I’m doing some research about doughnuts and have stumbled on some really amazing poetry and artwork which seems pervasive as part of the Canadian culture.
Can I ask for speculation on why doughnuts are more of a Canadian obsession than an American one?
I realize that every college has some form of fried dough, but if anyone can guide me towards the reasons behind this cultural division, I would be most appreciative.
My guess would be Tim Horton’s. It’s sorta been ingrained by a combination of omnipresence and good marketing as the great Canadian institution. The coffeehouse of the proletariat, every roughneck with a flannel jacket and a poppy on each collar been getting his double-double and Maple Dip at the Timmy’s down in Hole-in-a-bucket, Nova Scotia since '52. Now I’m being unfair and mean, but simply to illustrate a point. They really know how to brand themselves.
By contrast, I don’t know any donut (or doughnut) chain that embodies Americana in quite the same way. America runs on Dunkin’, apparently, but Timmy’s is to Canada what McDonald’s or Coca Cola is to America.
Horton’s had an insignificant presence in Western Canada until fairly recently, but we still managed to push alarming quantities of deep-fried sweetbatter down our throats as fast as we could wash it down with hot java.
(Now that Hortons is omnipresent here, I wonder how they managed to gain such a foothold - their dough noughts are subsubsubstandard.
And who the hell serves conceptualizes a bagel with cream cheese that way? It’s incomprehensible.
Nitpick - theres no apostrophe in it’s brand name. Hortons not Horton’s.
(Gauderes law evoked on purpose!). 
Incomprehensible or not, an everything bagel with herb and garlic cream cheese is nummy. 
And yet their own literature on their site uses the short form “Tim’s!” I’m not repeating their abhorrent grammar; make them learn how the genitive case works!
Sorry to triple post in quick succession, but I managed to find this gem on Google Scholar:
[CITATION] Eddie Shack was no Tim Horton": Donuts and the Folklore of Mass Culture in Canada
S Penfold - Food Nations: Selling Taste in Consumer Societies, 2002
Mr. Penfold also wrote The donut: a Canadian History, which may be worth a read if you haven’t already seen it.
Thank you for the reference – I will definitely look into it!
I don’t believe the growth of a single company like Hortons would/could make a single product so pervasive to ingratiate itself into its culture? I am thinking of the MacKenzie Brothers movies specifically, but also more references upon which I have stumbled.
Perhaps the above-referenced book will enlighten me.
[QUOTE=antonio107;12667606 The coffeehouse of the proletariat, every roughneck with a flannel jacket and a poppy on each collar been getting his double-double and Maple Dip at the Timmy’s down in Hole-in-a-bucket, Nova Scotia since '52. [/QUOTE]
Tim Hortons was founded in '64.
Care to explain?
Sure. I made it up. Before you break out the atlas, there’s also no place called Hole-in-a-bucket, Nova Scotia, either.
The general sentiment I described is still the same. I’ve heard it slung around in print media for politicians from Sheilah Copps to Stephen Harper - can they blend with the “Tim Horton’s Crowd?” It’s sort of a stand in symbol for this idyllic notion of rural “folk” whose way of life has been largely unchanged since confederation.
It may very well be the other way around: maybe Tim Horton’s became big because Canadians love donuts, not vice-versa. Still Timmy’s has to play a big part in propagating it. McDonald’s didn’t invent the hamburger, but it’s hard to argue against the fact that they made as iconic as they did. (And BK, White Castle, Wendy’s, et. al.)
First you have to establish that your premise is correct. IMHO, it isn’t.
Doughnuts may not be a uniquely Canadian obsession, but they are significantly more of one here than elsewhere. There are various claims that per capita consumption here is three times that of the US’s.
I appreciate the interesting reads. There was nothing there that persuaded me that there are any statistics that say that Canadians consume more doughnuts than their US counterparts.
Edited to add: let’s talk about per capita consumption.
I am only basing my premise on my discoveries of significantly more references of doughnuts within Canadian art, literature and film than I have been able to ascertain in any correlated American media.
Maybe I’m getting the wrong idea, but I’m picturing a modern art museum filled with people admiring paintings of doughnuts.
Coming back to my Tim Horton’s angle and the links I found via google scholar, it may simply be an interesting perception that Canadians eat more doughnuts. Now, I haven’t seen it, but there’s a lot of these folksy components to English Canada, real or imagined, that a second-generation Canadian like me can’t relate to: things like chesterfields, calling people “hosers,” and toques with the little pompoms on the top.
I don’t think anyone’s used this term non-ironically since the early 80s.
They were much much better when they made them on site instead of freezing them and trucking them to every store like they do now to be reheated in some odd oven that glazes them also (I think, that was brought in after I worked there). I’m not sure, but I think that was brought in when Wendy’s owned them so everyone’s donuts are the same…
Mmmmm yes…
Assuming the impression is accurate, I’ll make a WAG:
Same as why poutine is popular in some Canadian regions. Nothing like some fatty warm stuff after you’ve been working hard in the cold.
And then after you’ve had fun with your loved one it’s time to eat!
I don’t think anybody’s EVER used that term non-ironically.