Kim asked for it. Be warned.

I’ve seen this subject come up elsewhere, too. Just what do those wacky Canadians eat, anyway? Especially since the majority of them are so talented and funny? (Look around Hollywood, dude.)

Well, I will say that fish plays a big part. We eat things like dried up purple seaweed. It’s called dulse and we mostly fend it off onto unsuspecting tourists just to watch their faces screw up. The big thing right now is fiddleheads. Yeah, just your run-of-the-mill fern all coiled up. My friend Carol has been out picking some.

A while back was smelt season. Smelt are dinky little fish, about 3″-6″ long, breaded and baked or fried, skin on, bones in. You are expected to eat about 10 or 20 in a sitting, especially if you are at a smelt fry. I hear gaspereau, another fish, goes well with a side of fiddleheads. ‘Round these here parts a lot of salmon fishing goes on. Also up the road a bit is a large lobster port that makes the news frequently. We don’t eat much lobster because we don’t like it.

And then there’s poutine. I hear my friend Sherry likes poutine a little. Poutine (pronounced poo-TIN) is french fries topped with a big handful of cheese curds and smothered in gravy. Mmmmmm. Looks gross, tastes great. There’s also tourtiere (meat pie), deer steak, moose burgers, and blueberries by the bucketfull.

If you’re driving down the highway mid-summer and you see a couple people bent over at the side of the road, you can be assured they are picking blueberries.