![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
A couple of weeks ago my partner commented that I still seem to suffer from culture shock far more then he ever did (I wouldn't know, he came to Canada from India the year before I came here - but from the stories i've heard from his friends, his adjustment was much harder in the beginning then he remembers now). Yes, it is true that I still hit culture snags from time to time. And at this point they mostly affect me when I am intentionally looking for something comfortingly familiar so I think they hit even harder.
For example, I don't usually eat cold cereal here but I have been craving Grape Nuts for about a month now and last week I finally gave in. I went to the "Adult Cereal" section of the grocery store (Cultural Side note - besides all the "plain" and granola-y cereals the Adult Cereal section seems to be the home of all the chocolate flavored cereals as well, so Canada probably has some actual rules about marketing unhealthy/misleading foods to children) and there was no Grape Nuts. Undeterred I went to another grocery store and again, no Grape Nuts!! Suddenly I wanted Grape Nuts even more then I ever have before . . .
Anyway, my partner knows that mainstream Canada doesn't have what he wants when it comes to things like food culture-wise, so he frequents "ethnic" and specialty stores and is overjoyed when he finds things in a mainstream store. Perhaps it is a matter of perspective - maybe I just need to lower my expectations . . . but that can still be hard when I get utterly blindsided by subtle differences.
This week I made a christmas cookie (treat? chocolate?) that we make every year in my family. There are pretty much three ingredients: chocolate chips, butterscotch chips, and lightly salted peanuts. Seems easy right? In the grocery store I struggled mostly with the peanuts - apparently "seasoned" is how people like to eat their peanuts - or no one worries about their sodium intake. There wasn't even a place on the shelf for "lightly salted." So I got unsalted peanuts to play it safe. I went home, I made them . . . everything went fine . . . . until they didn't quite set up. My first thoughts were absurd - 'It must be the altitude!' 'It must be warmer then I think in this apartment.' And then I tasted them, and it became clear that butterscotch chips here taste distinctly different. Likely they have a different composition and are the reason for the texture/setting difference. There was only one type of butterscotch chips at the store (which seems to ring true to my memories of the states too) so I never even thought to look at the ingredients or taste them before using. (Chocolate chips are the same!)
Ah well, now my partner and I joke that I need to find the online product comparison between the US and Canada likely started by a transplant as bothered as I am by these subtleties.
For example, I don't usually eat cold cereal here but I have been craving Grape Nuts for about a month now and last week I finally gave in. I went to the "Adult Cereal" section of the grocery store (Cultural Side note - besides all the "plain" and granola-y cereals the Adult Cereal section seems to be the home of all the chocolate flavored cereals as well, so Canada probably has some actual rules about marketing unhealthy/misleading foods to children) and there was no Grape Nuts. Undeterred I went to another grocery store and again, no Grape Nuts!! Suddenly I wanted Grape Nuts even more then I ever have before . . .
Anyway, my partner knows that mainstream Canada doesn't have what he wants when it comes to things like food culture-wise, so he frequents "ethnic" and specialty stores and is overjoyed when he finds things in a mainstream store. Perhaps it is a matter of perspective - maybe I just need to lower my expectations . . . but that can still be hard when I get utterly blindsided by subtle differences.
This week I made a christmas cookie (treat? chocolate?) that we make every year in my family. There are pretty much three ingredients: chocolate chips, butterscotch chips, and lightly salted peanuts. Seems easy right? In the grocery store I struggled mostly with the peanuts - apparently "seasoned" is how people like to eat their peanuts - or no one worries about their sodium intake. There wasn't even a place on the shelf for "lightly salted." So I got unsalted peanuts to play it safe. I went home, I made them . . . everything went fine . . . . until they didn't quite set up. My first thoughts were absurd - 'It must be the altitude!' 'It must be warmer then I think in this apartment.' And then I tasted them, and it became clear that butterscotch chips here taste distinctly different. Likely they have a different composition and are the reason for the texture/setting difference. There was only one type of butterscotch chips at the store (which seems to ring true to my memories of the states too) so I never even thought to look at the ingredients or taste them before using. (Chocolate chips are the same!)
Ah well, now my partner and I joke that I need to find the online product comparison between the US and Canada likely started by a transplant as bothered as I am by these subtleties.
