639. Smoked Meat

You know how an entire year ago I went on vacation to Quebec? Well, for some reason it took me this whole time to realise that I did in fact have smoked meat whilst I was there and I took a picture and I should have posted it on the blog. Quite how I managed to forget for 12 full months is beyond me; I’m a huge ditz obviously. Anyway, my smoked meat was served on top of poutine, which was probably just about the best thing ever. If anyone can tell me a better combination than chunky chips, cheese, rich gravy and piles of salty, smoky meat, then I will probably not believe them. I’ll just be over here googling flights to Canada.

639 down, 1157 to go

620. Butter Tarts

When I went to my friend’s for Canadian Thanksgiving, there were not one but four different desserts - pumpkin pie, pumpkin cheesecake, date squares, and these butter tarts. Of them all these were my favourite and I still absolutely have to get the recipe so that I can make some myself. Basically they are slightly like a pecan pie. They are little pastry tart cases filled with a mixture of chopped pecans with lots of butter and sugar, and they taste fantastic.

620 down, 1176 to go

448. Maple Candy

This (unsurprisingly) is another one from Quebec. My list specified only maple candy, and on seeing the multitude of varieties available (hard candy, fudge, creams, pressed sugar…) I decided that the way to go was definitely the maple taffy. It looked the most fun, the most delicious, and the most mapley. I had never seen them do this before so I was very excited. Literally they pour maple syrup out onto snow, leave it for a minute or so, and then you roll it up on a stick and suck it like a lollipop. You could pretty much feel your teeth falling out, but oh my god was it delicious. Absolutely a must try if you go to Quebec.

448 down, 1348 to go

139. Poutine

I’ve wanted to try poutine for ages, I’ve always liked chips and gravy so it seemed a logical step. This wasn’t entirely authentic as it was with cheddar rather than the traditional cheese curds, but it was still really good. I had half of this bowl and I could easily have eaten a bunch more. It’s definitely an extra incentive to go back to Canada.

139 down, 1657 to go