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CanadaSound: Kraft Dinner, Canada's defacto national dish

By
Grant Lawrence

What are Canada's most iconic sounds? What is your favourite Canadian sound? Why? Those are the questions we're asking you this year, as part of our Canada 150 project called CanadaSound. We're hoping to create the ulimate Canadian soundmap. Throughout the year, I'll share some of the country's most recognizable (and delicious) sounds.

Today: the ultimate Canadian meal.

Did you know that Kraft Dinner is Canada's most popular grocery store item? Did you know that Kraft Dinner is so popular amongst Canadians that we abbreviated it to KD, only to have the Canadian branch of the company adopt our organic nickname? What other product, when shaken or poured into a pot, has a sound that can instantly have you drooling, or rocket you back to university hot plates or childhood dinners?

Kraft Dinner been called the defacto national dish of Canada. The CBC's Rex Murphy even went so far as to declare in his book Canada and Other Matters of Opinion that "Kraft Dinner revolves in that all-but-unobtainable orbit of the Tim Hortons doughnut and the A&W Teen Burger. It is one of that great trinity of quick digestibles that have been enrolled as genuine Canadian cultural icons."

We have James Lewis Kraft to thank. He was originally from Fort Erie, Ont., so we have birthrights on both the product and the company.

There's even a music connection: who can forget Barenaked Ladies immortalizing Kraft Dinner in song in their hit "If I Had a Million Dollars"? ("If I had a million dollars/ we wouldn’t have to eat Kraft Dinner./ But we would eat Kraft Dinner/ of course we would, we’d just eat more.") After the song became a hit, fans tossed boxes of Kraft Dinner at the band in appreciation.

We truly love our Kraft Dinner.

What's your favourite Canadian sound? Submit yours now!

CBC Music is pleased to support CanadaSound, imagined by cleansheet communications, with our partners at the Junos, SOCAN, MusiCounts, Canadian Heritage, ICI Musique and Adisque.