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Papua New GuineaFlavors · Montreal
Smaller, more compact and slightly sweet, hand-rolled, dipped in boiling water with honey and baked in a wood-fired oven. It arrived in Montreal with Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe in the early 20th century and became one of the city’s signatures.
Traditional dish from Montreal, Quebec
Also known as: Montreal bagel, Montreal-style bagel, beigel
Illustrative images. The pictures in this guide are illustrations based on the real place, not photographs, and may differ from it.
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Bagel de Montréal — Montreal, Canada
The Montreal bagel is a ring-shaped, hand-made bread. After shaping, each piece is briefly placed in boiling water sweetened with honey and then put into a wood-fired oven. The result is a bagel that is flatter, more compact and a bit sweeter than New York’s, with a crisp crust, an irregular surface browned by the fire, and a firm, chewy interior.
The dough is simple and, according to The Canadian Encyclopedia, includes malt and contains no salt; recipes vary from bakery to bakery. The most traditional ones are topped with sesame or poppy seeds. In many of the city’s bakeries, bakers roll, boil and bake the bagels in view of customers, and the wood-fired oven is part of the show.
The bagel arrived in Montreal with Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe in the early 20th century, especially in the Mile End and around boulevard Saint-Laurent. The exact origin is disputed: more than one baker is credited as the first to bake bagels in the city, and there’s no way to know who it was. Two Mile End bakeries maintain the traditional method: one settled on rue Fairmount in 1949, and the other opened in 1957.
In Montreal, the bagel is usually eaten while still warm, plain or with cream cheese. It also appears in breakfast baskets and in sandwiches, such as smoked salmon with cream cheese, tomato and onion. The city’s bagel became known outside Canada and, in 2008, an astronaut took an order of them to the International Space Station.
Montreal , Quebec
Tradition of Montreal’s Jewish bakeries since the early 20th century.
Wheat flour, malt, yeast and water, without salt; honey in the boiling water in which the bagel is cooked before baking. Topped with sesame or poppy seeds. Recipes vary between bakeries.
Warm, plain or with cream cheese, often right after coming out of the oven. Also for breakfast and in sandwiches, such as smoked salmon with cream cheese, tomato and onion.
All year round, especially at breakfast and as a snack.
Your questions
The Montreal one is smaller, flatter, more compact and a bit sweeter. It is hand-rolled, briefly boiled in water with honey and baked in a wood-fired oven, which gives it a crunchy, uneven crust.
The honey in the boiling water makes the bagel slightly sweet and helps brown the crust in the wood-fired oven. It is one of the features that distinguish it from other styles.
Still warm, plain or with cream cheese, often right after it comes out of the oven. It pairs well with smoked salmon in a sandwich.
Flavors of Canada
Vodka cocktail with tomato and clam juices, Worcestershire sauce and hot sauce, served in a tall glass with a celery salt rim, a celery stalk and lemon. It was created in Calgary in 1969 and is considered Canada’s national cocktail.
Strips of breaded beef fried until crispy, tossed in a sweet-and-spicy sauce with ginger, garlic and chili, served with sautéed vegetables and rice. Created in Calgary in the 1970s at a Chinese-Canadian restaurant, it spread across the Prairies and the country.
Beef brisket cured with salt and spices, smoked and cooked, served in thick slices on rye bread with mustard. Brought to Montreal by Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe between the late 19th and early 20th centuries, it is one of the dishes most associated with the city.
Sweet in three layers that doesn’t go in the oven: cookie base with cocoa, coconut and almonds, a yellow vanilla cream in the middle, and chocolate on top. It’s named for the city of Nanaimo on Vancouver Island, which selected an official recipe in the 1980s.
Dessert wine made from grapes that freeze naturally on the vine and are harvested and pressed frozen, which concentrates sugar and acidity. In Niagara-on-the-Lake, on the Niagara Peninsula, wineries produce it and the town hosts a winter festival dedicated to it.
Individual tart made with pie crust filled with butter, sugar, syrup and egg; creamy inside and firmer on top. The earliest known printed recipe dates from 1900 in Barrie, and the tart features on bakery and festival trails in Ontario.
Sweet cider distilled only from Quebec apples, whose sugar is concentrated by the natural cold of winter. Protected as a geographical indication, it has aromas of fresh and baked apple, honey and dried fruit.
French fries topped with fresh cheese curds that squeak between your teeth, and a hot gravy. It originated in roadside eateries in rural Quebec in the late 1950s and became one of the province’s culinary symbols.
Sandwich of cured, unsmoked pork loin, coated in cornmeal, grilled and served hot on a soft roll, usually with mustard. Linked to Toronto’s pork history, it was declared the city’s signature dish in 2016.
