Acadian cuisine is not very well known in Canada or internationally. It has much in common with Québécois cuisine because of its geographical proximity. The two often feature the same dishes, but the cuisine of Acadia puts more emphasis on seafood. Acadian cuisine has notably served as the base for Cajun cuisine because the Cajun are descendants of Acadians who were deported to Louisiana.Note 2[4] It is also believed that Acadians are responsible for normalizing potato consumption in France—a vegetable the French once considered poisonous.
History
In the 17th century, French colonists who settled on lands they named Acadia adapted their 16th-century French cuisine to incorporate the crops, seafood and animals that flourished in the region. Their descendants became the Acadian people and their ingenuity created Acadian cuisine.
After the Englishconquered Acadia during the 18th century, they decided to deport the Acadians and take their settlements, which were often built on the most fertile earth in the colony. Most Acadians did not manage to escape the deportation. But, of those who did, most fled to the east and north of New BrunswickNote 3. As such, Acadian cuisine in the 18th century was refocused around what could be grown, hunted and fished in the less fertile lands of the East Coast of New Brunswick and the Upper St. John River Valley.[5]
The most commonly used meat is pork, followed by chicken and beef. As with the rest of North America, turkey is commonly consumed during the Holidays. Game like deer, hare, ruffed grouse and moose is consumed regularly in some regions. Game will replace livestock meat if present and can be given as a gift. In some regions, for example Caraquet and the Îles-de-la-Madeleine, more unusual game is or was caught like seal, bear and seagull.
The vegetables of Acadian cuisine are the potato, onion, carrot, turnip, legume, beet, squash and corn. These vegetables were popular because they were easily preserved for the winter in root cellars and jars. The fiddlehead fern was introduced to the Acadians by the indigenous Maliseet, Mi'kmaq and Penobscot peoples in the early 18th Century and remains a popular Acadian dish.
Some ingredients like rice, molasses, dried raisins and brown sugar are part of Acadian cuisine because of historical commerce between Acadia and regions like the Antilles and Brazil. Maple sugar is also a popular sweetener, given the often-close familial ties between Quebec (the world's largest producer of maple sugar) and Acadia.
Dishes
A poutine à trou smothered in maple syrup.Ployes are extremely popular in the Madawaska region.Rappie pie or râpure is a dish whose name comes from patates râpées, meaning "grated potatoes".
Some examples of traditional Acadian dishes are:
Beurre de homard[6]—lobster butter
Bouilli Acadien[7]—a boiled dinner consisting of potatoes, salted beef or pork, carrots, green beans, cabbage and turnips.
Bouillie à la viande salée[8]
Bouillon aux coques[9]
Chiard/Mioche—purée of potatoes, carrots and/or turnips.
1.^ When one[who?] speaks about Acadia before the Deportation of the Acadians, they[who?] are referring to the Acadia colony owned by France, which is today[when?] the Maritime region of Canada. When one[who?] refers to Acadia in the present tense or after the Deportation of the Acadians, they[who?] are referring to the regions where Acadians live today. The Acadia of today is the north and east of New Brunswick, and some small[quantify] parts[which?] of Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia. Acadia, while not always recognized[by whom?] as such, can be considered[according to whom?] a nation[according to whom?] because of the language, culture, institutions, symbols, territory and history its people share.[citation needed]
3.^ A few[quantify] Acadians also fled to sections of Cape Breton, western Nova Scotia and south Prince Edward Island. Because of their relative distance from New Brunswick, these communities experienced their own challenges[further explanation needed] and developed some unique dishes. Some[who?][quantify] also escaped to New France (now Québec) and assimilated to the Canadien population.[citation needed]
References
^"9 Acadian Foods You Have to Try in New Brunswick". Tourism New Brunswick. 2018-05-18. Archived from the original on 2020-05-16. Retrieved 2020-05-19.
^"La Deportation des Acadiens" (consulted 14 January 2021)
^"Madawaska, "Acadian Food"".
^"Lobster Butter". Dining and Cooking. 2015-07-18. Retrieved 2021-03-18.
^"History and Culture: Bouilli". 18 October 2017.
^"Le Québec Cuisine | Depuis 12 000 ans !". www.quebecuisine.ca. Retrieved 2021-03-18.
^"Coques en bouillon d'herbes et petits légumes". Marie Claire (in French). Retrieved 2021-03-18.
^"How to Make Coquilles Saint-Jacques". Allrecipes. Retrieved 2021-03-18.
^"Cretons".
^"Pain à l'ail". Cuisinez! (in Canadian French). Retrieved 2021-03-18.
^"Morue et pommes de terre poêlées au beurre". recettessimples.fr (in French). Retrieved 2021-03-18.
^Lamoureux, Mélodie (7 September 2018). "Cette poutine aux bleuets est l'ultime raison pour faire une virée au Saguenay". Recettes du Québec. Retrieved 2021-03-18.
^"Tchaude" (consulted 11 February 2021)
Bibliography
Marielle Cormier Boudreau and Melvin Gallant, La Cuisine traditionnelle en Acadie : historique des traditions et coutumes culinaires chez les Acadiens du Nouveau-Brunswick, de la Nouvelle-Écosse, de l'Île-du-Prince-Édouard et des Îles-de-la-Madeleine, Moncton, Éditions d'Acadie (réimpr. 1980, 1987) (1re éd. 1975), 181 p.
Ghislain Savoie, Histoire de la pomme de terre et autres tubercules connus dans l'ancienne Acadie, Les Cahiers, Société historique acadienne, vol. 42, no 1, March 2011, p. 4-25
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