How Canada snacks: From fast-food poutine to classic snack cakes

This story is part of a week-long series exploring how we as Canadians define "Canadian food," and how it has evolved in modern Canada.

No matter how you slice, dice or frappe it, as Canadians we are a nation of snack monsters voraciously noshing on all manner of refreshments, but namely those that are sweet or salty, and sometimes a combination of the two.

Some snacks are healthy, but most nowhere near. So let’s chuck any measure of uppity moral high ground when discussing how Canada likes to nibble. Flavour, aroma, eye appeal and back stories are what count here.

Did you know snacking is one of the fastest growing food trends in Canada? While it hasn’t yet replaced three square meals a day, many, especially Millennials, are replacing at least one meal a day with a quick bite. About half of us snack at least twice a day, with 17 per cent snacking at least three times daily, according to Technomic, a trend tracking research firm for the food industry. And when we snack, we like to do so en route, so portability is a big factor when selecting a bite to eat.

That said, there are snacks that are decidedly messy and require studied concentration and two-handed dexterity.

Poutine, please

Roll over, bacon. Potatoes are about to take over thanks to this iconic Quebec dish called poutine. Shamelessly fattening and unbeatably tasty, poutine is a leading snack pick among Canadians thanks to its high fat and sodium content.

Made from French fries, cheese curds and topped with gravy, poutine is setting the culinary world on fire, appearing on menus from coast to coast. You know it’s become a force when it hits fast-food menu boards. McDonald’s Canada launched it nationally in 2013, but has offered it in Quebec since the early ‘90s. Many fast food restaurants have followed suit.

“I think it’s a Canadian comfort food,” says Ann Parks, director of menu management for McDonald’s Canada. “It’s warm and as a country that gets as cold as ours, poutine really warms your insides. I often say there’s food that nurtures your body and food that nurtures your soul and poutine nurtures your soul.”

The variations on poutine are endless and that’s what makes it so irresistible. McDonald’s ran a limited time offering of a spicy buffalo chicken poutine and just ended a maple bacon poutine with a barbecue glaze.Hero Certified Burgers offers flavoured poutine in beef, mushroom, garden and Caesar flavours.

Some bread with your molasses?

And now for something completely different, let’s chew on molasses on toast. If you live in New Brunswick, you likely have already. Made from sugar cane juice, molasses is clarified and evaporated to a syrup consistency and New Brunswickers, as well as their Maritime brethren, are said to love it. In fact, the province is home to Crosby’s, the country’s leading manufacturer of the bittersweet dark-brown goo.

“They eat molasses on pretty near anything down here from potatoes to hot biscuits,” says Ken Reicker, a Sussex, NB farmer. “I’ve ate it on bread for a quick snack. We buy it here by the quart. When I was growing up we put it in those little honey bear containers and mom would put the bear out on the table just like pepper and salt.”

The Atlantic provinces’ love affair with molasses began in the 1800s, when ships carrying Maritime fish and lumber to the West Indies started returning with large casks filled with the liquid gold, which was used in the Caribbean to make rum. Molasses was cheaper than sugar and more easily available so it took off.

In Atlantic Canada, you can buy more sizes of molasses than anywhere else – 300 and 675 gram, and for bigger appetites, containers in 1kg, 1.35kg and 5kg sizes.

“It’s not just sweet, it has flavour and a tangy edge to it,” says Bridget Oland, Crosby’s marketing manager and recipe developer. “Molasses is the foundational food of East Coast cooking.”

About 20 per cent less sweet than sugar, molasses can be used in place of sugar, honey or maple syrup in many recipes, says Oland, who has tried it with success in granola bars.

As for that old-time snack of molasses on toast or hot biscuits, there are two camps of culinary thought: butter first and then molasses, or the reverse. Any which way, it’s agreed upon that the bread or biscuits should always be warm.

Snacking on Saskatoon berries

Far west of New Brunswick, in the big wheat-growing province of Saskatchewan, lives a purplish-blue berry so delicious, so coveted that it has earned a dominant spot in the prairie food tradition. The Saskatoon berry, a.k.a. elderberry, has a sweet almond flavour and is eaten right off the bush, in pies and muffins and many other baked goods, in addition to jams, compotes, sauces and trail mixes. Some like to top ice cream with the berries or drench them in fresh farm cream with a dash of sugar. Historically they were used in pemmican and as a medicine for quite a variety of ills.

Willard Morrow, a native of Ethelton, Sask. remembers the flurry of activity that would ensue on the farm in late June and early July as the berries ripened for harvest.

“They were are a farm staple and treasured,” says Morrow, a 55-year-old parts advisor with a Toronto car dealership. “Those years the fruit was bountiful, it would be off to the many patches on our south farm where they grew wild to be gathered by the pail-full. They were then brought home, sorted, cleaned and mom would preserve them much like any other fruit, and store them in the cellar.”

Morrow’s older sisters were particularly zealous one year, instructing their three-year-old brother to stay in the car, while they picked berries. “I ended up suffering heat stroke and had to be taken to hospital,” recalls Morrow.

One of his sisters may have received her pay back this year for her neglect. After planting over 100 Saskatoon berry trees on her farm near Melfort, Sask., she was looking forward to a fantastic harvest when a large flock of some unknown breed of birds descended on her trees and cleaned them bare.

Head east to try May West

Our snack tour resumes with a jaunt east to La Belle Province where Quebeckers are said to be big fans of a pre-packaged Vachon cake known as the May West. This round layered chocolate-covered sponge cake was named not for the old film star but instead for a same-named life preserver because the cake matched the preserver’s puffy look. The spelling of the cake was changed from Mae to May when West died to avoid a lawsuit from her estate.

Created by Rene Brousseau, a baker from Quebec City who worked as a pastry chef at the Vaillancourt Bakery during the Second World War, the May West sells best in the province in which it was born and, as a Vachon product, ranks in its top ten best sellers.

Getting juiced on the West coast

In B.C., considered by some as the country’s most wholesome province, it makes sense that good-for-you cold-pressed organic juices are all the rage. That the juices are portable and easy to consume just about anywhere add to their appeal. And as our penchant for snacking grows, it stands to reason that beverages – that includes smoothies and specialty coffee drinks especially ice-blended ones -- be included in this straw-sucking snack craze.

“B.C. is very health conscious and filled with people who like to do things outside whether that’s running or cycling or walking on beaches and they’re people who think about the stuff they’re putting in their body,” says Christine Couvelier, an executive chef and owner of Culinary Concierge, a foodservice consulting company based in Victoria. “These juice bars are popping up all over the place.”

Yahoo Canada readers, what’s the go-to snack in your city or province?