Canada is more than baked beans, maple syrup and pea soup; our food experience is as diverse as our geography and our people. It is a celebration of native survival over the centuries colliding with Old World foods and traditions and mixing with New World ingredients. This book provides an A to Z guide to common and obscure, regional and nationwide, distinctly Canadian foods or, at the very least, foods with a Canadian connection.

* California rolls, Hawaiian pizza and New England clam chowder may sound American, but all were invented right here in Canada

* Canadian hero Laura Secord was virtually forgotten until a Toronto resident began making chocolates and putting her story on every box

* Pets de soeur, translated as ''nun's farts,'' and grand-peres dans le sirop (grandfathers in syrup) are highlights of Quebec cuisine

* Pemmican--dried, pounded bison meat mixed with animal fat and berries and packed into skin bags--is a high-energy food staple developed by First Nations

* Regional baked goods have such peculiar names as britchins, damper dogs, Fat Alfies and mogs

* Red Fife wheat, an accidental discovery by Ontario farmer David Fife, enables Canada to become the breadbasket of the world

* Ontario-born J.L. Kraft's patented cheese process morphs into a food-processing empire

...and more.

Includes a timeline of Canadian food history!