French Canadian Cuisine

French Canadian cuisine is the traditional cooking of Canada's French-speaking regions, chiefly Quebec, blending French provincial techniques with ingredients and methods drawn from Indigenous and colonial-era foodways going back to the 17th and 18th centuries. Signature dishes include poutine (fries, cheese curds, and gravy), tourtière (a spiced meat pie), and ragoût (a slow-simmered meat and vegetable stew), built on root vegetables like potatoes, carrots, and parsnips and, historically, game such as moose, caribou, and rabbit. Maple syrup is a defining ingredient in both sweet and savory dishes, from maple-glazed ham to maple baked beans. Regional variants exist along the Gaspé coast, where seafood dishes are more common, and in Acadian communities, which have their own dishes such as râpée pie.