some observations from north of the border

[Victor Steinbok]

A couple of minor points.

(1) may well refer to the common claim that farmed salmon is chemically
protected (antibiotics, etc.). US and Canada have some of the more
stringent regulations on aquaculture, but we've had an influx of
Chilean, Costa Rican and Ecuadorian farmed fish (not just salmon, but
striped bass and other fish) and that's a bit of a problem. The fish
farms in the region are run by a couple of Norwegian companies who are
very adept at squeezing every last dime out of farmed fish--and doing so
in Central and South America in order to skirt European, US and Canadian
anti-PhRma regulations. Even in the US, the usual rumor spread by
environmentalists is that salmon farming is a very dirty business,
conducive to fish infections, which are then treated with massive doses
of antibiotics. This is certainly the case South of the Border and
perhaps in Asia (a different can of worms entirely). But PhRma is
definitely an issue.

2) We have Doner kebabs too but we don't refer to them as such. The
usual designation in these parts is Schewarma or Shawarma, with "Kebab"
reserved for integral skewered pieces of meat. The other some variations
as to the makeup of said Shwarma. Traditional Israeli shawarma is made
with turkey meat. Turkish, Lebanese and other regional variations use
chicken or lamb/beef combination. Even then, there is the layered
version (which is how the turkey one works) and the ground version, the
latter closely resembling gyros. Added irony is in the Dutch use of
"schawarma" to describe pre-spiced/marinated small strips of meat, which
are usually chicken or pork--pork certainly being anathema to the usual
schewarma-eating population. I believe, I've posted on this subject a
couple of times here.

3) Did you make any stops in Central and Northern Maine?

     VS-)

On 9/14/2012 3:49 PM, Laurence Horn wrote:
>  From a recent trip to Halifax:
>
> 1) a variation on a snowclonish theme:
>
> FRIENDS DON"T LET FRIENDS EAT PHARM [sic] SALMON
>
> 2) a regional delicacy, advertised in various pizza and snack shops:  =
> DONAIR
>
> My first mental "aha" moment led me to parse this as a French spelling =
> of D=F6ner, as in the D=F6ner kebabs ubiquitous in Germany, but it turns =
> out that the "donair" is a Haligonian (yes, that's the adjective) =
> variation on that theme, given the ground meat/meatloaf versions, or so =
> I gather from browsing google hits and the relevant (and impressively =
> thorough) wiki-site after I got home, =
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doner_kebab.
> (I didn't try any when I was there, since I spent all my Canadian fast =
> food dollars on the extremely good fish and chips there.)
>
> 3) Canadian raising is very much alive and well.  (Although I didn't =
> notice any utterance-final "eh"s.)
>
> LH

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