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Where Has This Treat Been All Your Life? Canada

The butter tart is celebrated in its homeland, where the preference for runny or firm fillings, plain or with raisins, is a matter of passionate national debate. Ontario, where most scholars believe the butter tart was born, celebrates it with two dueling tourism trails (Kawarthas Northumberland Butter Tart Tour and Butter Tarts and Buggies) and festivals galore, including Ontario’s Best Butter Tart Festival in Midland and a new one that will have its debut in March in Bowmanville, east of Toronto.

“Good butter tarts, they seem like a modest dessert,” said Michael DeForge, a creator of TartQuest, an Instagram feed of butter tart reviews. “They’re supposed to pack a lot of punch. But on the outside, they’re supposed to just seem plain and unassuming.”

Modern Canadian culinary culture celebrates seasonality, native ingredients and provincial pride. Like poutine and Nanaimo bars, two other national favorites, butter tarts buck the norm. They are a humble treat, made with ordinary ingredients, and spectacularly delicious.

At its most basic, the butter tart is a pastry filled with brown sugar, butter and egg. Oven alchemy transforms those simple ingredients into something spectacular. Inventive cooks have gone further with chocolate chips, coconut, nuts and other add-ins.

Butter tart recipes, and variations like butter tart ice cream, regularly appear in magazines like Canadian Living.

Elizabeth Baird, who was food editor of the magazine from 1987 to 2009, was a student at the University of Toronto when she realized the power of their appeal.

“I worked in a summer lodge where there were a lot of American visitors, and we could wow them every time with butter tarts with vanilla ice cream,” Ms. Baird said. “I think that was the first time I realized they were unique to Canada.”

Why, then, have the tarts never made significant waves south of the border? It could be that Canadians don’t want to let the world — or just their louder neighbors — in on their sweetest secret.

Recipes: Butter Tarts | Butter Tart Squares

The Canada Issue