Friday, July 16, 2010

Beware the National Dishes of Canada

The City Paper's editor Stephanie Barna is up in Toronto for vaguely defined reasons, tweeting about street-side "poutine", the questionable  "National Dish of Canada."  That got me wondering if there really is a national dish of Canada, and it turns out the Toronto Globe has multiple candidates for the title (poutine won their poll with 53% of the votes).

It's not a list for the faint of heart (ketchup chips) nor the logically minded (the California roll--yes, CALIFORNIA roll), and most of the items are simply Canadian variations on foods that originated somewhere else: the donair (a Canadian spelling of the decidedly non-Canadian doner kebab), the Montreal-style bagel, and the pierogi.  And then, of course, there's the infamous poutine: french fries topped with cheese curds and brown gray.  Toronto author Mark Schaztker notes, "its deliciousness increases commensurately with one’s level of inebriation," which is probably about all one needs to know about it.

Oh, Canada . . .

2 comments:

Charlestonjoan said...

Google Butter Tarts....yummers.

Robert said...

Now, that's a Canadian dish I could get behind!

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