Cuisine of The Maritimes - Common Foods and Dishes

Common Foods and Dishes

Poutine râpée, an Acadian pork-potato dish, and rapée/rapie pie, an Acadian poultry dish, are Maritime-based. (Acadia, or Acadie in French, is the French Canada different from Quebec, based in the Maritimes, and known to those in the United States chiefly because Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's Evangeline and the Cajuns of Louisiana originated there). Seafood is of great importance in the Maritimes and it is prepared in many ways, probably limited only by the number of cooks. Lobster rolls are to be found wherever tourists go, but the locals love them too; these can be found in the United States as well, particularly in Maine, which adjoins the Province of New Brunswick, the only province with two official languages, French and English, which is an indication of the cultures one will find in this province between Quebec and Nova Scotia.

No one who has visited the homes of Maritimers who go back a few generations is likely to forget dulse; dulse is seaweed of a certain type and grows along the New Brunswick and Nova Scotia coasts. Maritimers crunch on dried dulse, a reddish-purple-to-black salty-tasting snack, rather as others would munch potato chips and one usually sees a small dish on a side table somewhere near where family members are sitting.

Maple sugar, in many forms, from maple syrup (sirop d'érable) to little maple-leaf-shaped crunchy candies is an important sweet in Eastern Canada, where sugaring-off excursions (involving 'tire d'érable sur la neige,' when the hot syrup is poured onto snow to crystallize) are one of the better winter activities. It is also an important export, economically.

On Prince Edward Island, Cow's Ice Cream is an important purveyor of a local favourite, and dairy products in various forms are important to residents of the Maritimes. A popular variety of ice cream in the Maritimes, and also New England, is grape nut ice cream.

Wild blueberries grow in abundance in the Maritimes and are there for the picking for anyone willing to take the time, which is considerable because they are small.This cited source does not support the proposition footnoted. They can be made into the Acadian dumpling dessert called blueberry grunt, among others. Seal flippers and seal flipper pie, various bean dishes, usually flavored with pork, any fish found in the many rivers, and many other foods are not to be forgotten.