thesis, methodology, and findings
The primary focus of our project is the evolution of Scarborough’s culinary culture from the mid to late-18th century to the mid to late-20th and early 21st century. The specific time periods on which we have focused are 1790 to 1850 and 1950 to 2000. Our primary research question is “to what extent has immigration since the 1960s contributed to the evolution of Scarborough’s cuisine from the mid 19th century to the beginning of the 21st century?”. The minor questions which we have addressed in our project were “how has globalization led to the evolution of Canada's cuisine, specifically in regards to Scarborough since the late 20th century?”, “to what extent do contemporary restaurants, food markets, and ethnic cuisines present in Scarborough tell us about the influence recent immigrants have had on the culinary culture of the suburb?”, and “to what extent does Scarborough’s contemporary culinary culture reflect the demographic changes the suburb has experienced in the past five decades?”. The utilization of relevant primary and secondary sources, an interview with a scholar of food history, and the surveying of Scarborough’s prominent ethnic restaurants characterize our methodology. We have used newspaper articles from the late-20th century, which deal with the demographic and economic shifts during the period, recipes from the Scarborough Historical Museum, and publications by prominent scholars of contemporary Scarborough’s culinary culture. After conducting our research, we have found that Scarborough’s culinary culture evolved from primarily being influenced by Anglo-German cuisine in the 18th century, to being one which, although retaining Anglo-German influence, has been heavily influenced by Middle Eastern, East Asian, South Asian, Southern and Eastern European, and African cuisines today.
The evolution of Scarborough’s culinary culture from the 18th to the 21st century is largely attributable to a seismic demographic shift after the 1950s. During the 18th and early-19th century, the majority of Scarborough’s inhabitants were of English, Irish, and German origins. Immediately following the Second World War, however, Italians, Greeks, and Ukrainians began arriving to Canada in large numbers, many of whom chose to settle in Scarborough and brought with them their unique culinary cultures. Most Italian and Greek immigrants set up restaurants across ethnic boroughs in Scarborough, and consequently diversified the suburb’s culinary culture. By the 1980s and 1990s hundreds of thousands of immigrants began arriving to the suburb from East Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia. These recent arrivals have founded various notable ethnic restaurants, most notably Federick Restaurant, which specializes in Chinese Hakka Cuisine and Patna Kabab House, which specializes in Indo-Pakistani cuisine. According to the 2006 National Census, two thirds of Scarborough’s inhabitants were of non-European heritage, which is the primary factor for the diversity of Scarborough’s cuisine.
