Questions for Canadians.....


 
M

Matt Sanders

TVWBB Pro
I couldn't help but notice we've got a lot of good members from Canuckistan here, and that's great.

It got me wondering about the history of barbecue in the Great Frozen North. Have Canadians been barbecueing as long as Americans? Is it a more recent phenominon, like in Europe? Are there regional variations in style there? Is there a sort of BBQ "heartland"?
 
Hey Matt, we only get one day a year without snow and anyone who is anyone is out grilling. It's been that way as long as I can remember...

Seriously though, people BBQ quite a bit in Canada, but most people have LP grills. The Canucks on this board who use charcoal are considered either purists or un-enlightened depending on who you ask. We don't have a heartland, per se, but cook many different styles. I'm more of a Texas type guy, others prefer Carolinas style...really depends on where people have travelled to and experienced.

I know you aren't assuming that Canada is frozen all the time...but just in case you are here is a snapshot of the current weather in Ottawa.

photo-2.jpg
 
Funny, when I was in college in Buffalo NY, we would take weekly trips to Toronto or Niagra Falls. One weekend when crossing into Canada, the Canadian border patrol person asked the driver a series of questions, the last of which (an I don't think it was meant to be the last question)was "What is you nationality?" The driver's answer was "American", at which point, the border patrol person said to him, ?"sir, we are all Americans, North Americans", and proceeded to pull the car over for an "inspection", we got to Toronto eventually.
 
Stuart,

icon_biggrin.gif


I love your sense of humor, and you've got one of the best signatures I've seen.

This heat wave is something else. But one of my favorite images here is a photo of one of the members from Manitoba, holding a thermometer reading -20, next to his WSM, which is smoking away.
icon_cool.gif
 
Originally posted by Matt Sanders:
Stuart,

icon_biggrin.gif


I love your sense of humor, and you've got one of the best signatures I've seen.

This heat wave is something else. But one of my favorite images here is a photo of one of the members from Manitoba, holding a thermometer reading -20, next to his WSM, which is smoking away.
icon_cool.gif
Click to expand...

Thanks!

I'll try to remember to post a similar weather network image in February when it's -40 in Ottawa
icon_eek.gif


We get a pretty good range of temps up here...
 
We get a pretty good range of temps up here...
Click to expand...

Then there's something for everyone!

We get a pretty good range here in Illinois too, and the weather's pretty volatile. At least it gives us something to complain about year round. It's either too hot, too cold, too wet, too dry, too windy, too still, or if it does happen to be nice, it won't last....
 
I kind of like this site:

http://www.phpbbserver.com/php...php?mforum=smokinjim

Rob Rheinhart is one of the Moderators and also a PNWBA Board Member. Smokin' Jim has a great homepage with a lot of his clone builds.

This site is another I'm aware of from a team I cooked next to in Langley BC one time.

http://www.wcbbqa.com/

You can always see what's going on with our Canadian members at the PNWBA!

http://www.pnwba.com/

When in Langley BC -stop by Well Seasoned for all your BBQ needs! http://www.wellseasoned.ca/
 
I would agree with what Stuart said. There's a gas grill on almost every deck in the land, but charcoal isn't as common. I think it stems from the need to get up to temp quick in the wintertime without spending much time outdoors fussing with a chimney of lump, etc. A lot of people grill year-round, and propane is cheap, so that could be part of it. I'd also agree that there isn't a 'heartland' of bbq here, but out west is likely the heartland of beef production and they like their steaks thick and cooked over fire, so they'd get my vote as the closest we have to that.
 
It's not hard to find lump at a good price here, Matt. I use Maple Leaf and it's not a bad price if I buy in bulk.
 
Personally we grill on gas year round, but usually limited to once a week through the winter and 3 to 5 times a week the rest of the year. Smoker runs a couple times a month over the winter, and more frequent the rest of the year. Only thing that bothers me in the winter months is that the head on my beer keeps freezing!
 
If the weather is decent I try and BBQ at least once a month in the winter. Last winter was brutal up here. We had so much snow I dug a windbreak out of the 4' high snow bank in the back yard.
IMG_4104.JPG
 
Matt,

Is it still true that bowling is forbidden in Evanston? Or that a man with a moustache may not kiss a woman in Peoria? Or best, bees are not allowed to fly over the village of Kirkland or through any of Kirkland's streets (tough to enforce that one EH)?

Seriously, true BBQ is still in it's infancy here. As mentioned above, we have gassers in every backyard and overcooked chicken in every house. Burgers and dogs are the party norm.

I have seen true BBQ initiates lately with the Food Network coverage and nice summer weather but they're mostly doing ribs offset in a gas grill with a smoke bag. As for the Quebecois, I can't say other than they have some serious beer and it would be a shame not to pare it with a nice long cook.

Anyway, how do you get an Illy football player to leave your house?

Pay him for the pizza.

Ba-dum bump.
 
I think Stuart nailed it. Lots of gas grills, a fair amount of cooking over open fires when camping, hibachis in picnic areas, but not much history of real BBQ as far as I know. I know only one other person who cooks over charcoal, with a large BGE, but to their credit they use it for everything from 18 hour smokes to pizza and bread.

My theory is that cooking with charcoal never caught on because for half the year you had to dig through snowdrifts to find the kettle or smoker. Gas seems safer to people (although I doubt it really is) and so the gas grill is always tucked against the wall of the house where you can find it even in winter.

EDIT - the "deep snow" part of winter is not really half a year, of course, just a couple of months typically, but it *seems* really long.
 
Q: What's long and hard on a Canadian?

A: Winter.

When I lived in Toronto, BBQ meant a propane grill or a cookout over same. When a U.S.-style BBQ restaurant opened up in Toronto (Red Devil in the late-90s) it was a curiosity that soon turned into a yuppie fern bar and quickly closed after a couple of menu revamps. I took colleagues there a few times but the menu wasn't their cup of tea. When I said southern BBQ, they were expecting steaks, etc. I loved Red Devil and I invariably ate there at least once a week.
 
Hey Peter,

I remember Red Devil. Lots of hot sauces and fairly decent ribs. That location had the curse though. It turned over every year.
 
Originally posted by James Harvey:
Hey Peter,

I remember Red Devil. Lots of hot sauces and fairly decent ribs. That location had the curse though. It turned over every year.
Click to expand...

They actually had 3 locations at their peak. One downtown somewhere, the one I went to right near the 427 and QEW, down by Sherway Gardens, and a third location near the big movie theatre complex up in Vaughan. Last I'd heard, the two suburban ones closed within 2 years and they re-named the downtown one "RD's" but I think that, too, is long-gone.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

 

Back
Top