Canadian Folk!

[Nutsy]

My DS 14 has a home economics assignment to do on an International Cultural Cuisine & he has tentativley decided on Canada. With Canada having a French Province as well as British, we feel he would need to cover both aspects as they both make up the country of Canada.

He needs to know....

How people select, prepare, cook & consume food
Clothing
Shelter
Special events......eg. births, marriages, deaths, birthdays, anniversaries, special ceremonies


Availability of food & other resources
Cultural beliefs, ideas & traditions
Financial restraints (economy)
Technological infulences
Religion
Any other aspect relevant to the country or culture


He also need to choose two dishes to prepare that is suitable for buffet service. One is to be a main course & the other a dessert.

I thought perhaps a main from the British side a dessert from the French.

Any help anyone can give us would be much appreciated.

Also, if anyone knows of a good site where we could print out a flag from, it would be much apreciated.

Thanks heaps in advance.

Any info, no matter how little or big all helps.


__________________

 

[DSNY FN]

Well as for clothes we wear just about the same things as people in the US you now jeans t shirts suits and ties etc same basic name brands like Polo and Tommy Calvin stuff like that. Houses we have your standard single family homes semi detached homes townhouses/condos apartments farms etc. We usually just have a b day party out at a play area like Adventures on Wonderland it is a big play area fort he kids with a ball pit and jungle jim type stuff. Or at Mc Donalds and then we have the family party with parents grandparents etc at the house and order pizza or bbq depending on what child and what season we are in. I don't think religion plays as big a role in Canada as it does in the US I know for a fact that just about everyone I know has gone to church but does not go often only sometimes at Christmas etc and do not practice their relgion. Traditions I would have to say that Canada is hockey crazy we love the game and our country in general embraces it. No not all of us do but the vast majority love hockey and I guess you could say speaking from my vbiew it is almost like a religion to us it is after all as they say Canada's game. Our official second language is french not that I really know much of it my daughter is going to french immesion public school as a parent I can find many reasons on doing this one is the employment benefits you gain by being fully biligual and fluent in both english and french. Not to sure what else to tell you I am sure there will be alot of others here that can help you out a great deal more than I have.

Darren

 

[Debbie]

For your food, you might want to consider the reverse. Main dish-French-tortière --a traditional dish after Christmas Eve mass (Quebec is largely Roman Catholic). For your desser, I'd pick Nanaimo Bars from BC.

Add barbecue cooking in the summer, although many diehards will BBQ all year round.

Good luck!

 

[CdnDisneyNut]

Here is a link for Canadian Flag Clip Art

 

[faithinkarma]

Nanaimo bars is a brilliant idea !

 

[madge62]

Yup, they taste even better in their hometown!!!!

 

[faithinkarma]

Yup, they taste even better in their hometown!!!!

And I am embarrassed to admit I have never been west of Ontario. Embarassed because I have been to all of Eastern Canada and US, western US, and Europe, and yet I have never been to western Canada. I always thought there would be plenty of time to finish seeing Canada when I retired. Who knew I would move away?????

 

[Cruisin]

Wow, Nutsy, your kids sure get a lot of interesting projects to do for school don't they?

Most Canadians buy their food from supermarkets/grocery stores. These stores have a large variety of different foods. It is a one stop shopping experience for most Canadians I think. There are of course small specialty stores, such as bakeries, meat stores, vegetable markets etc that can be found but I think the average person uses the grocery store.

Canada is such a multi-cultural country that it is hard to answer questions such as how the food is prepared and cooked. Every culture has it's own methods. For a lot of people, it is whatever can be prepared quickly and easily, with a minimum of preparation.

Of course a big part of food consumption in Canada, as in the US is fast food that is purchased and eaten on the run. I think the ideal of families sitting down together to eat a meal just doesn't happen all that often anymore in Canada.

Special events such as deaths, weddings, birthdays are usually celebrated with food being a focal point of the celebration. Again it revolves around the ethnic background and traditions of each family. Some celebrations can be very elaborate with meals of many, many courses in length.

Good luck in finding the answers to the rest of your questions

 

[pumpkinboy]

I am with Debbie on Tourtière! Wasn't it originally made with rabbit tho? And another important feature of la Cuisine Québecoise would be Poutine (and that final "e" is so important to avoid offense) which is a dish composed of a bowl of freshly cooked french fries topped with cheddar cheese curds and then a greasy slightly spicy barbecue sauce (or is that officially "BBQ"?). There are a number of variations on this, including one called a Michigan for some reason which features a bolognese sauce. None are quite a delicious as Poutine.

Oh yes, and then there are all the Maple based dishes, the simplest being "Tir" or maple taffy, made with fresh made and hot maple syrup dripped on fine fresh snow (both in great abundance in Quéebec) then rolled up on a popsicle stick. Yum,

The thing about Canadian culture is that there is no single overriding culture (well, other than Ice Hockey, perhaps), but rather many depending on region and ethnicity, something of a mosaic. Heck it varies within Québec or even Prince Edward Island.

When I lived in Montréal I lived with a distant cousin of German descent, who was married to a Chilean in a Portuguese neighbourhood: so the 4 yr old at that point spoke German and Spanish with his parents, Portuguese with the neighbourhood kids and French and English when he got to preschool. I married into an Acadian family (French-speaking from the Maritime provinces) and in the process learned yet another dialect of French (a bizarre one too).

Now even tho I am a Yank (different from a Jerk, ya know) I am Canadian educated and I have been in 9 of the 10 provinces (all except Newfoundland). Unlike many of my countrymen, I actually know that many Canadians don't live in igloos, or dress entirely in beaverskin. Most are Mounties tho, at least according to the EPCOT exhibits .

Good luck!

 

[wdwmo]

Hi!

I have lived in the province of Quebec all my life. One side of the family is French and the other is English (British); i've always thought I had the best of both worlds - especially foodwise.

For the dessert part, we love sugar or maple syrup pies. We also have "Pouding Chomeur" which is made like an apple pouding but instead of the apples, you find ... sugar or maple syrup! Depending on what region of Quebec you are in - who find an abondance of berries and apples - so Bleuberry cobblers and apple desserts are very popular.

Anyway, you have a few ideas - if you need recipes - let me know!

Mo

 

[ChisJo]

Although we are all die-hard hockey fans, Lacross is still our national sport.
As for food, I believe anything with Saskatoon berries is pretty delicious as well. We grew up eating Tortiere and Saskatoon berry pie (oh, the memories..).
Anyways, good luck to your son with his project.
J

 

[pumpkinboy]

Originally posted by wdwmo
...For the dessert part, we love sugar or maple syrup pies. We also have "Pouding Chomeur" which is made like an apple pouding but instead of the apples, you find ... sugar or maple syrup! Depending on what region of Quebec you are in - who find an abondance of berries and apples - so Bleuberry cobblers and apple desserts are very popular...

Pouding Chomeur would translate to Unemployed Pudding That's hilarious! I always loved the little Québecois nicknames for things and people.

Alors wdwmo, a tu une recette pour Cretons?

 

[Nutsy]

Wow what interesting info.........thanks you guys. I like the sound of that apple pudding tho........may have to look into that a bit further & see just what it entails.

He has to make the stuff twice. First is a trail run & from there the teacher decides if it's suitable for the project or not.

Then a few weeks later it's done at school for the parents of each child to come & sample. We get to have dinner at school & taste food from different countries in the process.

Oh & we have to pay $5 each to eat it

 

[eleanor]

One of the big desserts around right now is dessert pizza. Easy aand very very good.Simple recipe if you want it.

 

[Baboo]

Hi Nutsy! Do you still have any of the recipes or the maple syrup I sent you for the recipe exchange? I think I sent the recipe for butter tarts, or maple butter tarts. This is a Canadian recipe and you can make them in a small tart pan or a regular one depending on how big you want the serving to be.

 

[DutchsMommy]

The above suggestions are great - hopefully you can find the ingredients!! I have included a link to a Canadian Gov't website for some of the other details you might need - ie. population, weather etc. From my travels I have found that Aussies are the closest people I can think of to Candians!! In general temperment, way of life, behaviour, humour etc. This is just my opinion, but when travelling Aussies and Canucks seem to get along the best. If your son needs to actually participate in an exchange program, he is welcome at my house and I'll just ship myself over there!!! LOL

I wonder if they have the recipe for "beaver tails" that they sell at Epcot on a Disney (or DisneyFan) website - because you could make those too!

Peameal bacon (or Canadian Bacon as it is know to the Americans) would also probably be considered "authentic Canadiana - not sure if you can get it in Australia though?



http://canada.gc.ca/acanada/acPubHome.jsp?font=0&lang=eng

 

[buzzlady]

This is great. My DS11 just told me this morning that he has a project that will in the end be a travel brochure. He is doing it on Canada. I will pass everyone's info. along to him.

 

[Susan--Ontario]

You've had lots of input in the food end so I'll try and answer some of your other questions.

Religion-- we have many religions here as all our ancestors (except the native Canadians) came here from other countries. We were first settled by French and English. We are a British Commonwealth country and therefore do have the Church of England here (Anglican). As someone else mentioned Quebec is predominantly Roman Catholic. So many of our special events include religious traditions such as baptism, marriage, funerals, etc.

Financial Restraints-- we pay very high taxes here. We are sort of a socialist country in that we have medicare, employment insurance, government pension plan, child tax credits, subsidized education. However, we don't pay quite high enough taxes so a lot of these items end up being co-pay. The rules sometimes change when the governments change. A more conservative government may spend less money and a more socialist party may spend more by borrowing. I say may because that can change depending on the will of the people.

Technologically we are very close to the Americans. The exchange of information across the border goes both ways.

If you have any specific questions once you've filtered out all the responses here, I'd suggest posting the question on a new post so that it is less confusing.

Hope this helps.

 

[tinkerbeth]

Don't forget DONUTS!! Tell your son to check out www.timhortons.com Poutine is another good one. Also, there's a neat salad from Quebec called "SAlade Niscoise" which is good.

Good luck!

Beth

 

[faithinkarma]

Financial Restraints-- we pay very high taxes here.

Amen to that !!! I am sitting here at my desk doing my taxes LOL


tinkerbeth

I forget how many years ago it was, more than ten at least. But when Dunkin Donuts came to the town in Quebec where I was living at the time, they set a WORLD record for the most donuts sold in a week.


Of course, seeeing that, Timmie's was not far behind LOL