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CANADIANS AT TABLE: FOOD, FELLOWSHIP, AND FOLKLORE is an introduction to the incredibly diverse culinary history of this vast land we call Canada. As we move along a historical path from First Nations to newcomers, we learn how skilled our ancestors were at surviving and prospering, despite the challenges of climate, geography, and environment.

Every topic touched on here deserves to be explored and recorded in greater detail. Every topic deserves its own publication or series of publications to understand and appreciate its true significance.

The sheer size of this nation, stretching from sea to sea to sea, and its dramatically differing regions, have spawned a bountiful legacy of food and beverages. In many regions of Canada, dedicated historians, cooks, chefs, authors, and other interested individuals have recorded their own rich local histories of food, beverages, and medicines. I hope their work and this brief overview will inspire others to tell their personal stories, to research local culinary traditions, to read local handwritten and published cookbooks, diaries, and other historical records, and to discuss with their neighbours, friends, and family how their food and beverage traditions have remained constant or changed over time.

How did our ancestors constantly adapt and invent recipes with a surplus of some ingredients or a scarcity of others, while trying to feed their family, their crew, or their customers? A great deal of experience and ingenuity has never been recognized nor recorded. I hope, by turning readers into reporters and scribes, to help preserve a more complete record of everyday Canadians and their everyday meals for future generations. I also hope Canadians at Table will be the catalyst for new research, recording, and experimenting. We must treasure this, one of the greatest culinary histories in the world, one of which every Canadian should be proud.

Dorothy Duncan

Willowdale, Ontario

June 2006