I had another column planned for this week, but I put it on the back burner when I learned about a fun summer road trip offered by some folks in Alberta, Canada.
Pack your suitcase, gather up your maps, and bring along your passport. We’re off in search of the world’s largest monuments to food. You'll pass through the Canadian Rockies, around the turquoise waters of Lake Louise, and across wide-open prairies that were once home to wandering herds of Buffalo before coming to a fork in the road. 
You can't miss the 6,000-pound, three-storey fiberglass and steel pyrohy (also pierogi, pyrogy) in the town of Glendon. The giant dumpling was erected there n 1991 as a tribute to the region's Ukrainian heritage. A sampling of this hearty fare is available from nearby restaurants and at the annual Pyrohy festival in Glendon, held the first Saturday in September.
Not far from Glendon, three towering mushrooms point the way to Vilna, famous for its succulent wild mushrooms. It's unlikely you'll find any as meaty as these 18,000-pounders, but you will have fun foraging in what was once a railroad boomtown.
Even the most seasoned foodies know that a great meal doesn't have to be 
complicated or pretentious. You can't take yourself too seriously when you're staring down the likes of Pinto McBean in Bow Island, Alberta.
As your culinary road trip continues, be sure to save room for some keilbasa. There's a 42-foot tall Ukranian sausage ring waiting for you in Mundare not 
far from Stawnichy's Meat Processing plant, along with homemade cabbage rolls, perishke, crepes and soups at the Mundare Sausage House in Edmonton. You'll find the soaring sausage listed in the Guinness Book of World Records.
The province best known for its cowboys and larger-than-life wild west does have a refined, metropolitan side, but we'll save the urban adventures for another trip.
For now, use www.chomparoundalberta.com as your guide. The web site, introduced this week, offers a directory of regional cuisine, farmers markets and other culinary destinations. Look for special events, lists of in-season fruits and vegetables, and links to restaurants.
The photo of the giant pierogi, taken by Frank L’Ecuyer, comes courtesy of the Village of Glendon.
All other photos courtesy of the Alberta Tourism, Parks, Recreation & Culture, Travel Alberta Photo & Video Library.
Lisa Genshe
imer: Travel Correspondent
The CulinaryTourist appears every other Thursday and by chance in Gather Essentials: Travel. Explore all 50 states with award-winning documentary producer Lisa Gensheimer as she discovers the fun, food and people she meets along the way. Whether you're visiting the home of a faraway friend, stopping for directions at a roadside market, or on holiday in an exotic location, richly layered experiences await. A published author, Lisa has several new projects in the works, including a cultural cookbook and companion travel DVD. Read more about Lisa's work at MainStreetMedia.tv and TheForestPress.com.
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Comments: 42
We also have a giant Paul Bunyan who welcomes you to a strawberry farm. He used to grace a paint store but they removed his paint brush and bucket and moved him to his new home years ago, he seems quite happy there welcoming visitors to the farm!
I wonder what ever happened to our Shoney's Big Boy? I think there is a website that posts all of the giant statues in America and they keep up with their where abouts.
U We used to have a teapot or old coffepot type building somewhere in this corner of PA, but I don't remember where anymore. I remember the giant Danny's Donut sign as a child too. Whimsy!
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U
I love Pierogies! Especially with carmelized onions and sour cream!
Donuts, pierogies, sausages, and hamburgers--think of all that cholesterol. Sonia and Moggy, your peaches and strawberries sound much more healthful.
colorful cows. Thanks for this "food for thought"
Lesia explains that the word 'pyrohy'' is used by Ukrainian Canadian and Ukrainian American descendants of the pre-World War I settlers from western Ukraine. Both 'pyrohy' and 'varenyki' are acceptable today, though the older generation of Ukrainians prefers to distinguish the more traditional 'varenyki', as you point out, which are most-often boiled, poached or steamed, reserving the word 'pyrohy' or 'pierogie' for the fried version.
The language, so to speak, has been 'Canadianized,' much like the people of France would argue that their mother tongue is very different from Canadian French.
I think you would enjoy this book store, which offers a selection of 18 Ukrainian cookbooks online.
Went out for pizza after a gig in Calgary in March, my first time in Alberta. One of the sorts of pizza on offer was called spicy perogie, with toppings of sour cream, smokey bacon, potatoes, mozarella, cheddar, and green onion.
Jennifer--I thought this was right up your alley!
See Jennifer's story in Road Trippin' USA.
Also see the World's Largest Teapot in West, Va. on the cover of Brian Butko's beautiful book, Greetings from the Lincoln Highway, America's First Coast-to-Coast Road.
I can see another reason for using the Polish word now that you mention western Ukraine. Are you at all familiar with the Holodomor? It occurred in the early 1930s, winter of 1933 being the worst, when Stalin tried to do with the Ukrainians what Hitler was shortly to do with the Jews, using methods refined by the Turks on the Armenians only 20 years earlier. Hitler created a false famiine in Ukraine and millions died in a single winter; the Red Army shot families outside their huts and took all their food for transport to Russia. Ukraine starved because entire harvests were stolen and redistributed in Russia; millions died. Many who could escaped across the Atlantic, hence large communities in the US and Canada. That the escapees were from western Ukraine primarily is telling pn the language. Large parts of western Ukraine have had a history of being invaded and abused by Poland, often annexed for decades at a time. As a result, the Ukrainian language has been under assault in the region, a hot political issue even today within Ukraine. Polish words have entered western Ukrainian dialect that have not spread east as a result.
Since the woman at the bookstore speaks of pre WWI immigrants rather than pre WWII ones, she may be referring to those who fled Polish excesses, not Stalin's. (I went to school with a friend whose parents had fled Stalin so were 1930s immigrants to the US.)
Language and food is an interesting subject! Even in English it is--consider UK vs US terms. My other language is Spanish, which I speak as well as English. The dialect differences there are even greater. Do you know that only in Mexico does "tortilla" mean "corn cake"? In all the rest of the Spanish-speaking world, it means "omelette". That the cuisines of Mexico and Spain have far less in common than those of UK and US is not limited to words. In Spain, corn is considered fit for bovine rather than human consumption! In many cases in Spanish where food terms differ between Spain and other countries, it is a result of the native languages not entirely disappearing after Spanish was imposed. In other cases, especially in Cuba and Mexico, it is a result of a Spanish word having turned into a slang one with sexual connotations so the original food was seen to need another name.
I'm intrigued by the ideas you present about the relationship between language, food and politics around the world.
Great photos and fun - as usual - Thanks Lisa.