Happy Birthday Canada

July 1st is Canada Day or our nation's birthday. Tomorrow this young country will turn 141 and I'm every bit a proud Canadian as I am Greek.

Canada is a nation of the Native peoples, the French and English majority and the multicultural mosaic that's made up of all the other ethnicities.

I'm grateful for the opportunity Canada gave to my parents and my family to begin a new life where hard work was rewarded, that one could achieve any goal if they set their mind to it, a country full of tolerance, peaceful and safe.

Jasmine of Confessions of a Cardamom Addict emailed me to see if I was interested in participating in a food event that captured the essence of Canadian flavours and foods.

Canada has some of the best that International cuisine has to offer and this is large part due to the rich tapestry of ethnicities within our borders.

After asking my parents and brother what food(s) captured the essence of Canada's food...a unanimous reply was French Fries and Gravy.

What's unique about Canada's fries & gravy is the Montreal specialty of Poutines. Poutines are basically a dish of french fries, cheese curds and gravy.

This dish will NOT appear on the menu of any diets currently being exercised but you only live once, life's not a dress rehearsal and Poutines are too damn delicious to not indulge in every now & then.

Cheese curds have the combined texture of Mozzarella and Halloumi and although widely available in Canada, some difficulty will be had in finding them elsewhere.

What you need here are french fries, cheese curds (Mozzarella is the closest alternative) and a deep brown gravy made from a rich beef stock.

There's no real recipe here other than to do your French Fries properly, seek out cheese curds and make a kick-ass, deeply flavourful and thick beef gravy.

Happy Canada Day!

French Canadian Pea Soup

For those not in the know, Canada is a bilingual country where our two official languages are French and English. Most of the Francophones live in the province of Quebec and some families can trace their roots to the first settlers in North America.

English and French Canadians are similar yet different. I won't get into Canadian politics but French-Canadians are a unique bunch. Did you know that advertisers have to devise totally separate campaigns for Quebecers? They do have varying tastes: prefer Pepsi to Coke, a strange love of corn dogs, a sweet spot for rich snack cakes (Mae west) and they like to spread pork fat (Creton) on toast.

Beyond some of their quirky eating habits, the Quebecois also have a rich history of loving food and of having a wonderfully delicious local cuisine.

One of my favourite French-Canadian soups is the the Split Pea Soup. It's a very simple dish but it requires one quality ingredient...a smoked ham hock.

At first, you wonder if this dish will amount to anything good but allow the simmering of the ham to extract all it's flavour. This is one of my favourite soups for it's ease in preparation, high taste factor and very comforting.


French-Canadian Pea Soup

1 smoked ham hock
one 16oz. package of yellow split peas
2 carrots, thinly sliced
1 medium onion, chopped
7 cups of water
1/2 tsp. ground allspice
1 tsp. ground pepper
1 bay leaf
salt to taste

1. In a large pot, add the water, ham hock, split peas, allspice, onions, carrots, peppercorns and bay leaf.
   
2. Bring to a boil then cover and reduce to a simmer. Cook on medium-low heat for approx. an hour.
3. Remove the ham hock and bay leaf from the soup. Adjust seasoning of the soup with salt and pepper. Using your hand blender, puree the soup to the consistency of your choice (I left some peas in tact).
4. Using a fork and knife, scrap the meat off the bone and flake the meat into bite sized pieces. Add your ham meat back into the soup, stir in and serve hot.