Sorry about the double posting, guys. Problems with the site.
Oh.
Not a Celine Dion thread.
Never mind.
But Canadian Bacon tastes much more like ham than it does like bacon - it’s far sweeter, & has a pinker colour.
I’m in the US now, & I had never heard the term when I lived in the UK. It’s the same cut of meat as the English Back Bacon, but cured/treated differently. Totally different taste.
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My father claims to have had a part in ushering English back bacon into Canada and, later on, Canadian bacon into America. The grocery stores didn’t have it, and he made a special request for it. I can’t tell if he’s crazy or not.
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Here’s an interesting comment on “American bacon:”
Actor (and one-time Bond villian) Louis Jourdan, addressing Canadians:
“It is like your country, it sparkles.”
Of course, he was promoting Canada Dry ginger ale at the time, but I suppose the slick glistening of back bacon sparkles too, after a fashion.
Well, I have to confess that this question is rather more complicated than it appears at first glance.
There has been a thread over at the American Dialect Society about “Canadian Bacon” in the last year or so. But the problem is, the references that we can find are not all that specific. When you find an ad for Canadian Bacon from 1915, it doesn’t say whether you are buying “streaky bacon”(what a person in the US knows as “bacon” the last 75 years or more) or “back bacon”, which Brits know from at least the last 50-75 years?
I’m currently searching some digitized publications from the 1889-1930 period, and may have more to report in a few days(or weeks).
There was indeed a period of time in and around 1897 that the Brits imported pork from Canada, the stuff that the US produced being too “fatty.” Whether we’re talking about the difference between “Canadian Bacon” and the modern inch wide, 8 inches long streaky bacon in the US, I don’t know. I promise to report back.
Damnned interesting