Weather, hockey, bilin­gual­ism, huge­ness… what was I say­ing already? Sorry, I lost my con­cen­tra­tion. I was writ­ing my Canadian-ism series and sud­denly got hun­gry. And there I am, one hand on the key­board, the other one hold­ing a small maple syrup candy. Sweet as hell, I’m high on sugar. Alright, let me see…

Yes, Cana­dian treats. Good. Sweet stuffs to help us sur­vive harsh win­ter. Just have a look at that!

Canada’s trade­mark sweet is of course maple syrup and its many derivate prod­ucts such as:

• Maple but­ter, a creamy spread
• Maple sugar, a sim­ple sweet
• Maple tof­fee on snow, to be eaten outdoor
• Maple but­ter tart, noth­ing sweeter
• Maple ice wine, a dessert wine
• Maple vinai­grette, per­fect for sweet sal­ads
  

Among my favorite are also:

Beaver tails that are also a typ­i­cal piece of Canadian-ism, although pop­u­lar every­where in North Amer­ica : it’s a piece of fried dough, usu­ally with some sweet spread on top (yes, maple syrup is of course a favorite!). Mostly eaten at fes­ti­vals and dur­ing out­door activ­i­ties, it’s a win­ter favorite.

The famous but­ter tart is said to have evolved from pecan pie brought North by slaves from the US: the flaky pas­try with a fill­ing of but­ter, eggs and brown sugar is sim­ply deli­cious… It’s prob­a­bly the most char­ac­ter­is­tic Cana­dian pas­try and one of our ear­li­est known recipe.

Nanaimo bars are a West coast del­i­cacy — yel­low cus­tard sand­wiched between two outer lay­ers of choco­late — are avail­able through­out the coun­try, all cof­fee shops serve it here, includ­ing Star­bucks that pop­u­lar­ized it abroad.

Mon­treal bagels, brought by Jew­ish immi­grants from East­ern Europe, are almost as famous as their NY coun­ter­parts, while a bit smaller, denser and sweeter thanks to the honey added and are baked in wood-fired oven.

See, North Amer­i­can isn’t just about fast food and deep fried stuffs!

Oh man… I’m hun­gry now!

Related arti­cles:

1. Pic­ture of the Week: Maple Toffee
2. 10 Things You Must Eat (Or Drink) In Canada
3. Things I Love/ Hate About Cana­dian Food
4. Cana­dian Souvenirs
5. The Food Saga: The Sweets