Canadian Junk Food Is My Taste of Home

When I moved to the U.S., I thought the junk food would be better. I thought wrong.

- Scaachi Koul

IT'S SURPRISING what you miss when you leave Canada. Five years ago, I left Canada's most annoying city (Toronto) for America's most annoying city (New York). I had lived in Toronto for a decade, and though I liked it, I'd grown tired of the monotony of waiting for the streetcar and decided it was time to grow tired of the monotony of waiting for the subway. Now, the list of things that make me nostalgic is remarkable if not entirely inane: the ability to order a Caesar in any brunch setting, minimal public grumbling about how cold it is when it's still above zero degrees (don't get me started on how much I hate Fahrenheit), small talk under the soothing overhead lighting of a Shoppers Drug Mart. Despite now being mired in aggressive American exceptionalism, I know there are a few things that Canada does better.

But where my nationalistic pride really kicks in is when I'm compelled to talk about the humble and perfect Aero bar. Like most decent chocolate available in Canada, it is a British invention, but is it ever good. The bubbles melt, the chocolate oozes and, baby, before you know it, you're making Nestlé propaganda. Perhaps you live near a Loblaws or Safeway that sells high volumes of this chocolate every week. In America, Aero is much harder to find; it's mostly relegated to specialty-candy stores and curio shops selling garbage with the Union Jack on it. During my first year in New York, you would have found me trudging from bodega to bodega, inquiring about their supply. "Aero?" I'd ask, like a Victorian child asking for a rag to use as a blanket. "Any Aero for me, sir?" No one knew what I was talking about. "A chocolate bar...full of bubbles?" one bodega owner asked me as I clutched three dollar bills. "That doesn't even sound good." I left, dejected, with tears in my eyes and a Snickers bar in hand as a pitiful consolation prize.