First of all, the restaurants I have been to have set a very high standard, especially in Jasper and Banff. Keep an eye out for a food review section, coming to this blog sometime soon! Well, eventually anyway. But the point is that there's nothing wrong Canadian cuisine per se, and some of it is absolutely excellent. Which probably give you a bit of a hint as to the central theme of what I have to say next...
Tinned and frozen food is never the best. I'm used to that. The small number of pre-prepared things I've tried have still managed to disappoint, though. With an exception for the tins of frozen fruit punch, that is, which are perfect on hot days. Even a lot of the fresh produce is either somewhat bland or very expensive. An interesting exception to this is the meat. The beef is excellent, if a little expensive, and the pork is both excellent and cheap. The salmon is pretty good too, though I personally cannot recommend the salmon jerky. It sounds like it should be good, and I may give it a second chance at some point, but initial experiments have not been promising.
Coffee creamer, on the other hand, is absolutely something we need in Britain, primarily on account of the excellent range of flavours. My current favourite is Cinnabon- if there's something better to start the day with than a cup of hot, caffeinated, liquid cinnamon roll, I haven't found it yet. Unless perhaps it's the same but with a shot of rum in it on the weekends. I'll try that at some point and let you know.
And now we come to the big one- cheese. If anyone can explain to me what is wrong with Canadian cheese, I will be most interested to hear about it. It seems to almost all be big, extruded plastic slabs and slices, or imported a phenomenal cost. The other day I found Snowdonia Cheese Company cheddar, but it was something in excess of $7 for a rather thin slice.
This stuff with a raspberry ale washed rind is pretty damn good though- which is why there isn't very much of it left.
(There were supposed to be pictures of different sized pieces of cheese here, but I keep eating them before remembering to take a picture. I'll put some in later)
To be fair, I suspect that there is a difference between food in Jasper and in the rest of Canada. We are right up in the mountains, so shipping is a bit of an issue, presumably.
However, I have managed to make the most of the situation, and have developed some new cooking skills to help with preparing lunches and dinners for strange and variable shifts. First, weeklong sandwiches:
Started with the classic Shooter's Sandwich, full of steak and mushrooms. Very nice, but a bit expensive for every week.
A pork variation, since that's a lot cheaper here.
And an attempt a creating a variation on a muffuletta. Couldn't get any proper giardenia, and didn't feel like stopping to pickle my own vegetables, so it was a tad crunchy, but still pretty good.
And then, for a change of pace, pies! Started with pork and broccoli, using a variation on a recipe from the 1800's. In fact, it does seem a little similar to something that Great Uncle Jack mentions in his journal, but his recipe is, uh... interesting.
Beef, carrot and onion.
A giant beef burger. This worked pretty nicely, stayed tender even when cold.
And the latest variation, chicken with aubergine and olives. My best yet, I think.
Had a bit of success with some desserts as well- primarily bread pudding, and peach pie:
Both of the bread puddings are topped with an improvised whisky caramel sauce, which turned out rather nicely. Truth be told, it's all the faffing about with this that has been keeping me from the blog to a certain extent- working 6 days a week and doing lots of cooking and food prep on the 7th hasn't left a lot of time and energy for very much else. Fortunately, the summer rush is over, and things are starting to calm down enough for me to have a bit more time. Ergo, bicuits:
At some point, I'll get round to some restaurant reviews, and I'll try to make sense of Uncle Jack's recipe notes. But next time, Banff!
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