Feb. 23 is now known as Patty Day in Toronto, in commemoration of the day it became OK to talk about Jamaican patties.
The story of Toronto’s bizarre 1985 ‘patty wars’: when the government tried to rename the beef patty
Vanessa Caldwell · CBC Docs · Posted: Feb 17, 2022 Last Updated: September 15, 2022
In 1985, the Canadian government tried to stop Jamaican bakeries and restaurants from using the term “beef patty.”
Patty vs. Patty, a new documentary from CBC Short Docs, tells the story of Toronto’s bizarre patty wars: when the city’s patty vendors refused to change the name of their beloved snack, and made international headlines along the way.
At the time, Canada’s Meat Inspection Act classified a beef patty as what goes in a hamburger. It could contain only meat and seasoning and it couldn’t be encased in dough or a crust. Therefore, a Jamaican patty — widely known as a flaky pastry with a spiced beef filling — didn’t meet the criteria.
Bureaucrats thought calling hamburger patties and Jamaican patties the same thing would be confusing to Canadians (despite the fact that the latter were already popular in cities like Toronto, due to a wave of immigrants who arrived from the Caribbean in the ’60s and ’70s).
Patty vendors faced fines of more than $11,000 in today’s dollars for not complying
…
Read the full, crazy story here. The story of Toronto’s bizarre 1985 ‘patty wars’: when the government tried to rename the beef patty | CBC Documentaries
Told from Michael Davidson’s perspective, Patty vs. Patty weaves together first-hand anecdotes, archival footage and satirical re-enactments to tell this story of bureaucracy gone amok, community resistance and a delicious pastry — officially known as the Jamaican patty ever since.