Ah man
jjohnwm never been to Manitoba, but rural BC old church lady food is pretty similar. Salads consist of cool whip, jello, mini marshmallows, and canned fruit and cottage cheese to make it healthy. Hot foods are mostly cassaroles containing lots of canned cream soups yet still are better with more salt. It's a terrible nostalgia for largely bad times.
Okay, that paints a picture. Manitobe hosts an extremely high percentage of Ukrainians, so typically a pot-luck or similar would include perogies, cabbage, perogies, kielbasa, kielbasa-and-cabbage, kielbasa-and-perogies, more perogies, cabbage rolls (usually with kielbasa)...and sometimes perogies!
And, being of Ukrainian heritage...I love it! When I lived in Ontario, I had to drive almost 80km one way to get to a place that produced what I considered to be acceptable kielbasa. Here in Manitoba, the local general store, less than 2 miles from my house, sells stuff that puts Ontario's best to shame. Don't even get me started on perogies...
The only problem is that sometimes we have to wait several days longer than ideal when we want to cut the grass; most mornings, the lawn glistens with a weird type of dew, which has recently been identified as atmospheric cholesterol.