Atlantic Canada: A Surprising Culinary Hotspot
- Atlantic Canada’s culinary scene is rich and diverse, extending far beyond its world-renowned seafood.
- Each of the four provinces is famous for specific seafood, like New Brunswick lobster, Nova Scotia scallops, PEI oysters and Newfoundland & Labrador snow crab.
- The region has a strong Acadian heritage, which is reflected in unique traditional dishes like rappie pie and fricot.
- Exploring local foods, from Blueberry Grunt to Jiggs’ Dinner, offers a direct connection to the area's culture and history.
Atlantic Canada’s four provinces have a lot of things going for them — amazing wildlife, dramatic coastlines, historic sites and charming towns, to name a few.
But the region is often overlooked for its culinary riches and traditions, which are considerable. Here’s an overview of some of the gastronomic delights to be found in New Brunswick, Newfoundland & Labrador, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island.
Seafood
Okay, this hardly falls into the “overlooked” category. Most of us are aware that Canada’s east coast has fish, crustaceans and shellfish in abundance, and that’s true in all four of the Atlantic provinces. There are some places that are particularly renowned, however.
Shediac, New Brunswick, bills itself as the “Lobster Capital of the World,” demonstrating its bona fides with the world’s largest lobster sculpture (35 feet long, 90 tons). More than 40,000 people attend the Shediac Lobster Festival each year in July.
Not to be outdone, Digby, Nova Scotia, has been dubbed the “Scallop Capital of the World.” Its Bay of Fundy scallops are renowned for their sweetness, and they’re celebrated each August during Digby’s Scallop Days.
Cod was the lifeblood of Newfoundland & Labrador for centuries. While the cod is still revered here — local festivals feature events like Cod Wars, which pits top chefs against each other with their signature cod dishes — the province is now also home to a thriving, sustainable snow crab industry.
Prince Edward Island’s mussels are not only iconic but also sustainably cultivated, and its oysters are just as celebrated — especially the renowned Malpeque oysters, crowned the world’s best at the 1900 Paris Exposition.
Wherever you are in any of the provinces, you can count on seafood in all its forms being among the highlights of your epicurean journey. But there are other delicious surprises in store, as well.
Acadian Food
You’ll find the region’s Acadian cuisine especially well represented in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. (Acadians are descendants of French settlers in the region.) You might try râpure, or rappie pie, a kind of casserole made of grated potatoes that encase beef, chicken or clams. Also locally beloved is fricot, a dumpling stew typically made with chicken. Poutine à trou — not to be confused with poutine, the savory combo of French fries, cheese curds and gravy — is a dessert dish in which apple is baked in a dumpling with a hole at the top into which a sugar syrup is poured. (You can try all of these dishes during a traditional meal at the Village Musical Acadien on Road Scholar’s Best of Prince Edward Island program.)
And More
Here are some other dishes you’ll want to try, province by province. (There’s plenty of provincial crossover, and recipe variations abound, as do arguments about them.)
New Brunswick
PLOYES
Half pancake, half crumpet, these buckwheat beauties are served for breakfast with butter and/or maple syrup, or as a bread substitute during other meals.
DULSE
An edible seaweed that gets crunchy and chewy when dried, dulse is a nutritional powerhouse. Nearly all of the world’s supply comes from the Bay of Fundy in New Brunswick.
CIDER
Cideries dot the New Brunswick landscape, many using apples grown onsite and pressed by hand to produce highly regarded ciders, alcoholic and otherwise.
Nova Scotia
BLUEBERRY GRUNT
Crumbly biscuits baked atop bubbling wild blueberries, topped with vanilla ice cream. Irresistible enough to ask for by name.
HODGE PODGE
Just-harvested carrots, potatoes and other vegetables in a creamy, chowder-like broth make hodge podge a delightful celebration of seasonal ingredients.
WINE
Nova Scotia has gained a growing reputation for excellent cool-climate wines, especially from the dozen-plus vineyards in the province’s Annapolis Valley.
Prince Edward Island
RASPBERRY CREAM CHEESE
Pie P-i-e on P-E-I! Try to leave room after your lobster supper for a slice of this heavenly treat made with local berries from PEI Preserve Company.
ACADIAN MEAT PIES
Acadians draw a distinction between the tourtière of Québec and their own meat pies, or pâté à la viande. Tourtière leans on a pork-beef mixture and spices like clove and cinnamon, while authentic Acadian pies feature pork alone, seasoned with summer savory, the signature herb of Acadian cooking.
CRAFT BEER
Riding the craft brewing wave, Prince Edward Island is a great place to sample local beers and ales which, at several brewpubs, you can use to wash down the island’s legendary seafood.
Newfoundland & Labrador
JIGGS’ DINNER
A traditional Newfoundland & Labrador Jiggs’ dinner consists of corned, beef, cabbage, turnips, carrots, potatoes and peas pudding made from yellow split peas boiled in a cloth pudding back. Berry duff is served for dessert.
BERRIES
Wild berries abound in Newfoundland & Labrador, in dizzying variety. Cloudberries (known as bakeapples in Newfoundland & Labrador), partridge berries, squashberries, crowberries and other lesser-known varieties make their way into delicious jams and spreads, as do blueberries, raspberries and strawberries.
NEWFOUNDLAND SCREECH
Not a food but a beverage, Screech is nevertheless connected to Newfoundland’s beloved cod. A Screech-in is a rite of passage in local taverns wherein the participant recites a local phrase, drinks a shot of Screech rum, and then kisses an actual cod!
Regional foods are among the things that make travel such a delight. You connect not only with new flavors, but wonderful traditions and the people who carry them on. In Atlantic Canada, you’ll experience both world-famous seafood and unforgettable one-of-a-kind local specialties unique to the region.
Enjoy! You can do some culinary exploring on Road Scholar’s programs in Atlantic Canada!
