Canada is well recognized as a country of immigrants. It is also recognized for the number of new immigrants who are welcomed into the country every year, numbers far outdistancing those taken in by other countries. Canada was built on an inflow of immigrants. Originally from Britain and the countries of Western Europe. At one time it was rare to see visible minorities.

How things have changed; now everywhere one looks people are readily identified by their physical characteristics, skin and hair colour and cultural or religious clothing, and the babel of exotic languages can be heard everywhere, embroidering English and French, in this officially bilingual country. The two 'founding nations' are still represented as the majority, but those who have migrated from elsewhere on the globe have changed the face of the country beyond measure.

There are over a quarter-million emigrants from abroad welcomed into Canada as new permanent residents, many soon on their way to achieving citizenship each and every year. Canada's open doors, easy accessibility, and assistance to settling and integrating into a new environment through government and private-enterprise auspices help guide new immigrants. In comparison to other countries increasing their population numbers through immigration, Canada is well recognized as a destination of choice for people from around the world. Canada's major cities as well as distant towns and villages no longer resemble the monoculture ethnicity they once did.

And increasingly, I see evidence of this not only in the most obvious fact that people of yellow, brown and black hue now intermingle comfortably in this pluralist society everywhere one looks, but on supermarket shelves. At first it was organically grown basic foodstuffs being presented on grocery shelves as alternate choices. Now, an increasingly large presentation of what to Canadian tastes can only be described as "exotic" foods are available not just in specialty shops dedicated to the clusters of immigrants that have newly arrived over the decades but on ordinary supermarket shelves.

Strange appearing fruit one had no idea even existed, much less how they are to be prepared for the table. Although, for those interested, the Internet swiftly solves that little problem. And vegetables whose provenance, names and identifying features, much less preparation, is completely beyond the ken of yesterday's Canadians. Yesterday, in the food store where I regularly shop, I asked an elderly Caribbean-Canadian how to prepare breadfruit, a staple I'd read about that existed in many countries, but had never before seen.