Canadian food could possibly be the least romantic international cuisine on the market. First of all, living in Michigan, Canada is international by the semantic definition only. Going somewhere less than 100 miles away is a far cry from what one thinks of when it comes to international travel. Secondly Canada isn’t renowned for its cuisine. I mean, no offense to Canadians, but nobody goes around saying “Man, I have been really craving some Canadian food lately.” However, I would argue that out of Canadian bakeries comes a tiny pastry that is so delectable, it nearly counteracts the other shortcomings of Canadian cuisine as a whole.

     Picture, if you can, the rich caramel filling of a pecan pie. Then remove the pecans, shrink it to a bite size, and envelop it with a buttery shortbread crust. That’s a Canadian butter tart- essentially a butter-on-butter bite sized nugget of heaven. On a brisk fall day like today, I get a taste for one of these nostalgic treats. Add a warm coffee, and there is simply nothing better.

    I was introduced to butter tarts as a child, when my family would take the short drive from Northern Michigan to Canada for a fall color tour, our 1988 camper trailer in tow. It seems an exaggeration to claim butter tarts as a dessert for which Canada is known, since no American I have met has ever heard of a butter tart. Nevertheless, butter tarts are one of the few foods to which Canada can lay full claim.  

     Sadly for the rest of the world, butter tarts are a domestic staple rather than an export. You won’t find them in bakery cases in Atlanta, say, or for sale on American convenience store shelves. If factory production is one telltale sign of an item’s popularity, then the absence of a Hostess brand butter tart is proof of their relative obscurity. Culturally relative, that is. Despite their obscurity in the States, the tarts are widely available north of the 45th parallel.

     “You can’t grow up in Ontario without knowing what a butter tart is” says Canadian expatriate Bill Perkins, when asked about the small pastry. “All you have to do is cross the border and-  by golly - there’s a huge table of butter tarts at the duty free store!” According to Perkins, every Tim Horton’s in Canada carries butter tarts, but they cannot be found at a single United States location.

     Despite their awesomeness, butter tarts just haven’t caught on across the border. Nearly everyone in the US can define baklava, but butter tarts have remained at least obscure, if not unknown. Perhaps Canada is just trying to keep butter tarts a secret, with the hopes that each American ignorant to the deliciousness of butter tarts means one more tart in the happy stomachs of Canadian citizens.