The answers to Eric Akis's 2020 Canada Day food quiz.
1. In their most recent listing, Air Canada’s enroute magazine named this Ucluelet establishment as one of the top 10 new restaurants in Canada:
b) Pluvio Restaurant + Rooms
2. Who named the B.C. municipality of Peachland?
d) Mineral prospector turned land developer John M. Robinson did in the late 1800s, after staying in the area and tasting peaches grown there. In 1889, he purchased and subdivided land for a townsite and fruit lots.
3) Ginger beef is a popular dish served in Chinese restaurants across Canada. According to Ann Hui’s book Chop Suey Nation, where was it first prepared?
b) George Wong first made it at the Silver Inn Restaurant in Calgary in the mid 1970s. It was originally called deep-fried shredded beef with chili sauce. Customers thought its spiciness came from ginger. Other restaurants began serving their own version, and it eventually became generically known as ginger beef.
4) The small town of Mundare, Alberta, is home to a roadside attraction said to be:
c) The world’s largest sausage replica, which is 12.8 metres high and weighs over 5,400 kilograms. Mundare is home to Stawnichy’s Mundare Sausage, a business known for its Ukrainian-style sausages.
5) According to research by the University of Saskatchewan, this animal is spreading rapidly across Canada, particularly in the Prairie provinces, threatening native species such as nesting birds, deer, agricultural crops and farm livestock:
a) Wild pigs (a mix of wild boar and domestic swine)
6)What’s a Regina-style pizza?
d) A thick-crusted pizza, spread with a tomatoey sauce, that’s topped with layers of meat and vegetables. Cheese is then set on top and when baked, melts and spreads from edge to edge, creating a thick, hefty and filling pizza very popular in Regina.
7) According to the Spectacular Northwest Territories tourism website, spectacularnwt.com, their territory has the most gargantuan Arctic Char on Earth, a fish they say can tip the scales at more than:
a) 30 pounds
8) According to an article on the Canadian Encyclopedia website, thecanadianencyclopedia.ca, broadly speaking, “country food” can refer to a wide variety of cuisines prepared by locals in what is often a rural area. But, typically, when used in Canada, and in reference to Indigenous peoples, country food describes:
c) Traditional Inuit food, such as hunted, caught or harvested local seafood, sea and land mammals, birds and plant life.
9) In many diners and takeout joints in Winnipeg and other parts of Manitoba, you’ll see a type of burger called a “Fat Boy” on the menu. What is it?
b) A messy but tasty burger featuring a beef patty adorned with a bean-less style of chili, dill pickles, onions, mustard, lettuce, tomato and mayonnaise.
10) Winnipeg is said to be the place where a divine dessert called Schmoo torte, also spelled Shmoo, was invented. What is it?
a) A layered dessert made with cake, such as angel food or sponge, whipped cream, caramel and nuts. Lore suggests that, years ago, a Winnipeg mother invented it for her son’s bar mitzvah.
11) Due to such things as increasing global demand, this crop now ranks fourth among Canada’s principal field crops:
a) Soybeans
12) This book won gold in the English-language, General Cookbooks category of last year’s Taste Canada Awards:
d) Joe Beef: Surviving the Apocalypse
13) In 1890, Toronto chemist John J. McLaughlin started making soda water, which he sold as a mixer for flavoured extracts and fruit juices. 14 years and numerous experiments later, he came up with this beverage:
c) Canada Dry Pale Ginger Ale
14) According to the Bonjour Quebec tourism website, bonjourquebec.com, cheese curds, a classic Québec treat, are fresh cheddar curds not yet pressed into blocks. They say you’ll know a good one by:
d) The “squeak-squeak” sound the curd makes when you chew it.
15) The McCain brothers, Wallace, Harrison, Robert and Andrew, opened the first McCain Foods production facility in their hometown of Florenceville, New Brunswick in 1957, producing frozen French fries. In the company’s timeline, it says they’ve expanded quite a bit since then, noting that:
c) They now have sales in over 160 countries and a global team of 22,000 people.
16) If you’re eating poutine râpée in New Brunswick, what are you having?
a) A boiled dumpling made with potato with a tasty centre of seasoned pork.
17) According to the Mussel Industry Council of Prince Edward Island, that province’s mussel industry has grown from an annual yield of 88,000 pounds in 1980 to this staggering amount:
b) 50 million pounds
18) What is a chix, also called a chicken, lobster?
b) A lobster weighing approximately 450 grams.
19) Figgy Duff is a traditional Newfoundland-style steamed pudding. Duff refers to the pudding. What does “figgy” refer to?
c) The raisins added to the pudding. Throughout Newfoundland’s history, in many parts of the island, raisins were referred to as figs, a Cornish term for that shriveled fruit.
20) Used to make preserves, partridgeberries, which are related to cranberries, can be found growing in wild places, such as Newfoundland and Labrador’s coastal barrens. Internationally, though, in places such as Europe, these berries are most often called:
d) Lingonberries
