11 iconic Canadian snacks that my American friends had no idea existed

Nanaimo Bars

Of all the treats on this list, Nanaimo Bars are HANDS DOWN my fave. I love love love Nanaimo bars.

And I only learned they were from Nanaimo, BC... when I tried to find them in the U.S. at a grocery store and discovered they do not exist here. Which is wild. It's like a chocolate bar s'mores, but instead of a marshmallow, it's custard, and the graham cracker is crushed up with coconut.

I ended up watching a YouTube video for the recipe, so I could make them myself. And it's a crowd-pleaser at dinner parties.

Kinder Surprise

When I think of Kinder Surprise, I think back to the early 2000's of my childhood — when we had sticker machines and, for $2, you could get those Winnie the Pooh collectible cellphone charms from the vending machine at the mall movie theatre. Remember those?

If you're American and reading this, Kinder Surprises are a milk and white chocolate egg with a plastic toy on the inside. They were the sh*t growing up.

Smarties

"Smarties are like M&Ms but worse".

That's my sales pitch for the multicoloured candy that comes in that little navy box. Am I jaded? Always.

Smarties were my least favourite candy in the goodie bags we'd get at parties. God, not to be a millennial about it, but the 90's were so sick. I just KNOW the goodie bags don't be hitting as hard these days. Why do I feel like the popular girl in her class is somehow giving sample sizes of Drunk Elephant moisturizer? It's giving Sephora birthday gift in the worst way.

Moisturizer is not for kids. Smarties are. Unless that kid was me, because I hate Smarties and would try to trade mine with my friends for their Aero bars..

Smarties are worse than M&M's simply because the exterior coating is thicker, and the chocolate inside feels more stale. The overall biting into of a Smartie requires more manpower.

Rockets (which they think are smarties)

Americans have Smarties — except they're not Smarties. They're Rockets.

There's a whole history as to how this naming mishap came to be — but time is money, and I'm running out of both. So let's keep moving along.

Butter Tarts

Let me start by saying I'm a Safeway sheet cake kinda girl. I love my grocery store baked goods. Not the bread necessarily — but the sweet stuff? I'll take an $8 six-pack of Nanaimo bars (see above) over a chocolate eclair from a specialty bakery any day of the week.

Why am I telling you all this? Because during Thanksgiving — which is a month too late, by the way — I went to the grocery store to get dessert and couldn't find any butter tarts. And do you know why?

Yes. Because they don't exist.

When I tried to describe it to one of the bakers, they pointed me to the pecan pies. Which of course they called, puh-can — and as we all know, it's pee-can.

Old Dutch Ketchup Chips

I'm not sponsored by Old Dutch — but at this point, I should be. I am giving them great international PR, which is something the team at Smarties cannot relate to.

This one is actually very surprising to me. I thought that Americans knew about ketchup chips, but just also knew that they couldn't get them. Turns out that the people I associate with do not know about them.

True story: I was at Target the other day, and a lady in front of me had a red and white bag of chips face down on a conveyor belt. Right away, I screamed: "O.M.G. are you Canadian?"

She doesn't even say no. She just looks at me, hella confused. So I go, "Are those ketchup chips? Do they sell them here now??"

"These are Nacho Doritos," was the response I got.

Then she very passive-aggressively put the divider down between our items. Which really just confirmed to me how un-Canadian she was.

Poutine

This one is a toss-up.

Some people do know about it — and when they do, they love it — but a lot of my friends don't. When I try to explain it, I always try to avoid the words "cheese curds" because when you describe poutine, it does unfortunately sound unappealing AF.

This was the one my friend had to Google, BTW.

Montreal smoked meat sandwhich

No. It's not a Reuben. Yes, it's better.

There is one place in LA that claims to sell Montreal smoked meat, but I'm pretty sure it's a pastrami with a fake French accent. First of all, Montreal smoked meat is exceedingly difficult to find outside of Canada. I have one American friend who's had it, and you guess where he had it?

Montreal. Duh.

A Schwartz's Delicatessen? Double duh.

Unfortunately, this is one thing I cannot whip up myself, as we are in a Montreal smoked meat food desert over here.

Coffee Crisp

There are lots of uniquely Canadian chocolate bars you can't get in the US (A.K.A. Aero), but the Coffee Crisp is definitely the most unique because there is no U.S. chocolate-bar equivalent.

This is another Canadian delight I've packed in my suitcase for my cross-border travels.

Unlike poutine, coffee crisp sounds genius when you describe it. It's a chocolate bar, shaped like a log, with a coffee-flavour wafer in between. Coffee and chocolate in bar form? And don't even get me started on the Coffee Crisp and Drumstick collaboration.

The Glorious Caesar

Some of the greatest memories from my youth are hungover at Sunday brunch, hair-of-the-dogging it with a zesty, flavour-packed, dirty little Cesar.

Americans don't have the Caesar. They have the Bloody Mary. The main difference being they use Tomato juice, NOT Clamato. Which seems like no big deal — except that, as an ex-binge-drinker, I can confirm the deal is LARGE, and the clam in the Clamato makes a world of difference.

I have ordered a Caesar here and gotten a Caesar salad.

Maple Sugar Candy

This one is extremely specific. Because the maple leaf-shaped sugar candy isn't the same as maple fudge.

On a trip back to L.A., I went hard at duty-free and got my besties every kind of maple product under the sun.

Which was a mistake.

Because now I have become a maple fudge mule for my friends. One of my friends in particular will never let me leave duty-free without reminding me to pick up the maple butter, the maple hard candies, and of course — the maple leaf-shaped maple candies.