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FOOD
A Taste of Canada
By Margaret Swaine
The culinary travel scene in Canada boasts delicious taste trails and unique regional dishes from coast to coast. Creative young chefs reinterpret Canada’s regional dishes, showcase ethnic influences and play with exotic spicing. Heirloom produce from local farms, indigenous wild foods foraged from the forests, organic meats and fresh seafood fished from the oceans and lakes are among their cherished ingredients.
British Columbia Bounty From The Ocean, Forests & Land
Specialties on the menu in British Columbia include wild salmon, golden honey mussels, spot prawns, geoduck, BC bison, Fraser Valley duck and Salt Spring Island lamb.
There is a wide range of guided culinary tours—sometimes led by chefs—in southern B.C., particularly near the Okanagan Valley, Cowichan Valley and Fraser Valley. City tasting tours in Victoria, Vancouver and Whistler visit restaurants and culinary neighbourhoods (www.hellobc.com).
Cornucopia Whistler is an annual 11-day indulgence of local food and drink that pairs homegrown chefs with top B.C. producers, breweries, distilleries and wineries (www.whistlercornucopia.com).
In Victoria, Off the Eaten Track offers foodie tours such as the Hip & Hidden Chinatown and Old Town Tour (www.offtheeatentracktours.ca). On the wild foraging tours in spring and summer, offered by Swallow Tail Culinary Tours, participants discover native B.C. ingredients in the forest: fiddleheads, licorice fern, big leaf maple flowers, nettles, oyster mushrooms and wild chamomile, to name a few (www.swallowtail.ca).
The Prairies Grassland Grains And Ranchland Meats Manitoba’s Parkland region has a self-guided Cinnamon Bun Trail with eight trail stops along the way (www.parklandtourism.com/attraction-category/cinnamon-bun-trail). In season, Winnipeg’s Exchange District BIZ offers tours to some of their more than 50 delectable one-of-a-kind restaurants (www.exchangedistrict.org/food-tours). West End BIZ covers the eateries in the west end of the city (www.westendbiz.ca/west-end-restaurant-tours).
Saskatchewan has more than 40 percent of Canada’s cultivated farmland and Saskatoon’s culinary scene takes full advantage of it. Hearth Restaurant features refined prairie classics (www.hearth.restaurant). The Night Oven Bakery mills the flour in-house and bakes in a wood-fired brick oven. The bakery puts out the best breads and pastries imaginable (www.thenightoven.ca).
In Alberta, as Canada’s ranch heartland, many refer to as Canadian Rocky Mountain Cuisine, wild game is plentiful. Canadian Rocky Mountain Resorts has its own game ranch to provide for its lodges in Banff, Lake Louise and Emerald Lake (www.crmr.com/culinary).
Ontario Countless Taste Trails And Food Festivals
Stratford, famous for the Stratford Festival, boasts a Bacon & Ale Trail along with a Chocolate Trail and seasonal trails such as Foraging for Wild Edibles with Puck’s Plenty Foraging (www.visitstratford.ca).
In Prince Edward County, pop into a cidery, brewery, or ice cream shop for a cold treat or sample fine pinots and chardonnays at wineries in this picturesque area on the north shore of Lake Ontario. Check out the cool cocktail and food scene at the Drake Devonshire (www.thedrake.ca/drakedevonshire), enjoy fresh laid eggs for breakfast at one of the bucolic B&Bs such as Wilfrid Boutique Farmhouse (www.thewilfrid.com) or sign up for a cooking class to learn the tools of the trade at The Waring House (www.waringhouse.com).
Butter tarts were a staple of pioneer cooking in both Upper and Lower Canada (now Ontario and Québec). The Kawarthas Northumberland Butter Tart Tour has grown to over 50 locations throughout the area (www.buttertarttour.ca). The townships of Minto, Southgate, Wellington North and West Grey’s have a self-guided Butter Tarts Trail (www.wellington.ca/en/business/tr-buttertart.aspx).
Ottawa is home to the only Canadian campus of the renowned Le Cordon Bleu French cooking school (www.cordonbleu.edu/ottawa). C’est Bon’s gourmet walking tours are an ideal introduction to the National Capital Region’s vibrant food scene (www.cestbonottawa.ca/food-tours).
Québec A Goldmine Of French-Canadian Specialties
New France’s first inhabitants ate hearty meals to cope with the rigours of everyday life. The rugged lifestyle enhanced a distinct home-cooking style over the centuries that became Québec classics. Think tourtière, a meat and pork pie; cipaille, a layered wild meat pie; fèves au lard, baked beans; and cretons, a fatty pork spread. (www.bonjourquebec.com/en-ca/to-see-and-do/delicious-discoveries).
Maple syrup plays a big role in traditional food with some 13,300 producers in the province. In spring, Québécois gather at around 90 cabanes à sucre (sugar shacks) to enjoy baked beans, oreilles des crisse (crispy pork rinds), and pancakes all drenched in maple syrup (www.bonjourquebec.com/en-ca/to-see-and-do/delicious-discoveries/sugar-shacks).
From Petite-Rivière-Saint-François to La Malbaie, epicureans treat themselves to a gastronomic adventure on the Charlevoix Flavour Trail which features some 20 specialty producers and 16 restaurants (www.tourisme-charlevoix.com/en/what-to-do/routes-and-circuits/flavour-trail).
The Eastern Townships, renowned for its gourmet cuisine, has dozens of local producers and agritourism locations (www.easterntownships.org/tag/296/createurs-de-saveurs-local-producers) as well as a good number of restaurants with a history and tea stops (www.easterntownships.org/taste-the-townships).
Montréal counts several hundred chefs including many top names. But it is also famous for bagels (St-Viateur and Fairmount) and smoked meat (Schwartz’s and Main Deli). The city is host to many annual food festivals and events, from the most famous Montréal Highlights Festival to La Poutine Week (www.lapoutineweek.com).
In the Laurentians, the Chemin du Terroir is a signposted trail that takes travellers through more than 226 km (140 mi.) of country backroads and byways, with delicious food and drink discoveries at every turn (www.laurentides.com/en/chemin-du-terroir-0).
The Maritimes The Glory Of Seafood
The culinary scene has exploded in Nova Scotia. The two seafood trails—the Nova Scotia Chowder Trail and the Nova Scotia Lobster Trail—offer a collection of restaurant, retail and fisheries experiences that highlight the province’s incredible seafood products (www.novascotiaculinarytrails.com).
In New Brunswick, travellers can build their own trail to farmers’ markets, restaurants and sites via the website (www.tourismnewbrunswick.ca/food-and-drink). There are tasty snacks hard to find anywhere else, like dulse—a salty sea treat—and hearty Acadian dishes.
Canada’s Food Island Culinary Trail and Dining Guide in PEI directs people to the Island’s distinct regions (www.canadasfoodisland.ca/culinary-trail). In Fortune Bay, visit long-time Islander and Food Network Chef Michael Smith’s FireWorks at The Inn at Bay Fortune, where a wood-burning fireplace in the centre of the restaurant is the anchor for the “Fire Kitchen”—every dish is cooked over fire (www.innatbayfortune.com).
Newfoundland is known for its seafood and traditional dishes such as salt fish and brewis (made with hard tack or dry bread) and Jiggs’ dinner (boiled salted beef and vegetables). At remote and gorgeous Fogo Island Inn, ingredients that most often find their way onto guests’ plates are those that are fished, farmed, and foraged right on the Island (www.fogoislandinn.ca).
The North Wild Harvests Under The Midnight Sun
In the Yukon, Michele Genest and Beverley Gray are authors of the books The Boreal Gourmet and The Boreal Herbal, respectively. They explain what you can harvest in the “Land of the Midnight Sun.” At Gray’s Aroma Borealis Herb Shop in Whitehorse, visitors can arrange to join her on a seasonal foraging outing (www.aromaborealis.com). Michele Genest offers workshops and events, along with her latest cookbook, The Boreal Feast (www.borealgourmet.com). Also in Whitehorse is Wayfarer Oyster House, where local produce anchors each dish.
Whatever their fancy, wherever travellers go in Canada, they are sure to find their taste nirvana.
