local produce and
primitive cooking utensils that were available to them in the new world
• This dish became so well liked that it was often used as a breakfast, or
even a main dish; it wasn’t until the nineteenth century that it became
primarily served as a dessert.
FIGGY DUFF
• originated in sixteenth century Newfoundland
• It does not contain figs, but raisins, which were traditionally called
“figs” in many parts of the province
• “Duff” is the northern British pronunciation of the word “dough”
• The dessert was likely derived from the British dish Spotted Dick
that would have been brought to the New World by English and
Irish settlers.
Touton
• Is most popular in
Newfoundland and Labrador
area
• Fried bread dough –
traditionally eaten with
molasses
• Some deep fries the touton
and other pan fry them.
Touton - History
• Newfoundlanders : The left over bread dough, from the bread that
mom made
• My Version : When the French Settlers came to Newfoundland,
they brought with them some French ``commoners`` food –
Beignets. And Newfoundlanders took the Beignets and added their
touch with Molasses and called it Touton
Oreilles de Crisse (Salt Pork Crisps)
• Is made by frying strips of salt pork until they curl to
resemble ears, which they call “Christ’s ears”.
• Oreilles de Crisse are part of the traditional foods served
smothered in maple syrup at a cabane a sucre, or sugar
shack, during the maple syrup season
Soupe Aux Pois Jaunes (Yellow Pea Soup)
• Peas became a primary crop in New France after a large-scale failure of
the wheat crops in the early 1800s.
• Canadian peas became highly prized in Europe for being exceptionally
tasty.
• Soupe aux poix jaunes has long been fixed in the minds of Canadians as
a traditional Quebec dish.
• The salt pork is sometimes removed from the soup after cooking and
served on the side in thin slices.
Pate Chinois
• Pâté chinois is another dish whose origin is wrapped in mystery
• British railway overseers taught the workers how to make a
version of English cottage pie using cans of creamed corn.
• The Chinese labourers liked it so much that they continued to
prepare it after the railway was finished and they had moved on to
textile mill cities, where they taught the dish to their French
Canadian co-workers.
A Few More Acadian Menu Items
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Poutine
Tourtiere
Tarte Au Sucre (Sugar Pie)
Oatcakes
Seafood chowder
TOURTIERE
• Originated in Quebec in the early days of New France
• Was originally prepared using wild doves, called tourterelles in
French
• Tourtières have been used in kitchens in France since medieval
times. They were made of porcelain, glass, or clay and were used
to make tourtes (pies), tarts, or flan
• The meat was usually spiced using the medieval French meat
spices of cinnamon, cloves, and allspice and the pie also included
onions and potatoes for thickening
Tarte Au Sucre (Sugar Pie)
• Developed as a way to prepare a dessert pie late in the winter season
after supplies of the usual pie fillings such as fruit had been used up
• Tarte au sucre can be traced back to a white sugar pie found in old
cookbooks from Normandy and Poitou, areas that saw a lot of
emigration to New France
• Tarte au sucre a la Gaspésienne is sugar pie that includes evaporated
milk and rolled oats; an influence of the Scottish immigrants in the
Gaspé region who grew oats on their homesteads
Oatcakes
• In 1775 the ship Elizabeth, bound for Prince Edward Island, found
herself caught in a November storm. All lives were saved and able
to make it to shore by lifeboats but it took three days for the
storm to clear and the winds to die down. When the men were
able to return to the ship to retrieve provisions, all they found for
food was a few sides of bacon, some pickled herring, a puncheon
of rum, and a cask of oatmeal that had washed ashore. The waves
had knocked the top off the cask letting in salt water and sand,
but they ate it anyway. The women made oatcakes and roasted
them over the fire, using what was left.
Seafood Chowder
• Chowders were a mainstay of
settler cultures who had to find
creative ways to make hearty
meals out of what they could
grow, hunt, or forage
• Liberal use of shellfish
indigenous to the region.
Mussels, scallops, shrimp,
oysters, clams, crabs, even
lobster along with local fish like
white fish or cod were often
readily available
The Cheese
• Start of Cheese making in Canada dates back to
early 1610, when cattle was first introduced in
Quebec by Samuel de Champlain.
• French settlers made ripened cheeses according
to recipes they had bought with them, and as
early as 1630, Acadians supplied cheese for the
returning French fleet.
Heritage of Cheese making
• Double-stranded – Woven from French and English
Heritage.
• French influence – soft, ripened cheeses
• British – Cheddar
• Cheese continued to be made in small home-made batches
and even exported by 19th century.
• In 1864, Harvey Farrington set up the first large scale
cheese factory in Norwich, Ontario – The Pioneer.
• By 1867 there were 200 Cheese factories in Ontario alone.
Cheese Facts
• Quebec is nick named “cheese heaven”
• ¾ of Canada’s Cheeses are produced in
Quebec
• 60% of all fine cheeses are produced in
Quebec
• Quebec is the home of over 100 cheese makers
• Quebec is best known for its specialty cheeses
• Quebec boasts one of the top per capita cheese
consumption volume in the country –
8kgs/year/person.
Specialty Cheese - Example
• Alfred Le Fermier :
Organic Raw Cow Milk cheese.
Pressed, cooked paste cheese with a washed rind.
Nutty and floral flavour tones.
Pairs well with medium to full bodied reds.
Specialty Cheese - Example
• Hercule De Charlevoix:
Firm cheese – aged 6 to 18 months
Dark Yellow interior
Texture – Hard to Granular
With Age – texture improves, and
flavour develops without bitterness
First Canadian Alpine style cheese that
is comparable to “noble cheeses”
Nutty, Sweet, fruity aroma
Pairs well with Sherry and Fortified
Wines
Specialty Cheese - Example
• Baluchon:
Semi-Firm washed rind, that is based on Oka
Aged for at least 60 days
Unique cheese, accented by the terroir and
the diet fed to the herd of cows which
provide the fragrant raw milk
Golden cheese with tiny holes and creamy
texture
Creamy, sweet and barny aroma
Mellow, earthy and fruity, and is
complemented by a rougher, earthy, slightly
bitter rind
Pairs with a light, fruity red like a Pinot Noir
or a light ale.
Specialty Cheese - Example
• Le Ciel de Charlevoix:
Raw Milk Cheese produced in Baie-Saint-Paul
Minimum 60 days aged Award winning Blue Cheese
Relatively mild.. Great starter cheese
Rind is brown and earthy
Aroma – Deep, tart and complex
Flavours are a perfect mixture of salty, sweet and earthy
Pair with a sweet liqueur or a sweet wine
Poutine
• Origin: 1957, Fernand LaChance of Warwick,
Quebec
• Restaurant : Lutin Qui Rit
• Poutine means “a mess” or more specifically “an
unappealing mixture of things or food”
• The “sauce” was added to keep everything warm
and to lightly melt the cheese
• Quebecers, proud of haute cuisine are irked that
this low brow junk food is their most well known
dish
Traditional Poutine
• The key for this dish is a fresh cheese curd… should
squeak, when you bite into them.
• Earliest Poutine were made with a tomato-based sauce
• LaChance’s poutine used his house sauce of brown sugar,
ketchup and Worcestershire Sauce
• Another claimed “inventor” of Poutine, Roy le Jecup used a
sweet & sour tomato based sauce
Today’s Poutine
• Poutine a part of Haute Cuisine
• Cheese curds are more or less constant, but have seen Chefs using Brie,
Bleu, Jalapeno Havarti being used
• Gravy is where most Chef play with, have seen a variety of options Elk Ragout, Butter Chicken, Beef Bourgignon, Sweet & Sour, Mole,
Fricot, Chili, seafood chowder etc..
• Regular French Fries has been replaced by sweet potato fries, Curly
Fries, Lattice cut fries etc..
From Pemmican To Poutine
www.chefsuman.ca
A Journey Through Canada’s Culinary History