What makes Canadian Thanksgiving distinctive

“Different people bring different things to the table.” Canadian chef, Jonny Lake, of Trivet restaurant in London, UK, is speaking turkey. “Not everyone will do Thanksgiving turkey. I don’t have many friends whose grandparents are from Canada. And you put your own touches on tradition depending on where your family originated.”

Canada is a younger nation by settler requirements, and its Thanksgiving desk displays the cultures of its ever-shifting immigrant teams. A 2020 survey of 1,000 ‘new Canadians’ (these within the nation for 12 years or much less) carried out by Club House, an Ontario spice model based in 1883, illustrated the fashionable vacation menu’s broad flavour palate. It famous that whereas 81% of recent Canadians have a good time Thanksgiving, almost half mix typical dishes with native favourites. Roast hen, fried rice and pancit (a Filipino noodle dish) topped menu lists reflecting Canada’s excessive numbers of recent Chinese, South Asian and Southeast Asian immigrants.

Like many Canadians, Jonny was raised in Ontario by English immigrant mother and father, and his household grew up adopting — and adapting — native meals tradition. “Our Thanksgiving meal was a kind of Sunday roast,” he says, noting the shared components of a meat dish with vegetable sides. “But later on, Mum added things like wild rice casserole,” he says of the Canadian Thanksgiving dish that usually contains seasonal veggies and cheese. “In many ways, it’s as much about the gathering of dishes on the table, rather than one central dish. I love fantan dinner rolls,” he says of the buttery, fan-shaped bakes standard alongside North America’s East Coast. “And of course, pumpkins and squashes — using all that harvest produce.”

Celebrated on the second Monday in October (the fourth Thursday in November within the US), Thanksgiving falls in Canada’s harvest season, when pumpkins and gourds are ample. “We had store-brought pumpkin pie,” says Jonny of his childhood Thanksgiving dessert. “They’re OK. But when I first began making pies, I thought, Oh right, that’s what a pumpkin pie is supposed to taste like.” Pumpkins, he notes, are naturally candy. “So, Canadians tend to add savoury spices, like cinnamon and nutmeg, rather than America’s super-sweet pies and candied sides, like marshmallows with sweet potato casserole.”

Where you reside in Canada is as influential as your loved ones’s heritage. Fish and wild berries function on tables in boreal areas; recreation meat and mushrooms within the peaks and prairies; and shellfish dishes star within the Maritime provinces, maybe even a show-stopping ‘sea-cuterie’ board of smoked salmon, crab, mussels and oysters.

“I moved from Ontario to Quebec,” says Jonny. Quebec is Canada’s largest French-speaking province, and he notes that Thanksgiving wasn’t such a giant factor there. “Whereas in the US, it’s everywhere — it’s a bigger holiday than Christmas,” he says. “In Canada, it’s not so linked to the Pilgrim story, either — it’s much more a harvest festival.”

This is echoed by Lauralee Ledrew, a Newfoundland farmer and guesthouse proprietor who was born out West in Alberta to a household with East Coast Acadian and Mi’kmaq First Nations heritage. Lauralee grows fruit and veg in her two-acre property mixing permaculture and regenerative farming strategies with data handed down from her mom and grandmother. “When you grow up understanding where food comes from, it means so much more,” she says. “And who taught settlers to live off this land? You don’t survive a Canadian winter very easily — you learn from the people here.”

Thanksgiving, for Lauralee is harvest and looking time. “Berry season is also upon us — blueberries, strawberries, dewberries, raspberries, partridge berries, which are similar to cranberries, ‘squash berries’ (highbush cranberries), and ‘bakeapples’ (cloudberries). We dry berries, too, to make fruit leather like our ancestors did.”

It’s additionally about making do with what you might have. Lauralee was one in all 5 youngsters raised by a single mum who tailored Newfoundland Thanksgiving dishes together with ‘fisherman’s brew’ one-pot stews, steamed bread pudding-like blueberry duff and campfire Bannock bread, which she enlivened by stuffing with onions. And as with many locations in Canada, root crops loomed giant. “You wouldn’t have Thanksgiving without potato, carrot and turnip. Plus, the greens from cabbage and turnip — although now I prefer kale and Swiss chard because they grow better for us.”

Being globally related has modified issues, too. “So, instead of using a classic summer savoury herb mix for poultry, I just use sage,” says Lauralee. “Which isn’t typical of this area. And it’s in my dressings now, too, whereas my mother would use berries.”

Does Newfoundland’s conventional Jiggs’ dinner — salt beef, turnip, cabbage, potato, carrot and Pease pudding — function anyplace on her menu? “Sure! Because I always make more than one meal, for family members visiting at different times. Anything from Jiggs’ to baked squash and garden greens. Thanksgiving is simply a time for gathering and being hands on — and food brings people together.”

Where to have a good time

Métis Crossing, Alberta
Learn all about Canada’s Métis individuals, and their fusion of European and First Nations tradition, at this lodge and cultural centre set in 688 acres of prairielands northeast of Edmonton. Guided plant walks reveal the Métis’s reference to nature, for meals and drugs, and the menus right here communicate to the land — hearty bison stews, Saskatoon berry preserves — with festive vacation brunches seated at lengthy communal tables.

Upper Humber Settlement, Newfoundland
Lauralee’s farmstead B&B presents harvesting, foraging and cooking experiences. Gather wild berries, mushrooms and crops on guided forest excursions and find out how they’re mixed with farm meals and wild recreation.

Notch8, Vancouver
Thanksgiving dinners right here function dishes equivalent to turkey with buttermilk potato puree alongside spiced squash and candied pumpkin seed, plus gadgets that nod to town’s Asian inhabitants, like miso-glazed sablefish with bamboo rice. Pumpkin tiramisu is the star of the autumn harvest afternoon tea menus.