by Abbie Chaytor

Food in Canada is an interesting one. For one thing, everything is a size larger! A typical meal or drink just about anywhere that is a standard or medium in Canada is equivalent to a large in NZ!

There are some fun foods you can get in Canada. When eating out, there are foods like Beavertails (a beavertail-shaped fried pastry with toppings) and Poutine (fries with gravy and cheese curds, and any other toppings that you could want), that aren’t available in NZ. There are also fun snacks and foods from the supermarket that aren’t available or are very limited in NZ, I’ve enjoyed having Pierogis (a European-style dumpling with potato and onion) and Fuzzy Peaches (a peach-flavoured candy).

There are a lot of things you can get here that you can get back home, like Whittaker’s chocolate, RJ’s liquorice, Timtams, etc. but are often more limited in flavours than NZ, and they are a bit more expensive once converted back to NZ dollars. But they are nice to buy occasionally as a sense of home.

There are some things you can’t get, like Marmite or Vegemite, but you can get the English version of Marmite in limited supermarkets. Being gluten- and dairy-free is a bit harder as back home I have favourite products, a lot of which are locally made, that I can’t get here. My favourites are the Quality Bakers muffin splits, Venerdi paleo bread, and Anchor Zero Lactose cheddar block. I think I miss the cheese the most, New Zealand just has far better quality dairy and dairy-free products. I survived cooking without them but I am very much looking forwards to all of the NZ products when I get back!