Those Canadian "Exotic Delicacies" You’ve Never Tried — Only the Brave Dare to Eat!

Text & photos /Papa Seahorse

Compared to people from the East, most Westerners (especially those from the American continent) have quite a narrow acceptance of food. The so-called three no’s of Westerners: no animal innards, no food that’s too much trouble to eat, and no food they’ve never seen before.

As a result, in the seafood section of a typical Western supermarket, shrimp are neatly arranged, but you’ll never see their heads. In high-end restaurants, when waiters serve an expensive fish dish, what makes customers smile is definitely a well-seared, tender fish steak — not a whole steamed fish complete with head and bones. They simply can’t understand what Chinese people call “eating anything that flies except planes, and anything with four legs except tables and chairs.”

In contrast, European cultures are more accepting of ingredients than those on the American continent. Over a hundred years ago, during the early days of Canada’s founding, influenced by British and French cultures, along with the fusion of local Indigenous and immigrant cultures, a unique culinary culture developed. With the passage of time, some dishes have gradually been forgotten, but if you come across them in a corner of a city or countryside, you’ll still find that old-time flavor.

Coinciding with the annual Vancouver Food Festival, Papa Seahorse tried several traditional dishes that were truly eye-opening. The boldness of the ingredients even left Asians like me amazed. Let’s take a look at these dishes and gauge their level of shock value.

Snake Soup

I tried this exotic dish at the food street in Imperial Plaza, Richmond. It brought back memories of watching snake meat being prepared on the spot at Huaxi Street in Taipei when I was a child. This is a dish brought over by newer immigrants, and according to the vendor, quite a few people of different ethnicities came to try it. Unfortunately, the snake meat in the soup was both small and scarce, making it hard to discern the taste of snake.

Rabbit Meat (Quebec Rabbit)

Quebec, with its strong French influence, is a major consumer of rabbit meat. This year, at the Vancouver Food Festival, the restaurant Edible Canada served Quebec Rabbit Orecchiette — a dish combining rabbit meat, wild mushrooms, and Brussels sprouts with orecchiette pasta shaped like little ears, delivering a perfect rustic flavor.

Lamb Heart

Lambs not only provide wool for warm clothing, but their meat is also a staple on European plates. Edible Canada served Grilled Alberta Lamb Heart from Alberta, Canada. Unlike Chinese cooking methods, this lamb heart is prepared like a steak — grilled medium-rare, then sliced. The slightly bloody slices are tender and smooth, with a texture firmer and more distinct than the coarse looseness of red meat.

Caribou Sausage

Caribou (also known as reindeer), the trusty helper that pulls Santa’s sleigh, is one of the key ingredients in Eastern Canadian cuisine. On the menu at Aux Anciens Canadiens, a historic Canadian heritage restaurant in Quebec, there’s a dish called Caribou and Bison Sausage — a recipe passed down from ancestors. Deer and wild bison meat are ground, mixed with spices, and stuffed into casings to make sausages. Once pan-fried, they turn a slightly reddish color, with a somewhat dry texture. Paired with bean sauce, they offer a taste of daily life from a century ago.

Read more:Savoring Hidden Delights in the Backstreets of Old Quebec

Canadian Elk Meatballs

The Canadian elk (elk), a large species of deer second in size only to the moose, is also a common ingredient among the folk of the American Midwest, besides being found in Canada. When Papa Seahorse tried Canadian Elk Meatballs at the popular Vancouver restaurant Chambar, he was surprised — the meatballs were about 8 cm in diameter, roughly the size of a young girl’s fist. The deer meat is quite firm, with a texture somewhere between beef and pork. Unfortunately, the chef used a lot of spices, which overpowered the original flavor of the venison.

Newfoundland Seal Meat

No, you’re not mistaken — it’s seal meat. With their big eyes and playful behavior, seals are so cute — how could you bear to eat them? In fact, seal meat is a traditional delicacy in Eastern Canada. Not only is it an officially recognized ingredient in the country, but there’s also a necessity for its consumption — the seal population has exploded, leading to overconsumption of fish and causing ecological imbalance. Despite protests from animal rights groups, seal meat still maintains a certain level of market consumption.

Image courtesy of Vancouver Foodie Tour

Edible Canada offers a limited-time dish: Newfoundland Seal Pappardelle. With a tomato-based sauce, wide pasta is mixed with seal meat paste, sprinkled with generous slices of Parmesan cheese — a delicious plate of pasta. As for how seal meat tastes? It’s like mixing ground beef with liver — soft in texture with a hint of organ flavor.

Image courtesy of the Edible Canada website

Which of these dishes do you think is the most shocking? Papa Seahorse feels they’re all within the range of acceptability. But there’s one alternative dish he’s really curious about: the seasonal Rocky Mountain Oysters offered by Edible Canada two years ago. Can you guess what it is? Fried sheep testicles, that’s what it is!! Whether you dare to put it in your mouth depends entirely on your own courage!

Papa Seahorse
A Gemini man born under the air sign. Before the age of 45, he was a senior marketing and PR executive for a multinational corporation; after 45, he moved to Canada. Alongside his teenage sons, he plays the role of a father amidst foreign springs of cherry blossoms, summers of sun, autumns of maple leaves, winters of rain and snow, while documenting his experiences in Vancouver.

Blog:Vancouver Laughs - my.van.life、Fan Page:Dad Seahorse’s Vancouver Diary