Last Day in Canada!

Wow, what a week it has been! Canada has proved to be very enjoyable but also very tiring! I finished off the week with the last two recipes that I promised- pea soup (modern) and wild rice cakes (indigenous). There is something to be said about the food from Canada- while some of these recipes are time-consuming and some down right challenging, you can tell that the people of this country find food to be a way to express love. Taking time to make recipes that express one's culture shows this love very well. This week, my family shared in many of the foods I was eating and I felt great sharing the food with them because I had spent my time preparing the dishes. I also admire Canada even more than I did before because of the way they can keep alive two very different ways of life. The differences between the modern European-inspired dishes and the indigenous dishes were really quite evident by the end of the week. The indigenous dishes were very earthy and simple while the European-inspired dishes were very rich and complex. It's amazing to me that one country can represent both a simple and very satisfying way of life and a more complex but still rich way of life at the same time. I think that there is something very important about both of these ways of life because both have something great to offer. When I was preparing the indigenous food, I felt somewhat connected to the past and to the earth at its simple roots. It was so neat to make the fluffy bread with simply flour and water (and a bit of sugar) that was bannock and have it come out so naturally perfect. I was excited to try foods that were so simple and that carried such a history with them. When I was preparing the more modern food, I felt very culinary, for lack of a better term and very proud in a way to be doing the best I could to put skills in the kitchen together to make something wonderful. It was neat to see a fluffy and very pretty cauliflower souffle after vigorously beating egg whites and whisking together a rue (and staring in the oven to see if it deflated). Through your food Canada, you have shown me the two different but vital ways of life in your culture that can teach the world the things I have learned this week and more. Thank you Canada!

Wild Rice Cakes- I wasn't good at making them into cakes, but they were very good!

Pea Soup- because I don't eat meat, I couldn't put in the pork, but I followed everything else in the recipe, replacing the pork fat for olive oil- very fun to make!

More Pea Soup!