A while ago, I was invited by The Writer to talk about Cana­dian food I like…or hate. I loved the idea, but I needed time in order to take pictures.

So here my food list! This was actu­ally hard. Canada is such a mul­ti­cul­tural coun­try, we all tend to eat eth­nic food. I could list Chi­nese, Indian, Viet­namese dishes I loved or hate, but Cana­dian? I needed to think. Over­all, the food here is quite straight­for­ward. No insects, no blood sausage, noth­ing too weird. Yet, I have my pet peeves!

Things I love:

My top Cana­dian favorite is still maple syrup. Yes, it is extra sweet but it’s also deli­cious on pan­cakes or in plain yogurt. I also like maple tarts, pecan pies or but­ter tarts, all Cana­dian specialties.

I also like maple toffy, which is boiled maple sap poured onto snow and then lifted with a stick. It’s a win­ter treat and a great incen­tive to go out when it’s –30C. BBQ would be the sum­mer favorite. Even though I don’t eat much meat, a real BBQ is some­thing to expe­ri­ence and it’s quite tasty.

We are lucky to have a lot of fresh and cheap veg­gies, mostly thanks to Canada’s fer­tile soil… and import­ing from our South­ern neigh­bors! I always have toma­toes, zuc­chi­nis, bell pep­pers, mush­rooms, cel­ery, egg­plants etc. in my fridge and I love vegetables.

American-style din­ers are inter­est­ing places. Most of time, these restau­rants are cheap and the food is plenty and tasty. Sweet pota­toes fries, home­made burg­ers, sal­ads etc. are always on the menu.

Things I don’t like:

Please, don’t take my cit­i­zen­ship away!

I can’t stand pou­tine, the Que­bec spe­cialty. It is basi­cally a dish con­sist­ing of French fries topped with fresh cheese curds, cov­ered with brown gravy and some­times addi­tional ingre­di­ents such as smoked meat (or what­ever the kitchen can find). Just look­ing at it, I can feel my arter­ies clog­ging… I can’t believe some peo­ple eat that at lunch, at work! And this is hugely pop­u­lar, trust me.

Tim Hor­tons is prob­a­bly the most pop­u­lar food fran­chise in Canada and I still don’t totally under­stand why. The cof­fee is basi­cally very sweet burn­ing hot brown­ish water and the pas­tries are way to sweet — yet, Cana­di­ans line up reli­giously every morn­ing at the counter to get their fix. I hate Tim­bits, the bite sized donuts ball (basi­cally, the left-over dough from donuts, since donuts have a hole in the mid­dle), sold usu­ally in a box of twenty. I just don’t get it.

Another one… pump­kins. Around Hal­loween, a lot of peo­ple buy pump­kin to carve and dis­play. But sud­denly, in the food indus­try, every­thing has to be “pumpkin-flavored”. I don’t mind a pump­kin soup. But pump­kin cakes, drinks etc.? Er… no.

I can’t stand fast food either, and there are a lot of them around here! Don’t get me wrong: I like burg­ers. But home­made burg­ers. Fast food are greasy, dirty and the por­tion size is crazy. The one I hate the most if K.F.C (it doesn’t even look like chicken!), fol­lowed by Mcdon­alds, Burger King, Wendys etc. Actu­ally, the only fast food I actu­ally go to from time to time is Sub­way. At least, I can rec­og­nize what I eat.

And finally… hot dogs! Once the weather is warm enough, this is really pop­u­lar. Hot Dog stands are found every­where, espe­cially down­town, and the line up at noon is quite impres­sive. I still don’t under­stand why peo­ple like sausage on a bun…

I’d like to tag:

• Blue­fish, author of Between Canada And Den­mark, who is going to move to Denmark
• Diane, author of DianeCA’s Meta­mor­phoses, who is Amer­i­can and liv­ing in Norway
• Bar­bara, from Home in France, who is from Hawaii but has been liv­ing in France for a long time
• Au Soleil Lev­ant, whose author is Amer­i­can and spent two years in France
• Priyank, author if Final Tran­sit, who is from India and lives in Toronto (I might dis­cover other Cana­dian foods I love… or hate!)

Related arti­cles:

1. 5 Things My Mum Observed in Canada
2. Pic­ture of the Week: Cana­dian “I Love You”
3. Food In Numbers
4. 10 Cana­dian Restaurants
5. Fast Food, Junk Food (4÷10)