Pea Soup & Beavertails

With an eye on the estimated $235 million to be spent this year by U.S. tourists in Canada, the Dominion was determined to be the good host. For Courtesy to Tourists Week, the Junior Chamber of Commerce put on its best smile. In Ontario, the Department of Travel and Publicity got down to fundamentals. It bought 1,000 copies of a cookbook to pass out free to tourist camps and small hotels, "to raise the standard of food served as an added attraction to tourists."

The cookbook, 100 to Dinner (University of Toronto Press; $3.50), was an up-dater of a manual put together for service kitchens during the war, and it was badly needed. Raising the standard of Ontario resort cooking even to that of an army mess was a major operation. "Ontario," quipped a visitor to Toronto, "is as conservative gastronomically as it is politically. Eating is a dull pastime indeed, something to have and to have done with."

Two years ago the Ontario Northland Railway called on chefs of the province for a typical Ontario dish to set before tourists. First prize went to a thrifty meat pie (rabbit, chicken or beef). Saskatchewan ran the same kind of contest, finally gave the first prize to a doughy chicken turnover. In cattle-conscious Alberta a third competition ended up with an old standby: a king-sized steak.

By & large, hotel and resort food across Canada competes for dullness with U.S. blueplates and U.S. airline meals. But off the main line, the diligent traveler can find palate-tempters. In little French Canadian villages there is the traditional thick soupe aux pois to which the habitants attribute their virility. For dessert there are crisp little grand-peres (doughballs cooked in a pot of maple syrup). In the Maritimes, there are lobsters and clam chowder, Annapolis Valley baked apple dumplings, and a sturdy pudding called blueberry grunt. On the prairies the great delicacy is smoked Winnipeg goldeye (a Canadian lake fish) done to a golden turn, and Vancouver brings forth huge meaty crabs from the icy waters of Boundary Bay.

The cheese lover can find good sharp Cheddar almost everywhere. For the more discriminating, there is the smelly but mild-tasting Oka made by Trappist monks near Montreal. Alberta offers the value-seeker a platter-filling Gold Medal Ranch steak for $1. And for those who go to Canada for unusual foods and not the scenery, a Flin Flon cafe can rustle up a gamy beavertail soup, and a Val d'Or cafe can do wonders with bear paws.

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