Canada: the English & the French ...

Thanks, InfraBlue, will do!

Well, I wasn't gonna take sides, I was gonna remain impartial ...

But you've convinced me, hamburger. I'm with the French!



(Incidentally, are there English Canadian food specialties?)

Butter tarts.



(I don't know if les habitants have anything like this, but the Ontarians dearly love a butter tart.)

Hmmmm ... maybe I'm wavering a bit ....

Fifty years ago this year, a French Canadian gentleman (i believe it was in Sherbrooke) invented poutine. That is chips (french fries for the 'Mericans in the audience) covered with cheese curds and brown gravy. It's a favorite food of both French- and English-speakers. When Thomas was visiting here recently, he had butter tarts and poutine for the first time. When we got the poutine, we were at Harvey's, the Canadian hamburger chain. I ordered onion rings, and the girl ordered poutine, as did Thomas. Since there were three of us, but only two orders of poutine, The Girl said Thomas would have to share. Thomas agreed, but then he ate some poutine. He picked up the bowl (obviously, that has to be served in a bowl) and put it under his chin, and went to work. We had a hard time getting Thomas to share.

It may not look or sound appetizing, but i've never met anyone who didn't like poutine.

about the french, don't get me wrong, i'm all for the food and culture

love butter tarts and tourtière

Oh I've heard about poutine! Its reputation has spread ...

A deathly addiction!

Yes?

Do tell, djjd ...

quebec's TARTE AU SUCRE ( a lifetime sugarfix ! )



( a dentist's delight , i'm sure ! )

Oooooooooooooh!

French classes are mandatory here, msolga. Regrettably, what limited French I gleaned from them is but a distant memory now. I can however still count to ten, close the door, shut my mouth, don my hat, and greet Monsieur and Madame Thibeault. Voila.

And I can cuss on a dare.

msolga :
can't tranfer the picture , please click on link - it's a really great picture !


http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/88/Barack_Obama_and_well-wisher_in_Ottawa_2-19-09.jpg

president obama buying ontario's famous BEAVERTAIL ( sort of an oversized donut ) while on a STATE VISIT (!) to ottawa , canada , in february 2009 .
his secret service agents and canada's RCMP were not very happy about the stop - it was apparently unplanned !

YES , the white stuff is snow !

A tourtière is a meat pie originating from Quebec, usually made with ground pork and/or veal, or beef. It is a traditional part of the Christmas and/or Christmas Eve réveillon and New Year's Eve meal in Quebec, but is also enjoyed and sold in grocery stores all year long. This kind of pie is known as pâté à la viande (literally, meat pie) in the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean region.
Tourtière is not exclusive to Quebec. Tourtière is a traditional French-Canadian dish served by generations of French-Canadian families throughout Canada and the bordering areas of the United States. In the U.S., namely in the states of Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Minnesota, and New York), citizens of Quebec ancestry have introduced the recipe. Every family has their own "original" recipe, passed down through the generations. Like the recipe, there is no one correct filling, as the pie meat depends on what is available in regions. In coastal areas, fish such as salmon is commonly used, whereas pork, beef and game are used inland.
The name supposedly comes from a pie-making utensil but by 1611 tourtière more or less referred to the meat pie as we know it today. Historically, the tourtiere was the pie-pan named for the key ingredient: the cooked meat of the once abundant and now extinct passenger pigeon, the "Tourte".

Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean

The tourtières of the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean area are slow-cooked deep-dish meat pies made with potatoes and various meats (often including wild game) cut into small cubes. Elsewhere in Quebec and the rest of Canada, this variety of tourtière is sometimes referred to, in French and in English, as tourtière du Lac-Saint-Jean or tourtière saguenéenne to distinguish it from the varieties of tourtière with ground meat.

I had tourtière for dinner (pork, beef and veal). Very rich.

And you never know when that might come in handy!

But when in Quebec, one would try out one's rusty French?

i worked for a french canadian family, the old man only had two curses
crisse (Christ) - "Christ"
tabarnak (tabernacle) - "tabernacle"

from wiki

The literal translation of the French verb sacrer is "to consecrate". However, in Quebec it is the proper word for the form of profanity used in Quebec French. The noun form is sacre.
Quebec French, a variety of Canadian French, uses a number of the same types of foul language as in standard French, dealing with sex and excrement (such as merde, "****", . These are usually rather mild, and stronger profanity is expressed using words and expressions related to Catholicism and its liturgy. This usage of religious words to express profanity is also present but to a lesser extent in Acadian French, mostly spoken in the Maritime provinces east of Quebec.

The sacres originated in the early 19th century in a time when the social control exerted by the Catholic clergy was increasingly a source of frustration. One of the oldest sacres is sacrament, which can be thought of in Quebec French as equivalent to "goddamn it" in English. It was in use as far back as the 1830s as far as is known. The word "sacrer" in its current meaning is believed to come from the expression Ne dites pas ça, c'est sacré. ("Don't say that, it is sacred/holy"). Eventually, sacrer started to refer to the words francophone Québécois were not supposed to say. This is more than probably related to the commandment: "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain" (Exodus 20:7). The influence and social importance of the Catholic religion at that time allowed sacres to become powerful forms of profanity.
As a result of the Quiet Revolution in the 1960s, the influence of the Roman Catholic Church in Quebec has declined. This has had no effect, however, on the use of sacres, which is as widespread as ever.

These sacres are commonly given in a phonetic spelling to indicate the differences in pronunciation from the original word, several of which, notably the deletion of final consonants and change of [ɛ] to [a] before /r/ are typical of highly informal Quebec French.
baptême - "baptism"
câlice (calice) - "chalice"
calvaire - "Calvary"
ciarge (cierge) - "votive or Paschal candle"
ciboire - "ciborium" or "pyx", the receptacle in which the host is stored
crisse (Christ) - "Christ"
maudit - "damn"
mozusse (Moïse)- "Moses"
ostie (hostie) - "host"
sacrament (sacrement) - "Sacrament"
tabarnak (tabernacle) - "tabernacle"
viarge (vierge) - "the Virgin Mary"

BEAVERTAIL!

Goodness me!

He obviously really wanted it, though. You can tell.

I've stayed there! My French class (7th grade I think) took a trip to Montreal and Quebec.

Thanks for the info, djjd.
Now I know what a tourtière is!
Sounds a very versatile dish, though ... pork, veal, beef, fish or game filling!