Over at Live Journal there is a thread going on about the differences between Americans and Canadians. The thread can be found here. It’s interesting stuff.
Here are a couple of comments about the thread:
Where I live we commonly call soda “pop”, which is similar to a couple of the northern american states. Some pop is caffinated while others are not. I guess the most caffinated drink in the states is Mountain Dew while it is not allowed at all in the Canadian version. As far as I can understand pop producers can’t add caffeine to drinks that are primarily citrus based. At least that is what I think. I’m not really sure. Our pops are made with real sugar as well and not corn syrup which I believe makes it taste better.
We do have weird potato chip flavours such as smokey bacon (not smokey beef as someone said), all-dressed, the works (which is suppose to taste like a fully loaded baked potato), ketchup (which I despise) to name a few.
Poutine (french fries, cheese curds and gravy) is a Quebec thing more than a Canadian thing but we love it none the less.
It isn’t difficult to find Ginger Ale in Canada (we have a brand called Canada Dry). If you ask for Ginger Ale in the States a lot of the time you get mixed sprite and coke which is NOT Ginger Ale!!!!
We have $1 and $2 coins which we refer to as the loonie and the toonie respectively. The loonie is named that because there is a picture of a common loon on the tails face of the coin.
And no we don’t all love Celine Dion. Most of us would like to see her thrown into a vat of boiling oil or at least put on one of those fear factor/survivor type shows. I think that would be kind of funny.
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What idiot served you Coke with Sprite and called it ginger ale?? It’s true we don’t tend to drink a whole lot of Ginger Ale here (though I quite like it). Even so, Canada Dry is a well-known brand.
I hate that our soft drinks are made with corn syrup though. They used to be sugar, but corn syrup brings the price down. So we get more affordable soda/pop that tastes a bit mediocre. 😉
I’ve yet to get to Canada, but when I do, I’m gonna try a big mess of poutine.
It was in Indianapolis. I asked for a rye and ginger. First thing was they didn’t have rye (which is a Canadian type of whiskey, the most famous being Canadian Club) so I had to go with a regular whiskey (can’t remember what I selected) and then the guy said to me “we don’t have ginger ale but I can make it” to which I exclaimed “you can make it? How?”. I gave it a try but it just wasn’t ginger ale 🙂
One more comment about that story. Indianapolis wasn’t completely devoid of ginger ale. At one bar we went to they had Crown Royal (another Canadian rye whiskey) and ginger ale which was good with me. 🙂
“I can make it” That is hilarious!
On a side note, I think Indianapolis has got to be the most boring “major city” I have ever visited.
Hey, I have Coke and Sprite in the fridge. One of these days, I’m going to give that Indianapolis ginger ale a try 😉
I call it Pop! (And I think I have monthly ‘arguments’ with people about the correct word, pop vs. soda.)
Do you REALLY love poutine???
I can’t believe it!
Rebecca: Pop is the only way. Soda may only be used in the phrase “soda pop”. 🙂
MQY: I do like poutine though I feel guilty when I eat it because of how bad it is for my insides 🙂
Up here they can’t put caffeine in any soft drink that isn’t brown 🙂 Or so the story goes. Hi, I’m here looking for your picture of bagged milk to show my friend who is visiting in the summer. She thinks she’s going to go into culture shock (so far I’ve told her about toques, bagged milk, ketchup chips, poutine, and loonies/toonies). It’ll be fun!
its soda, not pop, pop is midwest