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'Pâté chinois' (literally, "Chinese pie", a dish similar to shepherd's pie in England) is a French Canadian dish made from layered ground beef (usually mixed with sautéed diced bell peppers and onions and seasoned with salt and pepper) on the bottom layer, canned corn (usually a 50/50 mix of whole-kernel and creamed corn) for the middle layer, and mashed potatoes on top. Prior to cooking, it is usually sprinkled with Paprika for color and is often served with pickled beets.
Chinese Pie is not a Chinese recipe. In fact, the ingredients in this recipe are not found in many recipes from China. One possible explanation for the 'Chinese' reference is that it was introduced to French Canadian railway workers by Chinese cooks during the building of the North American railroads in the late 19th century. These cooks made it under instruction from the railway bosses (of English extraction) as an easily-prepared, inexpensive version of the popular Shepherd's Pie, with ground beef serving in place of minced lamb or mutton, and the sauce in the tinned creamed-corn serving as a substitute for the gravy. The French Canadian railway workers became fond of it and brought the recipe back with them to their home communities. From there it was brought to the textile mill communities of Maine (Lewiston, Maine) and New Hampshire (Manchester, New Hampshire) where many French Canadians immigrated to work in the mills during the early 20th century. Anglicisation of the name to 'Chinese Pie' occurred as these immigrants began to use English as a secondary and, eventually, as their primary language.
Another explanation is found in "A Taste of Quebec" by Julian Armstrong: "the name was traced by Quebec food historian Claude Poirier to a town in the state of Maine called China. In the 19th century, thousands of Quebecers migrated to the northeastern United States to work in the mills. Those who settled in the town of China eventually returned to Quebec with a recipe for shepherd's pie, which they called 'pâté chinois.'"
One variation on the recipe includes inversing the order of the top two ingredients, placing the corn on the top and the potatoes in the middle. The result is sometimes preferred to the more traditional recipe as it does not leave a hard crust of potato on the top but rather a more viscous and moist dish. The downside is that the meal is much less visually appealing.

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Cultural references

In the Québécois humorous television program ''La Petite Vie'', pâté chinois is used to show one of the character's abysmal lack of common sense as she regularly fails at preparing it, for example, by laying the three ingredients side by side instead of layering them, or forgetting to mash the potatoes.

References

★ www.whats-cooking.ca article

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