Canadian Cuisine

[jhlurie]

Has Canada developed its own cuisine, or are they in the same boat as Americans where (with a few very notable exceptions) they still take their culinary cues from the rest of the world (France and England would seem to be the main targets...)?

Certainly there are many types of game, and a lot of produce, that come from Canada, but have these led to dishes that are uniquely Canadian?

[Jinmyo]

In the sense of dishes using ingredients unique to the terroire, no. Mosquitos. Black flies. More than you can bloody well imagine. In the sense of dishes made by Canadians, drawing on the "mosaic" of ethnic immigrant influences, yes.

Sure, one can marinate fois gras in maple syrup and tart up a tortierre with truffles. But it's not particularly Canadian by doing so.

Eastern seaboard cuisine was: fried baloney (cut thick) and mashed potatoes.

Quebec cuisine was: peasant French without the bread, cheese, wine, cured meats, or salads. Cassoulet? Baked beans. And then there was Montreal's Jewish section with bagels and lox. Great, great, great. But Canadian? Sure, in that it was in Canada.

Ontario cuisine was middle and lower class English.

The praries were cowboy grub and Ukranian grub.

We have mushrooms but most of the strains that are edible are imported. Fabulous ceps (porcini) and shitake in B.C.

But over the past 40 years or so, there has developed truly great food.  But the materials and influences were all imported one way or the other.

The game is native (but not unique) but the produce is all from imported seeds. Nothing grew here except wild rice which isn't really rice and is available in the U.S.A. as well.

I can readily buy esoteric chiles and even white truffles. But they're not particularly Canadian and not even grown here.

(Edited by Jinmyo at 6:50 pm on Nov. 25, 2001)

(Edited by Jinmyo at 6:55 pm on Nov. 25, 2001)

[Lesley C]

OK, but then according to your interpretation of Canadian cuisine, American cuisine doesn't exist either. It's all just immigrant food.

As for black flies and mosquitos, we don't have that problem in a big city like Montreal. It's just those pesky penguins and polar bears that keep getting in the way.

I like to think that we can get passed this colonial approach to cuisine and claim that we do have a style unique to our region. Quebec produces world-class raw milk cheese, superb foie gras (just ask Charlie Trotter), wonderful venison, ice cider, and yes, maple syrup. We also produce very good chefs who work throughout the country and abroad -- kind of like our hockey players. At least the majority of the top chefs in our city are Quebeckers. Can you say the majority of top chefs in New York are New Yorkers? Or the top chefs in Toronto are from Ontario? I think that makes a huge difference when we speak of a region (or country) developing its own cuisine.

[Blue Heron]

I've tasted some delicious wines in the B.C. Okanagan area.  The wine names and tastes were unlike those I've had in the States.  I would think those are particular to Canada?  At anyrate, I enjoyed them very much and look forward to another wine tasting trip there.

[Jinmyo]

I love the food here in Canada. We have available to us lovely, lovely stuff.

But the question was:

"Certainly there are many types of game, and a lot of produce, that come from Canada, but have these led to dishes that are uniquely Canadian?"

Which I understood to mean a cuisine unique to Canada using uniquely Canadian ingredients.

Some native chefs like David Wolfman are using French techniques with caribou and so on and developing "Aboriginal Fusion". I suppose that counts but am not convinced.

Yes, it's all immigrant cuisines. Nothing wrong with that.

[Lesley C]

I disagree.

What a chef like Normand Laprise here in Quebec is producing is not immigrant cuisine at all. The man has his own style. Yes it is based on French technique (as is the norm on this side of the planet) and his ingredients are, for the most part, local. But the man is not making tourtiere, ragout de boulettes, or pied de porc (French Canadian "peasant" food). He's producing a kind of gussied-up, innovative, artistic, cutting edge (call it what you will) market cuisine, a bit like Charlie Trotter.  

Also, let's not confuse restaurant food with home cooking. If local chefs are guilty of one thing in Canada it's not a reliance on immigrant cuisine but the strong influence of North American haute cuisine -- call it the Art Culinaire syndrome.

[Fat Guy]

Imagine being seated in a restaurant and served food. Imagine having all indications of place (the language spoken, the view, etc.) removed from the restaurant. It's just you and the food. Do you really think you would be able to predict reliably where you were?

Does having "dishes that are uniquely Canadian" equal "Canadian cuisine"? I submit the definition underlying this conversation has a lot of holes in it.

Poutine would seem to be a uniquely Canadian dish. Yet its presence or absence would not seem to me to argue for or against the existence of a unique Canadian cuisine.

Is there such a thing as a dish you can get only in France? Probably not. You can get most of them in London or New York. Is it therefore the case that no uniquely French cuisine exists? There is probably a difference between saying the French invented a dish and saying the dish is uniquely French.

What defines a unique cuisine, really? All major cuisines at this point are influenced by one another. French cuisine has perhaps exerted the most influence on all the others, but it derives historically from Italian cuisine, and many of the core ingredients come from the New World. There are only a handful of restaurants in the Western world that don't rely on any imported ingredients. FedEx has eliminated the possibility of uniquely local ingredients, and travel may have eliminated the possibility of uniquely local cuisine. Many contemporary French chefs, for example, are influenced by what they're seeing at restaurants like Toque! et al. And contemporary French cuisine bears little relation to what you'd have seen in restaurants in France early in the 20th Century. Most luxury restaurants (which one could argue define cuisine at the formal level) in most places in the Western world are utilizing a post-modern mishmash of ingredients and techniques.

Maybe the question is: Are there any unique cuisines in the world at all anymore? And if there are, what are they?

I think there may still be some sort of division between a general Western and Eastern cuisine, though each is making inroads into the other's territory. Here in North America, we're mostly in the general Western camp, which looks to Europe -- particularly France and Italy -- for much of its fundamental technique.

There are some quaint organizations, particularly in Italy, that fight to preserve a certain regionalism and historical sense of food, but they are not all that influential. Curiously, we are now seeing very specific regional Italian restaurants in New York.

In France, most of the restaurants are French. In Montreal or New York, there is no majority cuisine represented. There are French restaurants, and there are restaurants representing scores of other ethnicities.

The distinction between Quebec and the other regions of Canada is probably also important to remember. Canada is a big place. If there are unique cuisines, they are most likely provincial.

If we're speaking in terms of restaurant styles, in my experience it is British Columbia that has the most identifiable style running through its most highly regarded haute cuisine establishments. But really we are talking about only shades of difference between British Columbia cuisine, Pacific Northwest cuisine, and California cuisine. It's more of a West Coast style, with some variation based on latitude.

[Jinmyo]

I think that there are great cuisines in Canada. And they are Canadian because they are in Canada. But they aren't unique to Canada.

Of course, a particular chef's cuisine can be unique.

In any case, I only care if it's Canadian in the sense of easily accessible to me so I can eat it.  ;)

(Edited by Jinmyo at 7:21 am on Nov. 29, 2001)

[Steve Klc]

I think I tend to agree with those who feel it's impossible to generate or define a unique national cuisine nowadays.  "Uniquely Canadian" or defining "Canadian Cuisine" seems to me an exercise in futility.   But perhaps it is possible--if not for Canada--then for another country or region or city? Using local ingredients is not enough, and techniques and presentation ideas have readily been assimilated by chefs working everywhere, as Steven has mentioned.

Lesley C has coined this the Art Culinaire syndrome--and I'd suggest this influence and effect has been felt worldwide.  I'd also suggest this is not negative and is, in fact liberating.

So after 1) ingredients, 2) technique and 3) presentation--what are you left with as possible determinants?  Two obvious factors:  4) the culinary history of the region and 5) the pride of place that a chef within that region might feel toward those that came before.  I have only eaten significantly in one Canadian region--Toronto and Niagara-on-the-Lake--so I am in no position to make any pronouncements, but I did "feel" an attempt, on the part of several leading chefs in that region--to define themselves by their region--not only in terms of locally sourced Canadian ingredients but especially by their aim to create a synergy between those ingredients and the wines of that specific region.  Simplistically, let's say this might be the Napa Valley effect--a synergy of terroir that might develop because of locally sourced ingredients and wines.

Whether you accept this possible synergy or not, it would be dangerous and speculative to try to extend that to an entire nation, any nation, especially one with insular pockets and communities spread so far across the map.  But for the sake of argument--are there other factors that might warrant consideration in trying to define a uniqueness of a country or region or even a city?

How about: 6) the overall dining experience, not limiting ourselves to the "cuisine"--is it possible to detect and quantify any unique standards of service and hospitality that distinguish a country or region?  or 7) the relationship chefs have with their audience in particular countries or regions? or 8)  the awareness and appreciation of the dining public in a region?

Is it possible that the uniqueness of an area's cuisine has less to do with ingredients and techniques--which I see as inherently limiting and begging for a certain answer--and more to do with other factors?  I guess what I'm trying to get at is something more ephemeral and less quantifiable:  I talk with Philippe Conticini at least once a week and in almost every conversation we have about food and cooking, Philippe says to me that what he misses most about the US, when he is back in France, is the "spirit" of cooking he "felt" here.   It really had nothing to do with ingredients, techniques or particular chefs--but, for him, was something that simulataneously included and transcended all of that.  For Philippe, it is definitely unique and very different from France.  But then the media likes to describe Philippe as a philosopher-poet.  

Might it be possible to come closer to the uniqueness of a country, region or city if we expand our criteria?

[Tony de Luca]

i agree with both steve and steven.  we are all cooking the same language here.  Canada is blessed with an abundance of world class products and produce, with passionate and focused chefs ready to cook it all.  I like to think of Canada rather like my homeland Italy where I was born.  Like Italy, Canada shares strong regional values in many aspects and most definately with its food.  Using the products of a particular region is not enough to define it as a type of cuisine. Cuisine is simply defined by the people who are producing it.  Italian Chefs, French Chefs, Chinese Chefs etc. it doesn't matter.  In our multi cultural world, techniques are shared/copied, products are delivered everywhere and we work with different people.  All these things together work to define a region.  

I also agree that there needs to be a historical consideration.  Canada is simply to younge a Country to have truly developed a particular culinary identity.  My personal belief is that it never will.  Canadian Chefs are very much influenced by the American restaurant scene.  

That is why you will find ideas from SouthWestern USA, Latin-America, Cal-Fusion of the West Coast etc.. any where in Canada.  If I see another menu with blackend Catfish I'll eat my touque!

At the end of the day what is important is that Canada becomes recognized as a viable destination for having worthwhile food.  We are slowly getting there.  

Last New Years Eve, I was making my rounds in the dining room and stopped to talk to a very charming couple from New York City.  They had heard about our place as being worthy of a visit and after checking us out on ourweb site, decided to fly into Buffalo N.Y.(45 minutes away), just so they could dine with us.

They were inspiring because it told me that people would make a special trip to taste our food.  In the end Canadian Cuisine is about the people cooking in Canada and raising the profile of the industry within the Global context.

[Fat Guy]

I'm sorry that my National Post story on Vancouver, published this summer, is no longer online. I've been tracking Vancouver's cuisine for more than a decade and I wrote a bit about how I think it is just now coming together into something of an identifiable regional cuisine. At least, there is a distinct Vancouver restaurant culture, even if it is very close to Pacific Northwest or West Coast in general. But my thesis rested on an examination of key individuals who have shaped the local cuisine scene, certain ingredients and products that are especially good there, and the wine culture. I doubt someone wandering into any given top Vancouver restaurant -- even a very experienced and well-traveled diner -- would be able to identify a unique cuisine. It's a much more subtle thing than that, and I wouldn't want to have to defend the thesis upon rigorous cross-examination.

[Rail Paul]

Like its neighbor, Seattle, Vancouver has  placed an emphasis on the freh produce from the (relatively) nearby Okanagan, the fresh fish, and the centrality of the public market in food sourcing. Perhaps the rapid infux of Asian influences has met the ready and willing supply of small farmers and fish  / meat providers?

Maybe what we are seeing is "Canadian cusine" as a mirror of the many peoples and many sources of inspiration? Eh?

Would we say that either Tucson or Manhattan offer truly American cuisine (whatever that is?

[Mallet]

There is a really interesting series of archived video and radio clips on the CBC archives.

Canadian Food

Of particular note is Colonel Sanders (of KFC fame) blasting Canadian cooking in a 1957 interview.