When it comes to Canadian cuisine, most of us can probably rattle off a few examples from the top of our heads, whether its poutine or maple syrup or smoked salmon or bannock.
But the food culture of Canada is much more than just that, says Lenore Newman in her bookSpeaking in Cod Tongues: A Canadian Culinary Journey, published in January by the University of Regina Press.
Believe it or not, our country's cuisine also encompasses less-Canadian sounding dishes like the Japadog, inside-out sushi and ginger beef, along with many recipes incorporating things we may not necessarily think of as particularly Canadian, like blackberries and freshwater fish, even though they literally come from the land this country occupies.
Our collective blindspot regarding our national cuisine, says Newman, can partially be explained by the vastness of our country and the diversity of its peoples and geography: even dishes that ascend to national icon status, like poutine, she points out, are fairly recent inventions that began as regional specialties, in some cases actually named for the place they were first created, like the famed Nanaimo bar. Because of this vastness and diversity, Newman says, Canadian cuisine has become less about particular dishes and ingredients and more about adapting to what ingredients are available and turning them into expressions of Canadian-ness.
Newman, an associate professor of geography at the University of the Fraser Valley in British Columbia, where she holds the Canada Research Chair in Food Security and the Environment, comes by her interest in food and its origins as a member of a fishing family, and leaves no stone unturned in her cross-country quest to discover both the stereotypes and hidden gems of Canadian cuisine. She eats the cod tongues of the book's title - which are actually small fatty pieces of flesh from under the fish's jaw that that are combined with the cheek meat and fried up with pork scrunchions and perhaps some carrots and potatoes - in Cornerbrook, Newfoundland and a seaweed salad with daikon and fresh squid in Tofino, B.C. on the west coast of Vancouver Island, as well as Arctic char in Yellowknife during her culinary road trip.
