Language and food define and shape collective identities. This is true especially in Canada, a country where collective identities seem disparate and fragmented within the ostensible multicultural “mosaic”: from coast to coast, cultural and ethnic backgrounds vary, as do religious practices and social norms. Canadians of all backgrounds nevertheless find ways to communicate and share their foodways, regardless of language. The language of food might actually be a more apt lingua franca than English or French. Food not only shapes identities, but it can also act as a pivot or bridge language between divergent identities, a form of cultural mediation or translation. Massimo Montanari, whose research informs many of the articles in this issue, explains that: If shared foodways are integral to the forging of collective identities within groups, food trade can act as a bridge for communication between groups. In “Les Québécois francophones et leur ‘identité’ alimentaire,” Yvon Desloges alludes to such a notion of cultural contact. Desloges asserts that Québécois food identities are the result of cross-cultural contact between four main groups in the 19th century: the First Nations, the French, the British, and the American. From a semiotics perspective, moreover, both food and language function as “codes of communication.” They: Food may be a language in a Montanarian sense, with its own “grammar,” but as this issue demonstrates, it is also a visual, aesthetic, and sensory language. In “Food, Photographs, and Frames,” Sonya Sharma and Gwen Chapman analyze the visual language of photo elicitation as a means of cracking these food codes. Food photography illustrates an essential dialectic, from how relationships with food can shape identity to how perceived ontological narratives can shape relationships with food. As an aesthetic language, food also has performative potential, whether it lies in preparation, presentation, or description. Such performances may be elaborately embellished, as Renée Desjardins observes of the discourse of menus at Château Frontenac in Quebec City, or they may be relatively mundane yet semantically loaded, as Holly Everett notes of the discourse surrounding mealtimes at two bed and breakfast inns (B&Bs) in Newfoundland and Labrador. As a sensory language, the tastes, smells, and even sounds of food—the sizzling of fat in a pan, the popping of popcorn, the slurping of soup—can speak to and create food identities. The language of food, as well as the language describing food, also enables the rebuttal and transgression of certain cultural stereotypes. Although Quebec is proud of having developed a distinctive cuisine drawing from regionally sourced ingredients, for instance, the eclectic and cosmopolitan food scenes in Montreal and Quebec City attest to a real Québécois fondness for fusion cuisine. In Quebec, in fact, fusion cuisine goes back decades: Desjardins reveals archived menus from the Château Frontenac indicating that while local and terroir ingredients were key menu staples, British, French and other European cuisines had made their way into the Québécois professional kitchen by the early 20th century, long before fusion was le goût du jour. Similarly, in “Newfoundland and Labrador on a Plate,” Everett illustrates that a shared meal at a Newfoundland B&B offers a space for local residents to show tourists that the “Newfie” stereotype is just that—a stereotype. As Diane Tye demonstrates in “Lobster Tales,” even assumptions about certain food items are up for debate. Many visitors to Atlantic Canada perceive lobster as a “luxury meal” or a “special event” ingredient, while elite chefs have even used this coveted seafood to up the ante of the humble poutine: lobster poutine now appears on the menu of quite a few high-end restaurants. As Tye explains, however, tourists who …