/ck/ - Food & Cooking

>>18569572
>>18569585
First of all, as far as sports goes, hockey is nowhere near ubiquitous as it is here. Shinny as well. Curling is something people watch at the Olympics, but in Canada, people actually go and play it.
Canadians also have a way more prominent outdoor/camping culture than any other I've seen. Even the most urban Canadian Tire has camping equipment at the ready. The roads are congested every Friday with people trying to escape urban settings and hit the cottage, or just get to some form of wilderness. Snow sports, kayaking, canoeing... anything goes. If it's spring and temps go above 10C, people go outside immediately to capitalize on that. If it's summer and it's >30C, again, people rush outside. If it's autumn and the leaves start changing colours? Dash outside to watch! First snow of the season? Everyone's kinda excited about it.
Which leads me to the love-hate relationship with cold and the elements. The wind and freezing weather we have in Canada would grind most world nations to a halt (except maybe Russia). But Canadians put on an extra layer and go about their day. If it gets too bad, at home there's hot coffee, beer and storm chips :)
In the summer, the excitement about patios opening sometimes even surpasses European cities. There's a huge patio culture here. Any buildings being built needs to have a balcony.
The Anglo-French connection. Canada is more European because of it. It shows in the symbols we use and the bilingual signage. Federal entities must know both English and French, and thus most of our politicians are bilingual, and thus less likely to be full on retarded like our neighbours to the south. I just wish we let the Quebecois influence our cities a tiny bit more, because Montreal is fucking gorgeous compared to other North American cities.
Speaking of our neighbours down south, we have less toxic individualism. Yes, we complain about taxes (who doesn't?), but few are suggesting we need to ditch universal healthcare.