Christmas is almost here, and ‘tis the season for your favourite food traditions. Be it sipping hot apple cider, baking cookies with grandma or sneaking into the kitchen to eat the crust of the tourtière, it’s hard to think of a Canadian Christmas ritual that isn’t tied to food.
Can't travel back home this Holiday Season? Worry not, we've gathered the top traditional Canadian Christmas recipes so you can recreate them at home, wherever you are. Merry Christmas!
1. Nanaimo Bars
This iconic no-bake Canadian dessert recipe comes straight from the heart of Nanaimo, British Columbia. It consists of a wafer crumb-based layer topped by a layer of custard flavoured butter icing which is covered with melted chocolate made from chocolate squares. In other words, perfection.
2. Butter Tarts
Did you know that Rosie Vasco, a 98-year-old woman from Ontario, issued a public apology to the Canadian people for adding raisins to her butter tart recipe?
"My sincere apologies to anyone who has ever innocently bitten into a butter tart, unaware that it is filled with raisins," Vasco said in a press conference from her nursing home. "I have spent my life haunted by guilt for the undue anguish my recipe has caused the bake sale community."
We're on the no-raisins team. Which team are you on?
3. French Canadian Tourtière
The tourtière is a traditional Québecois meat pie that combines ground pork and beef with potatoes, onions, and spices, all enveloped in a flaky, buttery pie crust. It is traditionally enjoyed on Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve.
4. Turkey!
Turkey still rules the day as the most traditional centerpiece for Canadian Christmas meals. A well-brined and well-roasted bird is sure to please the entire family.
5. Yule Log (Bûche de Noël)
Like in many countries, “la bûche de Noël”, the Yule Log is the ultimate Canadian Christmas dessert. Yummy, eh?
6. Trifle
Trifle is a traditional English dessert made by layering fruit, sponge fingers or cake soaked in sherry and custard. Although it is not a truly Canadian dish, it can be found in many canuck tables during Christmas.
7. Eggnog
No one's exactly sure how eggnog originated, but reports say the drink is a descendent of the medieval drink posset, a hot drink of sweetened and spiced milk curdled with ale or wine. We don't care much about it's history, we just like to drink it ;)
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