Canada

The dish everyone reaches for after a cold night is poutine: hot chips buried under squeaky cheese curds and a ladle of gravy, Québec's gift to the whole country. Canada is really far too big for a single cuisine — it's a patchwork stitched from its regions and from everyone who ever arrived, French and British, Ukrainian and Chinese, Caribbean and beyond, each leaving something on the table.

Québec runs the deepest and most French — the tourtière meat pie, and the spring ritual of the sugar shack, where maple sap is boiled down into the syrup that finds its way onto everything. The Atlantic Maritimes haul lobster, mussels and scallops from icy water; the Prairies fold in Ukrainian perogies and bannock from Indigenous kitchens; and Montreal cures its own peppery smoked meat and boils a denser, chewier bagel than New York will admit to. Finish with a sweet, frost-born ice wine or a glass of Canadian rye — after a coffee from the Tim Hortons that stands on every corner.