“That got me into the bigger story and of the role of women in the 1950s, their lives in mill towns and the cuisine they created,” Professor Newman told me.

She defines Canadian cuisine in part by what it isn’t.

“We don’t have a lot of recipes, and that’s a function of the nature of our cuisine,” she said. “It doesn’t mean it’s less developed. There’s lots of cuisines around the world that aren’t recipes.

Instead, in Professor Newman’s view, Canadian cooking is “all about properties of seasonality, of incorporating wild foods, of multicultural incorporation and ingredients.”

Several of you, too many to name, noted the absence of butter tarts from my list. That was a result of doubt and cowardice on my part. I planned to include butter tarts as one of Ontario’s contributions until I came across other provinces making claims on them. Professor Newman, however, assured me that they are indeed from Ontario.