As American as Apple Pie. As Canadian as a.....

If we are looking for an equivalent Canadian metaphor to the old saying, "As American as apple pie," let's try the butter tart on for size. 

For those of you unfamiliar with this sweet treat, the Butter Tart involves an open-faced, individual-sized, pie-crust shell with a gooey, brown sugar, egg and butter filling, with or without raisins. Although similar to pastries from other world cuisines, the butter tart is thought to be a genuine Canadian original and everyone's favourite Canadian dessert. For us ex-pats, it is impossible to visit our Home and Native Land without at least drooling at the sight of butter tarts in a local bakery. To eat one is to risk a diabetic coma, so sometimes we refrain. But never mind, it is metaphor we are seeking.

What does it mean to be "as American as apple pie?" Quite simply, this phrase has come to describe something that is characteristically American. An article in the Huffington Post, 11.26.14, entitled, "Why Are We as America as Apple Pie?" theorizes that, "apple pie as the quintessential American product may be an apt metaphor after all — it was brought here from foreign shores, was influenced by other cultures and immigration patterns, and spread throughout the world by global affairs….it all began with apples, which, in the nation’s infancy, were grown on almost every farm." 

So what have we got that describes something "typically Canadian?"

A lot of the apple pie symbolism rings true for butter tarts in the Canadian context. The recipe's origins represent three major players from foreign places that settled the early nation: French immigration in the 1600s (Tarte au sucre), English/Scottish settlement (Border pie and Treacle tart), and American influence (Pecan and Shoo-fly pies.) Other immigrant groups in ensuing years brought fruit to the discussion and by 1900, the first recipe for butter tarts was published in the Women's Auxiliary of the Royal Victoria Hospital in Barrie, Ontario. It took off from there.

Every individual's preferred butter tart qualities (runny or sticky; raisins or currants; thick crust or thin; nuts or no nuts; touch of maple syrup or not; firm or flaky) are not only tolerated, but celebrated in typical Canadian character, and being tarts, these little morsels are all of uniform size so that no one gets an unequal portion of the pie, so to speak. 

Sweet, but not cloying, open-faced, a bit crusty. What better description of your typical Canuck? 

And so, I ask you, shouldn't "As Canadian as a Butter Tart" become our national metaphor? 

Happy Canada, everyone! Happy Birthday Canada. I'm celebrating by making Nanaimo Bars. I tried, but I couldn't stretch the metaphor that thin.