FOOD STAPLES
CANADIAN
C˜SSICS
TEN ICONIC CANADIAN FOODS AND THE STORIES BEHIND THEM — ALONG WITH A HANDFUL OF EXEMPLARY RECIPES. BY ELIZAB ETH BAIRD PHOTOGRAPHY BY JA ME S TS E
BUTTER TARTS recipe on page 146
BUTTER TARTS “One cup of sugar, 1⁄2 cup of butter, 2 eggs, 1 cup currants; mix. Fill tarts and bake. Mrs. Malcolm MacLeod.” This two-line recipe is thought to be the frst printed recipe for what we now call butter tarts. Together with its title, simply, “Filling for tarts,” it appeared in the Women’s Auxiliary of the Royal Victoria Hospital Cook Book, a 1900 fundraiser for the Barrie, Ont., hospital. Mrs. MacLeod didn’t o˛er plain, raisin or pecan as picky modern butter tart lovers demand. She couldn’t have predicted the many di˛erent versions of butter tarts Canadian bakers have devised—coconut, bacon bits, cranberries, blueberries and chèvre, raspberry jam, peanut butter, apple and cinnamon, candied ginger, peaches and pumpkin. Nor could she have envisaged that her tarts would become a Canadian icon boasting a self-directed butter tart trail north of Guelph, a 50-stop butter tart tour that winds through the Kawarthas and Northumberland County, and in Midland, Ontario’s Best Butter Tart Festival, where 120 bakers, professional and amateur, vie to be top butter tart baker. Now in its ffth year, the festival draws some 50,000 fans who have dibs on the 150,000 butter tarts for sale from vendors lining King Street. Although the frst butter tart recipe was sweetened with sugar, recipes like ours, which include maple syrup or corn syrup, became very popular. Syrup made for a runnier butter tart—for some the pinnacle of butter tart perfection. F OO D & DR I N K SUMMER ˜°˛˝˙˛˜ˆ
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