Canadian food-isms

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  • ma66ie72
    ma66ie72 Posts: 75 Member
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    @ rkerr - I had one of those episodes when I first moved to the states. I ordered chips (fries) and asked the guy behind the counter if he could put gravy on them. Oh how I love me some fries and gravy...
    So first of all he looks at me funny, then kind of shrugs and he hands over the plate with fries and this white gloppy stuff poured all over them - what is this I ask? "Gravy" he tells me! We then had a conversation about what was and was not "gravy", and I decided to go with ketchup (catsup!) instead!

    Have you ever had sausage gravy? It’s a white ‘country gravy’ with chunks of sausage in it and OH SO GOOD!!! But, make sure you get it from someone from the deep south... the rest are just posers.

    There is also red eye gravy made with pan drippings and coffee... but you have to find a southerner to fix it for ya. :)
  • Pebble321
    Pebble321 Posts: 6,554 Member
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    well im an aussie and over here, bacon is bacon (we dont care where its from as long as its on our plate next to the eggs!)
    pop or soda is called soft drink
    tea is always served hot unless you ask specifically for iced tea
    our chips or fries either come with gravy or tomato sauce( which is the same as ketchup)

    went to a cafe one day for breakfast and ordered canadian pancakes which came drowned with maple syrup and topped with bacon lol! weird combination......but oh so yummy!!

    I'm an Aussie too and I think chips (fries) should come with salt, or with salt and vingegar (or if you are in Adelaide, with chicken salt).
    Chips and gravy says "British" to me!

    And I have never got my head around the pancakes with bacon and maple sysrup combo either. Seems odd to my taste.

    I had never heard of "sweet tea" until a few posts on this forum - I would just assume that meant a hot cup of tea with a couple of spoons of sugar, but I think I'm wrong :)

    I love all these different food-isms!
  • rkerr6
    rkerr6 Posts: 6
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    @ rkerr - I had one of those episodes when I first moved to the states. I ordered chips (fries) and asked the guy behind the counter if he could put gravy on them. Oh how I love me some fries and gravy...
    So first of all he looks at me funny, then kind of shrugs and he hands over the plate with fries and this white gloppy stuff poured all over them - what is this I ask? "Gravy" he tells me! We then had a conversation about what was and was not "gravy", and I decided to go with ketchup (catsup!) instead!

    Have you ever had sausage gravy? It’s a white ‘country gravy’ with chunks of sausage in it and OH SO GOOD!!! But, make sure you get it from someone from the deep south... the rest are just posers.

    There is also red eye gravy made with pan drippings and coffee... but you have to find a southerner to fix it for ya. :)


    LOL! That's what I'm talking about! Country gravy...good for breakfast on a biscuit, but it's not what I dip my fries in. :) Oh, and vinegar. No little packets of vinegar to sprinkle on my fries either. My mom asked for vinegar in the States one time, got a funny look, and a bowl of vinegar (ours comes in nifty little sprinkle bottles) lol! I think the iced tea should come with a warning...I nearly choked the first time I had a sip of unexpectedly unsweetened iced tea. :)
  • dmgaloha
    dmgaloha Posts: 467 Member
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    Mmmm, Smarties are so much better than M&M's! I do like the other M&M varieties (peanut, etc), but when it comes to plain M&M vs. Smarties? SMARTIES, please!! (do you eat the red ones last?)

    All this talk about chips / fries reminds me... I laughed the other day, when my Scottish mother-in-law invited us over for fish and chips, and my daughter said: "can we have fries too?" (in her world, chips = potato chips, or in british-speak 'crisps')
  • aj_rock
    aj_rock Posts: 390 Member
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    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 !
  • bookyeti
    bookyeti Posts: 544 Member
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    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!

    Ohhh.....I love poutine. It's my nemesis. Just one look at it and I can hear my arteries clogging. LOL. I will treat myself to it now and again - but very rarely!

    (I'm from Nova Scotia, Canada by the way.)
  • pnieuw
    pnieuw Posts: 473
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    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 !

    I found that out when I visited Maine, and stopped at a Tim's. Ordered my usual large regular, and got an XL. I even said to the Tim's employee, sorry, but I got the right size, and she just looked at me oddly. It was then I discovered that US Tim's don't even have a Canadian Tim's small, and medium is small, large is medium and XL is large.
  • hbrekkaas
    hbrekkaas Posts: 268 Member
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    I never knew that there was anything different from the iced tea that I knew when I when I was litte. I thought all iced tea came from an almost pure sugar powder mixed with water....guess not! My MIL said something about "american" iced tea once and all I could thik was "who would want to drink tthat" LOL.

    The US misses out on ketchup chips, proper poutine, smarties (the chocolate kind) areos, coffee crisp, bacon is bacon, sausages are not flat grey patties, and pancakes, bacon and syrup is one of the best combos in the world. I always dip my bacon in syurp. Good thing we don't have it often!
  • minussam
    minussam Posts: 127 Member
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    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!

    Cheese curds are available in the US - actually had better ones there than in Canada

    agree with you on the Poutine - mmhhhh - could have some right now....
  • marquesajen
    marquesajen Posts: 641
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    We have poutine down here now. There's cheese curds from Wisconsin at the store now and I've gotten poutine at a few places while out. Soooo gooood.
  • cheri0627
    cheri0627 Posts: 369 Member
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    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
    thetrishwarp Posts: 838 Member
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    Shirley Temples in the US don't have orange juice in them! Bleeecckhhh
  • little_gothic_girl
    little_gothic_girl Posts: 22 Member
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    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
    Pebble321 Posts: 6,554 Member
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    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
    dmgaloha Posts: 467 Member
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    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
    Pebble321 Posts: 6,554 Member
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    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.

    2z3q7hg.jpg

    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
    whiskey9890 Posts: 652 Member
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    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.

    2z3q7hg.jpg

    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
    dmgaloha Posts: 467 Member
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    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! :smile:

    Back to the Smarties - they are a great toilet training tool! 1 smartie for a #1in the potty, and 2 for a #2.
  • bobaloo22
    bobaloo22 Posts: 13 Member
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    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
    dmgaloha Posts: 467 Member
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    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.

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