Traditional holiday foods and treats
Christmas feasting is a huge part of the holiday season anywhere you go. Canada inherited its traditional turkey dinner from the British, and it is widely available and usually served with stuffing, mashed potatoes, vegetables, gravy and cranberry sauce. Many of the Fairmont hotels across Canada offer a delicious holiday menu, complete with turkey and the fixings.
In Quebec (and really any French-Canadian community), families gather on Christmas Eve and sometimes New Year’s Eve to enjoy Tourtière, an absolutely delicious meat pie, the origins of which can be traced to French settlers in the 1600s. While recipes vary from family to family and chef to chef, most are made using pork or a mix of pork, veal or game and spiced with cloves, nutmeg and allspice.
[ Read: Things to do in Quebec ]
For dessert, bûche de Noël — literally “log of Christmas” — is a decadent rolled sponge cake richly decorated to look like a log. The cakes first appeared in Paris in the 1870s and soon after in Quebec. The log aspect, however, has roots in ancient times, where the ashes from a special log burned at solstice brought families good luck.
Chicken bones are another unique Canadian holiday treat — and, no, they are not made with chicken. These hard pink cinnamon candies with chocolate centres are shaped like chicken bones and are looked forward to every year as gifts and treats. They were invented in 1885 in Saint Stephen, New Brunswick by Ganong, Canada’s longest standing family owned and operated chocolate company.
In Ontario’s Niagara region, the holiday season lines up nicely with the much-anticipated ice wine season. These treasured vintages are made from grapes harvested after they freeze, which concentrates their natural sugar and results in distinctively sweet, flavourful dessert wines. Many Niagara wineries participate in events and tours, as well as wine and food pairing.
Explore Niagara on our Canadian History and Culture by Rail trip.
