LCBO Food & Drink Summer 2017

STAPLES CANADIAN CLASSICS

CORN

Corn is the gift of Mexican devel- opment thousands of years ago, grown in our part of North America a good half millennium before Europeans arrived, and an honoured part of the Three Sisters

(corn, beans and squash) of First Nations agriculture. Canadians love corn, but eating it on the cob breaks the rules of fine din- ing. In Through Cities and Prairie Lands: Sketches of an American Tour , novelist and travel writer Lady Duffus Hardy described fel- low passengers steaming up the St. Lawrence River in 1881. At the captain’s table, noticing a dish of corn cobs “looking white and tempting,” she asks for a small piece. Flummoxed about how to proceed, she glances at her neighbours: “Every one is holding a cob with his two hands, and, beginning at one end, nibbles along as though he were playing a flute till he gets to the other. I don’t think is worth the trouble of eating, though is considered a great dainty on this side of the Atlantic.” Well, Canadians have paid no heed. Corn is summer—bar- becued and boiled, as street food with lime and chili, as tamales, porridge, polenta, fritters and chowder, salads, cornbread, muf- fins, relishes and festival food. And we still pick it up in our hands and nibble from one end to the other.

CANADA DAY STRAWBERRY SHORTCAKE recipe on page 144

WILD RICE 10

PRESERVES Preserves once meant survival. Eastern First Nations made sagamité, a mix of dried hominy corn and animal fat, easy to convert into a nutri- tious stew. In the West, they had pemmican, a nutritious convenience food of dried buffalo, berries and fat. To prepare for winter, Canada has taken advantage of every preserving technique: salting fish, pork and beef; smoking hams; fermenting cabbages into sauerkraut; canning peaches and tomatoes; pickling beets and eggs; and jamming fresh ber- ries. Thanks to modern freezers, we no longer need to preserve the harvest to survive. But many Canadians continue to make their grand- mother’s garlicky chutneys or enjoy a corned beef sandwich. Strawberries also preserve well, and I’m not the first Canadian to encourage Ottawa to proclaim Strawberry Shortcake as Canada’s National Dessert. It’s perfect! Not only is it red and white, but strawberries are in season on our national holiday. And they have a long history— from First Nations festivals honouring “the leader of the berries” to strawberry socials, bringing communities together from Victorian times until today. True strawberry shortcake is made with fresh baking powder bis- cuits and combines whipped cream and berries, whole and crushed. But in this recipe, to celebrate Canada’s prowess in preserving, the straw- berries are preserved in an old-fashioned Platter Strawberry Jam.

Wild rice is a uniquely North American crop and, like corn,

salmon and maple, an essential source of the First Nations diet and culture. With its nutty taste, it has long been a Canadian

delicacy, an elite crop, but bringing wild rice from its traditional habi- tat, the still waters of the Great Lakes region, to your plate has always been hard work. Gathering it is “a tedious process” in the words of Catherine Parr Traill in The Canadian Settler’s Guide , published in 1855, especially since wild rice doesn’t ripen all at the same time. The time-honoured method was to bend the wild rice over the gunwales of canoes while crisscrossing rice beds and to tap the kernels into the canoes. Drying, then parching and pounding to remove hulls, followed. Harvesting is now mechanized. Air boats scoop up the kernels into catch trays as they skim the rice beds, and the rice is mechanically dried and threshed. Look for long slender shiny kernels and reward yourself with a taste of Canada.

FOOD & DRI NK SUMMER