Northern Exposure: Uncovering Canadian Specialty Foods

If Canada has a food tradition, it's that the food is really good," says Canadian food writer Anita Stewart. "The ingredients we have here are among the best in the world." Robust cheddars and delicate chevres aged to perfection; fresh seafood from cold Canadian waters; juicy berries begging to be cooked for preserves; flavorful grapes and tart apples for making spectacular wines and ciders — these are just a few of the temptations that keep this Canadian tradition very much alive.

But while our neighbors to the north produce a dazzling array of specialty foods, somehow we have largely overlooked their efforts. Perhaps it's because Canada doesn't seem far enough away to make its foodstuffs an exotic import and not close enough to give its goods homegrown panache. It's as if we put Canadian foods into some "other" category that we're not quite sure what to do with. Well, it's high time we learned.

Canada may be in our backyard, but in many respects, it's a long way from home. It's a different country with a culture all its own — a culture with many layers, each as distinctly different as Alanis Morisette is from Celine Dion. Like the U.S., Canada is home to many different ethnic groups, each of which bring the flavors of their cuisines to the country's collective table. But what they do with those flavors is uniquely Canadian. "Because we have so much space, we're not a melting pot," explains Stewart, author of The Flavours of Canada (Raincoast Books, 2000). "We tend to keep our ethnic traditions."

Myra Clement, commercial attaché for the Quebec Government, agrees. "These products remain authentic," she asserts. "So you'll see a couscous from North Africa that is truly Moroccan or a proscuitto that tastes like what you'd find in Italy," she explains. One benefit to U.S. retailers, says John Porter, trade advisor for the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, is that you can "get these authentic recipes and get them much less expensively from Canada than you could abroad."

In addition to French cheesemakers crafting Vacherin in Quebec or first-generation Italians producing proscuitto in Ontario, Canada also boasts native foods that rival the finest examples from around the world. High-quality wheat, mustard, seafood, berries, game, and more abound. The integrity of these ingredients is no secret to some. "Our fresh fish is shipped to Boston, our unprocessed mustard is sent to Dijon, and we're selling much of our wheat to Italy," says Stewart. Talk about a testament to quality.

Another reason we haven't fully realized Canada's wealth of specialty foods is that Canadians are not ones to wave the maple leaf about their culinary accomplishments; they are understated. Stewart, who is also a founder of Cuisine Canada, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the promotion of Canada's regional cuisines, says communication has been the organization's biggest challenge. "That's why this book [The Flavours of Canada] is so important. It says, 'Hey guys, we're all right.'"

And Stewart ought to know. She's nibbled and quaffed her way through Canada researching the very best of what her country has to offer. She's happy to report that her homeland is bursting with flavors, a fact she aptly depicts in her book by presenting a feast of regional specialties, organic and natural foods, and artisanal products.

She's not alone in her zeal for Canadian fare. Jane Rodmell, president of the Toronto-based specialty foods store All the Best Fine Foods, finds the path from Nova Scotia to Vancouver Island ripe with gourmet goodies. "There are quite a number of artisan producers in Canada, and you will find treasures if you look," asserts Rodmell. Among them are the culinary gems we're going to tell you about here.

C'est Cheese

The cheese-making tradition in Canada goes back some 130 years. According to Stewart, it started with the production of cheddar at Ivanhoe Cheese in Ontario. Founded in 1870, Ivanhoe is still in business, making it Canada's oldest cheese company. Just a little more than two decades later, Trappist monks made the first Oka, a full-flavored semisoft cow's milk cheese, in the town of the same name. While the cheese is now made by Agropur, Canada's largest dairy cooperative, it is still aged in the original monastery's cellars.

Today, Canada produces some spectacular cheeses from cow's, goat's, and sheep's milk. Some of Stewart's favorites include the sheep's milk cheeses of David Wood from Saltspring Island in British Columbia; a goat's milk cheese from Alberta called Natricia that she says, "is one of the best"; and Thunder Oak Gouda made near Thunder Bay.

But that's only the tip of the iceberg. Canada is dotted with small dairy producers that are crafting world-class cheeses. "There's been a tremendous growth in artisanal cheese making. It's growing by leaps and bounds," says Clement. In Quebec, the cheese scene is decidedly French influenced, but with a uniquely Canadian spin. "These cheese producers already compete in international competitions, and Quebec cheeses have beaten out many of their French counterparts," says Clement.

At All the Best Fine Foods, Rodmell carries Chaput Vacherin of Pierre-Yves Chaput, a Canadian cheese which she believes rivals what you'd find in France. Such a distinction is not surprising when she explains that the cheese master learned his craft in France. "So the Vacherin is very much like what you'd find in France with the crust on the outside and the succulent interior like Vacherin Mont d'Or." The washed rind cheese, which is made with the raw milk of Canadian cows, is cellar-ripened in Norwegian spruce. "The cheese master's skill is not only in production but in ripening," she asserts. "Our customers love them."

But as Rodmell is quick to note, some things are beyond compare. "There are a number of cheeses that are in quite small production in Quebec that are really very credible as cheeses in their own right — you don't have to compare them to anything else," she says. The full-flavored blue-veined cheeses of Bénédictin from Abbaye Saint-Benoît in Saint-Benoît-du-Lac, for example. Or some of Ontario's great cheddars, such as the ones made from raw milk by Fromagerie Albert Peron in Saint-Prime and Maple Dale's four-year-old cheddar.

Canada has also established itself as a producer of quality goat cheese. Rodmell has no trouble stocking her cheese case with a range of stellar examples, including Chaput's raw milk goat cheese that is made in the tradition of the Loire goat cheeses. In Ontario, Woolwich Dairy, one of Canada's oldest goat cheese producers, turns out delicious chevre and goat's milk cheddars. Another of Rodmell's picks are the Traditional Acadian Goat's Milk Cheeses from La Ferme d'Acadie in Nova Scotia. And a range of both fresh and aged goat cheeses comes from Fromagerie Tournevent in Quebec.



Sea Struck

Fish and seafood have always been integral to the Canadian diet. Thousands of years ago when the first people came to this continent, they settled in coastal British Columbia. "They became the people of the salmon," writes Stewart, "for fish was their most important food." And how it was cooked was as important as the fish itself. It was prepared in bentwood boxes, Canada's only indigenous cooking method, explains Stewart. These cedar boxes were filled with water to which fire-hot rocks were added. When the water boiled, seafood was added, and a mat was placed over the box to allow the fish to steam.

Today, seafood remains an important ingredient in Canadian cooking, and cedar is still a popular means of flavoring it. Rodmell recently discovered a cedar jelly from a company called Forbes Wild Foods. Used as a glaze for salmon, its flavor is reminiscent of the days when salmon was cooked on cedar planks over campfires. Smoked salmon is also tremendously popular among Canadians, so Rodmell carries fresh-smoked salmon, as well as a fully cooked alder wood-smoked Sockeye salmon that is vacuum sealed in a foil pouch. But there are other fish in the Canadian seas.

"There's been quite a lot of development in products of the sea," observes Rodmell, who describes the Canadian seafood scene as "very creative and full of entrepreneurial spirit." Specialty manufacturers are putting a fresh spin on ingredients that have been a part of the Canadian food culture for thousands of years. One of those is oysters produced by Smokey Bay Oysters, a shelf-stable seafood that Rodmell finds are "very good to slip into gift baskets." Served as appetizers, these oysters are smoked, seasoned, and vacuum packed. She also points to a line of natural smoked seafood pâtés from SeaChange, including Smoked Salmon Pâté, Crab Pâté, and Lobster Pâté.



Game Canada

Canada's heartland, consisting of the provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba, is where the great grains grow and the buffalo roam. Here again, with products like bison patties, Canadians bring a modern-day twist to the elements that have been a part of their food culture for thousands of years.

And it doesn't stop there. "There's been a significant growth in high-end French-inspired foie gras, game meats, and fowl," says Clement. "It's something you can expect to see a good deal more of, she adds. "Even though the economy is not as strong as it used to be, people want an experience when they dine," she asserts. "Instead of ordering steak or lamb, people are becoming more and more experimental." So now in addition to pork, which has always been Quebec's number one export to the U.S., you'll see game like caribou, bison, and red deer stepping up to the plate, she says.

If red deer and bison are a bit too wild for your customers, many of these companies also specialize in the sort of decadent fare we're more accustomed to — for instance, foie gras and terrines. La Maison du Gibier, located in Quebec, is one such company. They offer everything from foie gras to boar to Barbary duck. Rodmell and her customers can't get enough of its "fabulous" duck and pistachio terrine. Her other classic, French-style terrines, come from Summersweet Fine Foods. She also carries both duck and goose foie gras from Quebec, home to numerous foie gras producers, including Élevages Périgord and Aux Champs D'Élisé.

Great Grains and More from the Plains

"Grains we are good at," asserts Rodmell of her fellow Canadians. And the central part of the country is the most important grain-growing area. A few of her favorite things in this category include a certified organic wild rice from Northern Lights, and a pasta made from durum semolina at Nature's Pasta in Manitoba, which she says, rivals Italian pasta. Mustard is another important crop on the Plains, and there are producers throughout the area making incredible jars of the stuff, she notes.

The Canadian Plains also provide fertile land for growing the rapeseed plant from which canola oil is made. It isn't olive oil, laughs Rodmell, knowing how popular the green oil is with American consumers. But it's not trying to be. What it offers is a tasty alternative. She carries an organic cold-press canola oil from Highland Crossing Farm near Calgary, Alberta. This golden and nutty oil is very flavorful, and not like any canola oil we've tried before, she assures. "It's a very good product."



Preserving Passions

"We are like you in the States — we have a growing number of artisanal and regional entrepreneurs who are dedicated to the promotion of specialty food across the country," observes Rodmell. "In every region as you go across the country, you will find small entrepreneurs making wonderful foods." Like, for example, on the Niagara Peninsula, where you'll find people using the region's abundant fruits to make specialty preserves.

In this warmest part of Ontario, fruit and wine grapes thrive. Here a new organization called Niagara Presents has recently been launched. The group has established a commercial kitchen where local berry pickers with a passion for preserves can reserve time to make everything from gooseberry jam to peach salsa to bring to market.

For her store, Rodmell looks for these more regional, unique products in the preserves category. "The small fruits, the ones that are perhaps forgotten in the mass market — red currants, gooseberries, blackberries — the fruits that aren't as common on the shelves," she explains. She also looks for unique combinations like pear ginger or lime apricot ginger. Or as Rodmell puts it, "combinations of fruits and citrus that set the mouth tingling."



Sublime in a Bottle

Canada's fabulous fruits are also used to make a variety of specialty beverages from ice wines to apple cider to eau de vie. Canada is the world's largest producer of ice wine. The wine is produced in the winter after the wine grapes have frozen on the vines. The icy grapes are harvested and pressed immediately. The effect is delicious. Just ask the folks at Ontario's Inniskillin winery, whose 1989 Vidal was a winner at the international wine competition Vinexpo.

"Canada produces the best ice wines in the world," says Vincent Mancuso, executive director of The Canadian Association of Specialty Foods. Not content to leave it at that, "specialty food manufacturers are taking a spin on what we do best," he says. They're creating unique beverages like iced wine chocolate truffle. There's even a smoked salmon in ice wine (Sealane Gourmet Foods) on the market, notes Mancuso.

From their many apple orchards, Canadians also make apple ice wines and ice cider. As the apples would fall from the branches if allowed to freeze on the tree, these beverages are made using temperature to concentrate flavor.

The growing popularity of such wines has encouraged Canada's recent establishment of a fruit wine association that will control standards. For this reason, Stewart believes that we'll see many more quality fruit wines entering the market in the next five years. Canada is already making wine from apples, berries, peaches, Bosc pears, and, of course, maple syrup. Stewart's favorite is Sève, a maple syrup eau de vie that she says is not too sweet, but strong and good. She also recommends a sparkling, low-alcohol maple beverage called Sevillant.

Canada also holds its own in the traditional wine category. "Canadian wines are really underrated by the world," says Stewart. "We're starting to make some excellent red wines. But white wines have always been our forte. We tend not to do the big, oaky California-style white wines," she notes. "Many of the best wines are made by small producers that you don't see out of the region."

But when it comes to Canadian beverages, beer is big. The microbrewed trend is as popular in Canada as it is here at home. Quebec, in particular, is home to many specialty beer producers such as Ferme et Brasserie Schoune (they even make a maple beer), La Brasserie McAuslan, and Unibroue. In 1996, Unibroue's Blanche de Chambly made from unmalted wheat and pale barley malt was named "the best white in the world" by the Chicago-based Beverage Tasting Institute.



Organics Up There

"We're producing a lot of organics," says Mancuso. "It's one sector that is growing now and I would think in the next year or two, it's really going to burst." If the stellar success enjoyed by many of the specialty companies that have introduced organic products of late is any indication, he's right. Take Victor's Specialty Foods, for example. The company recently introduced organic nuts and customers are crazy for them. "They make maple syrup-covered peanuts that are incredible," says Mancuso. "You've never tasted anything like it."

Other specialty producers, such as Denman Island Chocolate in British Columbia, are launching organic products. The company's high-end organic dark chocolate has met with phenomenal success. With its enticing flavors of Zesty Orange, Cool Mint, and Espresso Chunk, Denman Island more than tripled the number of outlets carrying its bars in one year. "It's a very powerful chocolate," says Rodmell, whose organic selection has increased in recent years. "Customers are concerned about the purity of foods. People are reading labels. And we promote that as part of our business — that we know where these products come from."



Northern Delights

All this talk of Canadian cuisine and we have not so much as mentioned good old-fashioned maple syrup. "There's been a great misconception that maple syrup is all we produce," says Porter of the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture. And while nothing could be finer over a stack of steaming flapjacks, Porter wants the world to know: "We offer everything from soup to nuts."

Stewart, who has tasted every inch of the Canadian culinary spectrum, says it best in her Flavours of Canada: "Canadian cuisine is the shore-shattered iceberg that pops and fizzes in your drink at an inn on Cape Onion on the Great Northern Peninsula of Newfoundland. It's a cranberry bog near Huntsville, Ontario, and an orchard of heritage apples on Saltspring Island, British Columbia," she writes. "It's the utter glory of foie gras and cave-aged Migneron cheese. It's a warehouse full of aging proscuitto, hanging in perfect rows like giant saffron-colored teardrops, and huge wheels of golden cheddar cheese." And it's right next door.