The Atlantic

Wonderful seafood, yes, but don't overlook the hearty country fare and colourfully named traditional specialties of the Maritimes and Newfoundland and Labrador.

In Canada, we're fortunate that old fashioned cooking still provides welcome detours in a fast-lane world. In Atlantic Canada - Newfoundland and Labrador and the Maritime provinces of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island - home cooking is the real thing. Good, unpretentious cooking is everywhere. There's nowhere on earth more comforting that a cozy kitchen in Atlantic Canada on a damp, cold day. The wonderful smells coming from simmering pots will bid you welcome as warmly as the big hugs you'll get at the door.

Newfoundland and Labrador has some of the oldest cooking traditions in North America; the first settlement was established by English colonists at Conception Bay in 1610. The food of Newfoundland and Labrador, like customs, dialect, folklore and place names, reflects the influences of the past as well as an isolation from the rest of the continent. Traditional dishes have been enjoyed for countless generations, and the warm kitchens of today's Newfoundland and Labrador still bid "welcome" with hearty chowders topped with dumplings, spicy molasses bread, partridgeberry pudding, wild game birds or baked fish stuffed with savoury dressing.

Nova Scotian hospitality, too, dates back nearly 400 years to the days of the French explorer, Samuel de Champlain, who created the first "dinner club," the Order of Good Cheer, to raise the spirits of his winter-weary troops at Port Royal. Today, French culinary tradition lives on in the area around the restored fortress of Louisbourg on Cape Breton's southern shore, while up in the highlands, the Gaelic greeting, "Ciad Mile Failte" (100,000 welcomes) is an appropriate introduction to the pleasures of Scotch broth, oatcakes and shortbread. An Acadian heritage remains in the western reaches of the province, while German is the flavour of Lunenburg on the south shore. The Annapolis Valley produces prolific harvests of apples, many other fruits and vegetables, poultry, pork, beef and dairy products. The area cradling the Bay of Fundy is famous for blueberries and maple syrup as well as dramatic tides and clambakes. Nova Scotian waters yield a bounty of seafood.

New Brunswick boasts a vast array of fish and shellfish, the only tuna and sardine canneries in Canada, the world's largest frozen vegetable processors, flavoursome fiddleheads, blueberries, apples, maple syrup and huge crops of fine potatoes. With its rich farmlands, vast river valleys, heavily forested uplands and strong Loyalist and Acadian roots, New Brunswick has a diverse flavour all its own.

Prince Edward Island is a treasure of sandy beaches, picturesque fishing harbours, gentle farmlands and friendly folk. The rich red soil produces potatoes that are shipped all over the world; Island dairies churn out wonderful creamy milk and butter; the harvest of mussels, scallops and Malpeque oysters is world-famous, and the fabulous lobster suppers draw thousands of visitors every year.