Favorite British Columbia Desserts

[snousle]

It's hard to pin down what British Columbia cuisine is all about, but while in Vancouver I noticed that there are pastries there that I've never seen anywhere else. Some, I think, are imported from the UK, but as far as I know the Nanaimo Bar is unique to BC. Wikipedia says it's "popular across North America" but that hasn't been my experience.

If I were to generalize quite a lot, I'd say BC cooking takes traditional concepts and makes them more calorie-dense and intensely flavored, though not usually "goopy" or full of inexpensive "filler" ingredients as similar American adaptations. On the higher end there are lots of "inappropriate" flavor combinations, such as Dungeness crab with Parmesan, that taste really good after it's been raining for several weeks without interruption.

The particular shop where I took these pictures - on Bute St. just off of Davie - had good looking pastries that unfortunately tasted like crap. Oh well. Regardless, these are flavors that are prominent in my memory and are one of the few things that still make me pine for the fjords.



These particular Nanaimo bars are ridiculously huge, you'd have to cut them in four to make a reasonable serving. They're usually VERY rich. Nanaimo is (was?) a very pretty town on the east coast of Vancouver island known for incredible salmon fishing. I haven't really been there in 20 years but my impression is that it's grown a lot.



Butter tarts - I'm pretty sure these are eaten across Canada and the UK. A friend of the family is a bit of an aficionado of these and has transformed the recipe into something more like a pillowy cloud of pastry with a little glop of filling in the middle. Hers are divine - these were leaden and flavorless. But you get the idea.



Sausage rolls! The ultimate cholesterol lunch. Not large, but one is enough. They are always dreadful, and always delicious.



The Copenhagen, a little swirl on top of custard, supported by (ideally) flaky puff pastry. I've eaten hundreds of these.



Not pictured: Eccles cakes, which are rounds of firm flaky pastry with currants. Crunchy and usually not very sweet. These were my favorite, I'd buy them from a small pastry shop near my high school in Kerrisdale, but I haven't seen them in a long time.

Comments

[allanh.livejournal.com]

I don't just [heart] Nanaimo Bars, I [LUST!] them.

*sigh*

[kevynjacobs.livejournal.com]

>...as far as I know the Nanaimo Bar is unique to BC. Wikipedia says it's "popular across North America" but that hasn't been my experience.

You can find Nanaimo Bars commonly in delis and bakeries in Washington State, southern Yukon, and Alaska, but I've never seen them outside of the Pacific Northwest.

Sausage rolls are Eastern Europen in origin, I believe.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

WHS. And I have looked!

Now you've made me all nostalgic for the horror that is gooey butter.

sauasage rolls

[bitterlawngnome.livejournal.com]

Apparently they are also (?) Scots in origin.

Re: sauasage rolls

[kevynjacobs.livejournal.com]

Could be. Wikipedia is mum on the subject.

[mhgagnon.livejournal.com]

Nanaimo bars seriously rock!

[osodecanela.livejournal.com]

So I have heard, and now I see why. Those look so insanely good, I'm actually salivating!

It's good that about 1000 miles separates me from them. If my waistline gets any larger, my butt may qualify as a suburb.

[bluebear2.livejournal.com]

It's a common thing for people to expand in their imagination that something is universal when really it's just wherever they've been. I do know that a few places in the States have nanaimo bars but it's usually because they were in Canada and got turned on to them.
Nanaimo the city is still pretty happening but the mall on the north end of town had ruined the centre for awhile. Now it's coming back.
Something to be wary of in Vancouver is European pastries made by Chinese. They mean well but not many of them really understand what it's supposed to be like and it ends up like Chinese baking in a different shape. I love Chinese baking but they're not the same thing.
Butter tarts I remember making as a kid. Most yummy. Homemade ones are usually the best for some reason.

[snousle.livejournal.com]

European pastries made by Chinese

That's indeed what they are, though lacking experience in the area I chose not to mention it for fear of implying a causal relationship on insufficient evidence. ;-)

[bitterlawngnome.livejournal.com]

But on the other hand there are these cake-roll things, chunks of several kinds of cake mortared together with buttercream or sometimes even just butter, rolled up inside a sheet of sponge cake. It's as if someone tried to imitate Twinkies™ and accidentally came up with something wonderful.

[bitterlawngnome.livejournal.com]

eccles cakes, ugh. lard pastry and gritty little currants. quintessentially English.

[westwind-mv.livejournal.com]

Whenever I hear of Eccles cakes I invariably think of the Monty Python sketch about the dysfunctional airline, where the passengers waiting in the lounge are subjected to repeated exhortations that "there is still time to purchase your Eccles cakes."

[bitterlawngnome.livejournal.com]

is that the one where the albatross guy shows up?

[westwind-mv.livejournal.com]

No, sorry, the albatross vendor ("'course you don't get wafers wiv it, it's a bloody seabird innit?") appears in a theatre, not an airline lounge.

[snousle.livejournal.com]

They can be very good. Not always. Though I do like my pastries rather on the austere side anyway.

[chefxh.livejournal.com]

oh! oh! oh! Butter tarts! From Stroli's on Bathurst in Toronto. *swoon*

gods, now I want Schwartz smoked meat.

[brigus.livejournal.com]

Oh. My. God.

I had this girlfriend that lived in Vancouver, and she was naïve enough not to realize that not only were Nanaimo Bars [presumably] named after Nanaimo, BC, but that they did not exist outside of BC. She was shocked that I'd never heard of them. I thought they were the best damn thing ever though, let me tell you. Well, OK, maybe second best, after poutine. I guess she can be forgiven, since she was originally from Saskatoon? Ida know, what the hell, why should I be an apologist for her, hell, she's the ex now.