The slow, relatively recent spread of distinctively southern U.S. foods and beverages into Canada

I’ve noticed something, over the last decade and a half, which I haven’t seen many others comment on, so I’m not sure how many other people have noticed this as a ‘thing’, but it certainly has struck me.

Here in Canada, we’ve long been culturally Americanized in many regards: we consume American entertainment (TV, movies, sports, music), eat American foods (from burgers to hot dogs to pizza to wings, etc.), and so on; no surprises there, most people on either side of the border know this, that Canada and the United States have a lot in common, culturally speaking.

However, many things that have been more traditionally southern regional, especially food and drink, previously have been either highly under-represented up here amongst other American foods and beverages, or unknown; it has generally been more ‘all-American’, non-regional-specific foods / beverages that have been popular here.

I didn’t particularly appreciate this until I lived in the U.S. about a decade and a half ago, in 2000-2001, when I lived for almost a year in upstate New York, which, as far as it is from Dixie, exposed me to a number of things with which I had not hitherto come into contact, and educated me greatly.

We have no Cracker Barrel Country Store restaurants up here – we didn’t back in 2000, and we still don’t, to this day. I first experienced Cracker Barrel in late 2000, just after I had moved to the U.S. It was an eye-opener for me, because in addition to standard American fare of all kinds, there were a lot of distinctively southern items which I’d never had before then, and over the next year I was to try many things like turnip greens, country gravy and chicken-fried steak, grits, but above all, southern barbecue, i.e. barbecued pulled pork. And I loved southern barbecue so much, I began to search out other restaurants that particularly specialized in it, i.e. southern barbecue joints.

Back then, there weren’t any in Canada, as far as I knew. Sure, there were places that specialized in ribs, but nowhere that served barbecue that I knew of. (Up here, to ‘barbecue’ usually means ‘to cook quickly at high temperatures on a grill’, rather than ‘to cook slowly at relatively low temperatures on a slow-cooker’, though that is changing, but I’m getting ahead of myself.) But gradually between my return to Canada in 2001 and about 2009 or so, southern-style barbecue joints started appearing in major cities across Canada; now, one can even find them in smaller towns, here and there. And pulled pork, as a menu item, is now pretty omnipresent in casual dining places across Canada; I’d say that mostly came in through the last five or six years or so; prior to that, not so much.

Barbecued pulled pork, served at a RibFest in Belleville, Ontario in 2008.

Beef brisket, too (other than the corned beef variety), wasn’t known up here when I was young, but now, southern barbecue joints up here typically serve it, too, along with barbecued chicken, hush puppies (also unknown up here when I was young), and so on.

A small taste each left of chicken, ribs, pulled pork, beef brisket, at a barbecue joint in rural Ontario.

Another thing that wasn’t very common up here, before 2000, was the sweet potato. When I lived Stateside, one could get baked sweet potatoes at Outback Steakhouses and other casual dining places; one could get bags of sweet potato chips here and there in convenience stores; and sweet potato fries, often with a dipping sauce such as red pepper mayo, were available at various restaurants and pubs, often as a side with burgers, etc.

But I had never encountered them up here. Sure, you could sometimes buy them in the grocery, and cook them yourselves, but they weren’t popular enough to be served in restaurants, in any form, nor did I ever encounter sweet potato chips. Now, one can find the chips in groceries here and there, and sweet potato fries are everywhere, as Stateside. (Baked sweet potatoes are still quite rare, though; although we had Outback Steakhouses before, they never carried them on their Canadian menus (unlike Stateside); and now there are only two left in Canada, and the one with a website still doesn’t have it on their menu, from a search I just did. And I’ve never had sweet potato pie up here, only in America.)

Sweet potato fries and spicy mayo, served alongside pork schnitzel, cheddar and apple butter on a bun, from a restaurant in a particularly German AND sweet-potato-growing region of Ontario.

Some years after I’d returned home from the States, in fact, only about five years ago or so, I first learned about red velvet cake from American online acquaintances; although apparently it was known up here in Canada in the 1940s and 50s, sold at Eaton’s Department Stores, it was long since gone from our national consciousness; I’d certainly never heard of it. Now, though, it’s everywhere here, just as Stateside, in all its variants – red velvet cupcakes, red velvet ice cream, red velvet cheesecake, etc.

Homemade red velvet cake, made by my mom as my birthday cake a half-decade back from a recipe an American friend gave me; now also commercially available in Canada.

When I came of drinking age, back in the early ’90s, there were only about three brands of bourbon readily available in Canada: basically, Jim Beam, Wild Turkey, and Jack Daniel’s (which technically isn’t a bourbon but rather a Tennessee whiskey, because not made in Kentucky). I was amazed to discover all the different brands of bourbon that exist, when I lived in America, and I was saddened that I wouldn’t be able to readily get my hands on any of them when I returned home to Canada. However, over the last five years or so, gradually, more and more bourbons have become available up here in our liquor stores, and served at bars; still not as many as Stateside, but at least there’s now a decent selection, including top shelf, small batch ones; and more at Christmas time, as liquor stores bring in more variety for the holiday season.

And related to that, are the American rye whiskies, mostly made by the same bourbon makers; they were completely non-existent in Canada when I discovered them for the first time during my year living in the U.S. Again, during the last five years or so, some varieties started becoming available at Christmas time; now, I can often find at least one or two varieties at certain liquor stores here and there, year-round.

There were no Popeye’s Louisiana Chicken and Biscuits, or as now called, Popeye’s Louisiana Kitchen, outlets in Canada when I moved to the U.S.; however, while I was gone, they opened up their first location in downtown Toronto, and they’re now available throughout the Greater Toronto Area. Alas, they don’t serve the crawfish jambalaya up here that I enjoyed down there, but they do serve the red beans and rice, which I love, and of course their spicy fried chicken, biscuits, etc.

(Speaking of fried chicken, something that I only learned about recently, and haven’t tried yet, has finally begun to catch on up here: chicken and waffles, together. I do want to try them, together, sometime; I like them each separately, and I’m sure I’d enjoy them together. (Wikipedia says it’s not clear it’s a strictly southern thing, though they note it’s highly popular in Baltimore, and considered a local-origin dish there.) )

Now, not everything ‘Dixie’ has caught on up here; for instance, I’ve never found up here green bean casserole, or sweet tea (except one canned version of it in some convenience stores; I still haven’t tried it), or New Orleans’ muffuletta sandwiches which I love (though other New Orleans / Cajun / Creole food, like po’ boys, Andouille sausage, jambalaya, etc. are all available here in varying degrees), or turducken (I want to try that; not had the chance to yet). But who knows; it may just be a matter of time, before such things spread up here… Things like turnip greens and grits aren’t very common up here; I could see turnip greens spreading here, but I don’t know about grits; I think you have to be southern to really appreciate them (I certainly don’t). Okra is hard to find, and I’ve never come across Vidalia onions up here, which is too bad, I love them… I hope they spread.

Anyway, I’ve just found it interesting, that there were so many things I discovered during my year in America a almost a decade and a half ago, which, at that point, were rarer or unknown here, which are now at least almost as commonly available, if not equally commonly available, as in the U.S. today.

I’m not sure why that is; why they hadn’t caught on before, but now have. I suppose the North American Free Trade Agreement may have a lot to do with it, at least in terms of business people traversing the border more often, and ideas, tastes spreading, people seeing markets for stuff in Canada (in fact, sweet potatoes are now grown in southern Ontario, which I don’t think used to be, back in the past), and seizing opportunities, but also perhaps more explicitly in the case of new American restaurant chains opening up here, like Popeyes. Also, the Internet probably has had a huge effect, in terms of spreading of ideas, people wanting to try things, introduce new food items to restaurant menus, etc.

I only know this: I’m glad it happened, because I like all these things. 🙂 And I think, if I hadn’t lived in the U.S. in 2000-2001, I might never have noticed this process, over the last decade and a half, because it happened fairly gradually, and it’s surely only because I took note of all these things while down there, that were fresh discoveries for me at the time, that I later took note again, as they gradually caught on, up here.

I hope that the increasing Dixiefication of Canadian cuisine continues, and other stuff that I like spreads up here.

Y’all keep influencing us now, eh?

A banner from a long defunct website, depicting the old Canadian Red Ensign flag, and the Confederate battle flag.