Maritimes
Halifax donair: sweet garlic sauce.
Halifax Donair
The Halifax donair — spit-roasted beef sliced into a pita and drowned in a sweet garlic sauce — is the Maritime cities' late-night icon.
View page →The Maritimes — Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island — sit on two foundations: Acadian French heritage (the Francophone farmers the British tried to expel in the 18th century, who stayed and left behind potato-topped rappie pie) and the cold North Atlantic catch — lobster, clams, scallops, cod year-round. The Halifax donair is the region's late-night icon: spit-roasted beef sliced into a pita and drowned in a sweet garlic sauce, a Turkish-derived doner thoroughly Canadianized. PEI mussels and Fundy lobster anchor Canada's seafood export. Blueberry grunt cooks dumplings in steam over a sweet berry pot; Acadian fricot is a chicken, salt pork and root vegetable stew. These are the plain, warming flavors of a cold coast.
The Palate
Start Here
Spit-roasted beef in a pita, drowned in a sweet garlic sauce.
Why start here · The Maritimes' late-night icon.
A creamy chowder of local clams, scallop and cod.
Why start here · The cold Atlantic in a bowl.
Acadian grated-potato bake with chicken or clams, frugal and filling.
Why start here · The French-Acadian inheritance, baked.
The Pantry
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Proteins
Fruits
Herbs & Spices
Grains & Staples
Sauces & Condiments
How They Cook
Techniques that define this cuisine
Other regions
Siblings within Canadian — each its own tradition.