I Tried 7 Canadian Snacks For The First Time Since Moving From The UK & Ranked Them

Garlic fingers

This was a special request from an East Coaster who was disappointed to find out that garlic fingers are just not a thing in Western Canada. I was happy to oblige when I found out a store near me actually does serve them.

Garlic fingers are not really anything special, to be honest. It's just cheesy garlic bread cut into strips. I can get on board with that.

My main issue was the side of Donair sauce which I can only really describe as a super sweet mayonnaise which for some reason uses condensed milk as an ingredient. This was absolutely not for me. Give me garlic sauce instead any day.

Hickory Sticks

I hadn't really heard much about hickory sticks before but recently I picked up a packet out of curiosity. These are some of the weirdest chips I've ever eaten.

Taste-wise, they're nothing out of the ordinary. They taste like the smoky bacon flavour we have back in the U.K., so it was pretty familiar. Not my favourite but not bad.

What I wasn't a huge fan of was the tiny, skinny strips of the chips themselves. How are you meant to eat them? Is it a choose-your-own-adventure scenario? Do you pick up a handful or eat them one by one?

Jos Louis

I'd literally never heard of Jos Louis before I got to Canada so I was really curious to try one. The concept is pretty simple: a sponge cake wrapped in a layer of chocolate.

I'm not sure what to think about these. They taste pretty chocolatey to start off with and then it just turns into a generic mass-produced cake taste which can only be described as sweet but not with an actual flavour.

They're definitely not bad though, just not something I'd crave.

Canada Dry Ginger Ale

Ginger ale isn't something I'd usually go for if I wanted a drink so I was curious to see why some Canadians love Canada Dry's version so much.

I was actually pleasantly surprised by this. I wouldn't say it tastes super gingery and it just has a kind of generic fizzy drink taste, but I'm not mad about it. I would actually buy this again.

Poutine

No ranking is ever going to be complete without poutine. It's basically the national dish of Canada and it's for a good reason. Classic poutine with fries, cheese curds and gravy appeals to how much I love savoury food, so I always had a sneaky suspicion that I'd love it and I wasn't wrong

I've had so many different variations of poutine since arriving, from buffalo chicken to tater tot poutine, and most of the time, even bad poutine will hit the spot.

I have no notes!

All Dressed Chips

All-dressed chips are a truly Canadian invention and we don't really have anything comparable in the U.K., so I was excited to try these when I arrived.

All I can say is I LOVE all-dressed chips, and Ruffles' are superior. I've eaten more bags of these in a year than I would care to admit and I'm still not sick of them.

Kraft Peanut Butter

Peanut butter has always been a favourite of mine and I would consider peanut butter on toast a god-tier snack so I was excited to see what Kraft had to offer.

I wasn't disappointed. What is in this stuff? I probably don't actually want to know but it is so delicious that I don't even really care. This stuff just hits differently. I can see why Canadians love it so much.