Canadian food-isms

cheri0627

mmmmm.....poutine...... Personally, though, I never liked just gravy on my fries. If it's got gravy on it, it better come with cheese curds.

and in Michigan, pop is pop.

I love back bacon, too. It's really tasty. My husband bought some the other day that wasn't too high in calories, either.

I have never been a huge Tim Hortons coffee fan but their donuts are wonderful.

thetrishwarp

Shirley Temples in the US don't have orange juice in them! Bleeecckhhh

little_gothic_girl

Shirley Temples in the US don't have orange juice in them! Bleeecckhhh

lol I'm from Texas and i find it strange to think anyone would put orange juice in a Shirley Temple! Great example of why i love this thread!! Different strokes make the world go round... BTW What is "chicken salt"?

Pebble321

Shirley Temples in the US don't have orange juice in them! Bleeecckhhh

lol I'm from Texas and i find it strange to think anyone would put orange juice in a Shirley Temple! Great example of why i love this thread!! Different strokes make the world go round... BTW What is "chicken salt"?

Chicken salt is salt with extra spices and flavours in it - including "natural chicken extract" which sounds pretty disgusting.
It does taste good though, especially on freshly cooked hot chips (fries). In South Australia when you order chips the standard question is "regular salt or chicken salt?" I don't think you see it in Western Australia - but then, I can't remember the last time I ordered a bucket of chips!
And when you order a pie and sauce (standard Aussie tucker in Australia) in South Australia, usually they will get a squeezey bottle of tomato sauce (ketchup) and poke it into your pie and squeeze sauce right inside - gross! Good thing I don't eat pies these days either

Sorry this is so compeletely off topic from Canadianisms but I think it's fascinating the way that local variations occur even in the same country.

dmgaloha

And when you order a pie and sauce (standard Aussie tucker in Australia) in South Australia, usually they will get a squeezey bottle of tomato sauce (ketchup) and poke it into your pie and squeeze sauce right inside - gross! Good thing I don't eat pies these days either

Ok, I'm a Canadian who has never been anywhere near Australia... What on earth kind of "pie" are you eating with ketchup? To me, pie is a dessert, like apple pie, pumpkin pie, or one of my personal favorites, strawberry-rhubarb pie, etc. I HOPE that this is some type of meat pie. If so, we would always make the distinction here: meat pie is meat pie, but 'pie' is dessert.

Pebble321

Hey, then I think we're pretty much opposite - a "pie" in Australia would most often refer to a meat pie (though it might be chicken, steak and kidney, beef and bacon, veggie, scary animal offcuts etc) hence the tomato sauce (ketchup). Some of them are very good quality and rather tasty (though not healthy!) others are just horrible and don't contain much actual meat at all.



An apple pie would usually be called..... apple pie, not just a pie. And I wouldn't put ketchup with that, cream would be much better.

This is a bad idea, talking about pie, I think I'll stop now

whiskey9890

Hey, then I think we're pretty much opposite - a "pie" in Australia would most often refer to a meat pie (though it might be chicken, steak and kidney, beef and bacon, veggie, scary animal offcuts etc) hence the tomato sauce (ketchup). Some of them are very good quality and rather tasty (though not healthy!) others are just horrible and don't contain much actual meat at all.



An apple pie would usually be called..... apple pie, not just a pie. And I wouldn't put ketchup with that, cream would be much better.

This is a bad idea, talking about pie, I think I'll stop now

this is how it is in the uk too, a pie is generally meat of some sorts. and fruit pies always taste cood with cream, but i prefer custard :-)

i'm now pretty sure if i ever cross the pond i will visit canada, purely cos of the gravy thing, to us brits gravy is brown. i got so confused when visiting my friend and her american husband and he served up bacon (gorgeous) with biscuits and gravy. before i had it it was just the biscuits that weer confusing cos i couldn't picture any biscuits being served with gravy, so i really wasn't expecting scones and white sauce!! what do americans call brown gravy? and can someone please tell me what grits are?

dmgaloha

Hmmm, pies with cream or custard? Do you mean on the side, or an actual custard or cream pie (like coconut cream pie)?
On the side, we eat our pies (i.e. the fruit ones) with vanilla ice cream, which we call "a la mode". Strange considering the literal translation is "in the style", but whatever, I've never questioned it before now... Sometimes they are served with whipped cream (which to clarify for me, is not 'cream' - 'cream' is what I put in my coffee - not that I drink coffee, but you know what I mean)...

I support the gravy is brown movement... I've only seen this "white" gravy once - many years ago at a Chili's restaurant in the US on a chicken fried chicken... Guess I need to travel more!

Back to the Smarties - they are a great toilet training tool! 1 smartie for a #1in the potty, and 2 for a #2.

bobaloo22

I have noticed that I can find multiple food items in the MFP database while logging what I've eaten, and Canadian options often have an extra 10-20 calories than the same thing not labeled (Can). What's with that?

dmgaloha

I have seen the opposite, where US is more calories, but usually because the serving size is bigger. With Activia vanilla yogurt for example, in Canada, the individual cup serving size is 100g and 100 cal; whereas in the US, the serving size is 113g and 120 cal.

Sagelit

I once dated a gent from NZ, who hadn't had sweet French Toast before. He had tasted a savoury version before, but not sweet with maple syrup on it. Unfortunately, he liked it so much that he also started eating French Toast Crunch cereal and those frozen microwavable french toast sticks, which are terrible for you.

MinnieInMaine

Kraft dinner!

I'm not Canadian but I've visited there several times and my college roomate were from New Brunswick (now in Ontario). I've had poutine here in "the States" but we typically serve it with the lighter turkey/chicken gravy (it's not cream sauce as someone posted above) so when I ordered some last time I was in NB, the brown gravy totally turned me off.

SeattleGrl

What about the "Ceasar" drink...close to our Bloody Mary's but with clamato juice!

lynn1982

Not sure if someone has already said it, but ketchup chips!! I was in NY last summer and had an intense craving for them. The guy in the grocery store looked at me like I was from another planet when I asked where I could find them. He then pointed me to the condiments aisle!

Poutine is one of my biggest downfalls. I grew up eating it every weekend in the winter while skiing. Now I live in Toronto and there's a new "poutinerie" that just opened near me...It is taking all of my will power not to go there! And, we can't forget Montreal smoked meat and beaver tails...

lizlee8

Scottish here!

Shreddies - love them, not had them in a while though
Fizzy juice not Pop or soda (or just plain juice)
Tea is a hot drink. Cold tea is iced tea.
Milk - generally in plastic carton but is available in cardboard carton, as well as BAGS! Love the bags but too expensive and they only have semi-skimmed as they are just intoducing them. Been to Canada twice now (HTB has family in GTA) and couldn't beleive you got milk in bags lol :P

spoffy

To the ketchup chip: Are they like potato chips with like powdered ketchup on them? If so i'vr had them before and they were pretty gross, but they were like a limited time flavor.

To the gravy discussion: Where im from (ohio) we have sausage biscuits and gravy as likea breakfast meal and the gravy is white and delicious. However; occasionally we will have a brown gravy for christmas dinner to go on mashed potatoes, and usually it is made from beef or turkey stock depending on what the main course is. Is that the brown gravy you speak of?

Also the whole chocolate smarties thing is confusing..

CorrieV1976

One word: POUTINE! Fries... with cheese curds (which I don't believe are made in the US), and covered in gravy. Curd can be substituted with shredded cheese if needed. So terrible for you.... but OH so delicious!

This is what I was going to say....and really I mean directly across the border...they have no idea what it is....my absolute fave!!!! I grew up in Canada and just moved to the US a few years ago...I miss my Poutine!!!

CorrieV1976

American Timmies confused me! Apparently a Large coffee in Canada is only a Medium in the States! It scares me to think of the size of an American XL !

Ok and growing up in Canada - I somehow feel like I own it when I drive up to an American Timmies.....and yes its called Timmies not Timmie Ho's I absolutely cant stand when they (everyone at work) call it Timmie ho's...Timmie does not have Ho's -- Timmie has coffee!!!

CorrieV1976

Quick question - is it true that they don't have kinder eggs down in the states?

No Kinder eggs....everytime I visit my neice (who was born in Canada) in Colorado I bring her Kinder eggs.....

yes_i_can

I'm originally from the States and moved to Canada over 10 years ago (to marry a British-Canadian), so I could write a book of these! Even the same products can taste totally different between the two countries (Pops cereal was my first experience with that).

A few of mine...

- Wheat Chex vs. Shreddies - my Chex mix can no longer be purely Chex.
- Smarties vs. Rockets - took a very confusing conversation about putting Smarties in 7up as a kid before I realized Smarties are chocolate here.
- Processed Cheese vs. American Cheese - my parents confused the Subway guy on their first trip up.
- Stuffing Bread - it actually has spices in it here...
- Mac & Cheese vs. Kraft Dinner
- You can't get Paydays here.
- Milk in a bag and Clementines in a crate.
- Iced tea is -not- brewed, it's from a fountain and tastes like pure sugar
- Milkshakes - you have to be careful if they're British milkshakes, which are actually just flavoured milk.
- Fruitcake vs. Christmas Cake - they may look alike, but they are NOT the same thing... Christmas Cake is marginally more edible.
- Nabisco vs. Mr. Christie - I can't tell you how shocked I was when I heard the little Nabisco song with Mr. Christie substituted in it!

... and SO many more...

rachelw16

I'm Canadian, and for a week in July my family and I went up to Florida and got really confused about the whole "soda" thing...not gonna lie, the first time we saw a store advertising soda we were thinking of soda crackers, before we had the "duh" moment when we remembered where we were

rkerr6

We lived in Texas for a few months, and it occurred to me afterwards that there weren't perogies in the frozen food aisle. They did have waaaaay more options for most other things, like flavoured coffee creamer (oh how I miss those!). And when I lived in Australia, I discovered meat pies...yum! Of course, they eat pumpkin like a vegetable and were horrified when I said the only way I'd ever eaten it was in pie, cookies and other dessert-like fare. lol! The hamburgers with pineapple and egg on it I wasn't so sure about

lynn1982

To the ketchup chip: Are they like potato chips with like powdered ketchup on them? If so i'vr had them before and they were pretty gross, but they were like a limited time flavor.

Yep, that's exactly what they are. I ate them as a kid. I don't think they're gross. You're entitled to your opinion, but perhaps you shouldn't be so judgmental about others'.

bookyeti

Oohhh ketchup chips... I know it sounds odd, but they are delicious (and I don't even like Ketchup!) Yuuuuum! :-)
I have a friend who is originally from Florida, but lived in Canada for a few years. She got addicted to Lays Ketchup Chips, and missed them so much when she moved back to the States that she now buys them online and has them shipped to her.

dmgaloha

I didn't realize milk-in-a-bag was such a big deal... It's just 'normal' for me. It's like buying a gallon of milk, but having it divided in 3 easier to manage containers. Much easier for the kids to manage.

lynn1982

I didn't realize milk-in-a-bag was such a big deal... It's just 'normal' for me. It's like buying a gallon of milk, but having it divided in 3 easier to manage containers. Much easier for the kids to manage.

Exactly! And when it's in a bag you can freeze it, so it's great to stock up when it goes on sale!

dmgaloha

Sale? Milk is one thing that does not go on sale around here...

scarieshoney

OMG There is this place I can't help but avoid right out side my school and their poutine is the BEST poutine I have ever had that west of Perth!!

angelew

You can buy Kinder Eggs in Houston...

lynn1982

You can buy Kinder Eggs in Houston...

With toys inside? That can't be. They're illegal in the US. I was once fined for bringing them across the border. (I didn't know it was illegal at the time.)