Fish don’t realize they’re in water until they’re plucked out of it. Canadians don’t realize how specific their culture is until they move to another country. It took dedicated effort to purge “toque” and “pop” from my vocabulary when I first arrived in the US. Trickier was not making reference to children’s entertainment whose cultural recognition stopped dead at the 49th parallel.

Canadian content, for whatever reason, often sounds made-up to Americans. We had a show about a rural woodsman type who fixed everything with duct tape and it was one of the most popular comedies in the country for many years. Train 48 was a terrible, ad-libbed dramedy taking place entirely on the southern Ontario commuter transit system. And of course, there was a kids’ series where an alcoholic photographer tyrannized a living mannequin man and his puppet friends in a famous Toronto department store.

But sometimes, as I look back at the cultural artifacts spawned by government investment in the arts and entertainment, even I’m surprised by how intensely, pointedly Canadian some of them are. To wit: Alligator Pie.

Read the rest for free at 1-900 HOT DOG!