Food for thought

In the words of Oliver Twist:

”Food Glorious Food
We’re anxious to try it,
Three banquets a day
Our favourite diet!
Just picture a great big steak fried, roasted or stewed.
OH food MARVELOUS food, WONDERFUL food, FABULOUS food, BEAUTIFUL food,
GLORIOUS FOOD!”

 

We love good food. Joonas and I have dinner together every night and love to sit down with friends and family for a meal. So obviously, having landed in the mecca of foods we want to try as many new things as possible. Only this comes with a price, here more than ever we need to be aware of what and how much we’re eating and although there’s endless restaurants down the street to choose from, we’ve made a pact to eat home cooked meals for the majority. But of the things we’ve tasted so far, here’s a list of the best/weirdest!

1. Poutine. Poutine is to Canada what a lihapiirakka with every topping is to Finland, it’s the food you grab here on your way home from the bar rather than the two double cheeseburgers you’d get at the McDonald’s in Kammpi. It’s also a go-to hangover cure. And i have to say in all it’s weirdness, it is really good! Poutine consists of french fries covered in cheese curds and all this is swimming in brown gravy. It’s so rich and so salty that we’ve not actually made it through an entire plate of Poutine by ourselves but have had a shared one with some charred rotisserie chicken. This is a must have if you’re visiting Canada! 

2. Deep fried pickles. This one is just downright strange. Pickles are a huge thing here, you can get pickle flavoured this and that, you get a pickle on the side whenever you buy a sandwich and it’s gone so far that as a starter you can get a serving of deep frind pickles with sauce. I have to say I’m not a huge fan, but Joonas seemed to like them. They also come with a dipping sauce, which is usually garlic flavoured. On a side note, everything here comes with dipping sauce.. even pizza! 

3. Dill pickle flavoured chips. Keeping in line with the pickle-flavoured treats are these weird chips, which are also referred to as Dilly’s! They are super weird and not that great but Joonas has come to the conclusion that they are one of the best flavours of chips out there. To me, they taste like a bag of chips has accidently been submerged in one of those pickle barrels at Prisma, scooped out and refried. 

4. Chicken wings. Chicken wings are everywhere over here and they are aboslutely delicious!! Pizza and wings is a food staple in Canada, often they are sold together as a combo, which is fairly strange as neither of them complement each other but whatever – as I’ve been told here several times when pondering something that seems weird to me: ’Don’t even worry about it, Elli’. But yeah, chicken wings, you can get them fried or baked, breaded or not, with or without dipping sauce and in an endless number of flavours. There’s a wing place near our home called Wingporium which boasts 88 different flavours and I have to say the three flavours that we’ve tried have been very good although I’m not a fan of the breading so always ask for it without. All of you can probably imagine the mayhem that is Joonas when he is set free in a wing restaurant :D I think it’s pretty safe to say that chicken wings are in his top 5 Canadian experiences so far! 

5. Apples. This may seem like a weird addition to this list but for someone who’se apple repertoire has consisted of Granny Smiths and the occasional apple from someone’s yard I have fallen head over heels for Ontario apples. Sadly, the season is coming to a close but thankfully we’ve had a steady flow of apples at home since it started so we’ve probably has our fair share for this year. My absolute favourite is the Ontario Honey Crsip.. it combines the crunch and acidity of a granny smith, with the sweetness of a red apple and even looks like a morph of the two! If you ever come across a honey crisp somewhere, grab one and I promise it will change your life! 

6. Dougnuts. One thing I’ve noticed here is that Canadians are very proud of local produce and will favour it over imported goods. Also, local does not only mean Canadian but more specifically from Ontario or then the Great Toronto Area or the Burlington-Hamilton-Niagara Region (Check on google maps, if you’re interested! :D). Anyways, one of the best local food I have tried are the doughnuts but Donut Monster! They are a Hamilton based bakery whose philosophy is to make small, perfect batches and distribute to a few locations rather than mass produce nonsense and they have truely done a spectacular job. At McMaster we are lucky as our student center is on the distribution list on thursdays and fridays, which means that if you want a dougnut you have to get to school early otherwise you’ll be left staring at empty baskets with a tear in your eye. Every week they have new flavours but at the moment because it’s apple season and pumpkin season they have had apple fritters (kind of like a huge tippaleipä that is made out of doughnut batter and left soft and has chunks of apple in it) and pumpkin spice on their menu for the last couple of weeks.  

7. Skor. Skor is the North American equivalent of Daim only the chocolate covering it is not as good as on Daim but the crunchy inner part is even better! There is a store chain here called Bulk Barn which is essentially a shop where you can buy everything to do with cooking and baking by the kilo – kind of like a pick-n-mix but not only for candy. They have every sort of flour you could need, various types of seeds, grains, cereals, chocolates, nuts, pastas, dried fruits, coffee beans, tea leaves, drink mixes etc., they also have tens of different candies and, most surprisingly, an animal section with bones and chewies and stuff. But back to Skor, you can get crushed up skor bits from Bulk Barn, which are super good when you put them on vanilla ice cream! 

Bulk Barn

8. Wunderbar. Let’s just say that this chocolate bar is Cadbury’s gift to mankind. It is probably one of the best candy bars either of us have ever tasted. Its hard to describe, but essentially it’s just caramel and crushed peanuts covered in chocolate but the soft caramel combined with the crunch of the peanuts and the texture of the chocolated is a crazy good combination. Try one, if you every have the chance! 

Although we’ve had the chance to try alot of new things over here, there is still ALOT we haven’t tasted, but thankfully Rome was not built in a day and so we can take our time and spread out the calories evenly over the next couple of years :) But things we haven’t tried which we’re interested in are:
1. Home-made butter tarts. Apparently there is a butter tart trail that you can travel and the purpose is to just go from one bakery to the next eating tarts. 
2. Pumpkin pie
3.Beaver tails
4. Kraft Dinner a.k.a KD. Honestly, this is just instant macaroni and cheese in a box but we have it on good authority that it is something we need to try. Although, I’m going to have to leave it up to Joonas as it’s main ingredient is MSG :(
5. Swiss Chalet. This is a chain restaurant here, which is popular within the retiree population. Its core concept is rotisserie chicken and Chalet Sauce. I’m skeptical as to how good this really will be, but we’ll see! 
6. Ceasar. The Canadian version of a Bloody Mary in which the tomato juice has been switched to calamato – a spicy tomato and clam juice. Sounds super gross.

With these sweet and savoury greetings, I bid you farewell!
Eat, drink and be happy! 
– Elli