Canadian bacon (1897)

[Victoria Neufeldt]

In Canada it has traditionally been called back bacon, and you can buy
it sliced as well as unsliced.  It is only relatively recently that
you sometimes see it identified as 'Canadian Bacon' in restaurant
menus and so on, presumably for American visitors.  I haven't seen it
labelled as such (i.e. 'Canadian Bacon') in supermarkets, etc.,
although I have to say that I haven't been consciously checking it out
at all.

I seem to remember knowing the term 'back bacon' all my life, but as
we all know, our memories on such things can be faulty.  I was
surprised to discover just now that it's not in the Dictionary of
Canadianisms on Historical Principles (1967).  It is in the Gage
Canadian Dictionary (1983) as a Canadianism, but that dict doesn't
give dates of first cites.  Hmm.  Now I'm intrigued -- I'll just have
to find the time sometime to research this . . .

Victoria

Victoria Neufeldt
727 9th Street East
Saskatoon, Sask.
S7H 0M6
Canada
Tel: 306-955-8910




> -----Original Message-----
> From: American Dialect Society
> [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf
> Of Mark A Mandel
> Sent: Monday, February 03, 2003 12:03 AM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: Re: Canadian bacon (1897)
>
>
> On Sat, 1 Feb 2003, vida morkunas wrote:
>
> #well, if that throws any light on the topic... up here in
> Vancouver, we have
> #bacon, and Canadian bacon. Bacon is about 8 - 12 inches
> long, 1" wide and
> #about 1/4 of an inch thick and is very heavily marbled.
> #
> #Canadian bacon, on the other hand, hardly has any visible
> fat, looks like a
> #small ham, is usually sliced round, about 1/8" thick and
> tastes quite
> #different (like fried cold cuts - perhaps?)
>
> These are the same meanings we have south of the border,
> the same ones I
> was referring to.
>
> -- Mark A. Mandel
>
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