I was going to say “Part Deux” because I’m in French Canada, but that would have been cheesy.  Oh well.  I guess I’m doing it here now nevertheless.

Oh Canada.  Recently, I saw a list of things that the general public does not know about Canada, like the fact that you don’t have to be a Canadian citizen to be prime minister.  Added to that list was that Canada was a country without a culture.  I heard Mike Meyers boil down Canada’s essence to one thing or habit more accurately.  He recalled driving some place in Canada and someone had painted chevrons on the road and wrote somewhere “keep two chevrons back.”  Canadians, according to Mike Meyers, are a group of people in the world who are willing to accept chevrons as a unit of measurement.

Well, anyway, I just like telling that story and I have no idea if it explains Canadian culture or whatever it is.  I disagree though that Canada per se has no culture, more particularly food culture.  This is like saying that America has no food culture.  Food culture in Canada, like in America is a meld of the other cultures that have been here and is really regional.  People in South Carolina eat grits, while people in New England eat clam chowder.

The same thing seems to be the case in this part of Canada.  People eat local here and combine it with the remnants of the other cultures that have already been here, hence the poutine (gravy and French fries with cheese curds).  Oh and maple syrup on LITERALLY EVERYTHING.

Anyway, so at long last we get to the supermarket bonanza.  Actually, these photos are from a quite pleasant market I visited today.  First up, the biggest onions I’ve ever seen.  I’m not sure if this is particularly Canadian or Quebecoise, but these are some very large onions:

Next up, a savory crepe, which I used to be opposed to on principle, but lately I’ve been coming around to:

Next up, an extraordinary American/Canadian mashup.  INSANE.  I didn’t try this.  But I will:

Oh and the maple.  My god.  Do people in this region love their maple.  Maple everything.  Maple ice cream:

This beautiful display.  I don’t know what Pierrot Gourmand is, but its a pretty display:

Some fruit preserves.  One of many I saw today:

The aforementioned poutine.  Really, really, really good.  I mean extraordinary.  I would have thrown in a few drops of chili oil or sriracha or something, but overall, a high score on my non-scientific scale of food goodness:

Finally, a few typical scenic kind of shots that one finds in those magazine stories about local markets.  Some homemade marshmallows and a woman getting tea.  Just imagine you are there: