Canada's top 50 inventions -- sort of clothing related....

Canada\'s top 50 inventions -- sort of clothing related....

There was a fun show on CBC last night highlighting the top 50 Canadian inventions of all time. Although I disagree with the zipper being on the list (as there were earlier patents in Germany and the U.S. for slide fasteners). They also included the telephone which the U.S. and Scotland all claim as well, and they totally omitted the jock strap! Otherwise it was a bit of a surprise at times. I had no idea the light bulb was actually an 1874 Canadian invention that was sold to Thomas Edison who improved the design before taking out his own patent in 1879.

Anyway, its fun:
http://www.cbc.ca/inventions/inventions.html

 

Instant mashed potatoes well less said about that the better,
the Irish in me!
The light bulb, well they are splitting hairs on that by saying the first working one, which is true ,if you mean working for any length of time, others had them working for a few seconds before exploding they were using viscose from wood pulp. If it was not for the light bulb you would not had Artificial silk (viscose and rayon).
That is a very interesting article.

 

That is a fun and informative article, Jonathan!

I didn't know Bloody Cesears originally contained hand-mashed clams. Clam juice, yes. But, squished clam guts in my cocktail? No thanks. :barf:

Janine

 

Well Canada - we are not going to let you get away with this. Saying the telephone is Canadian. Alexander Graham Bell was Scottish, moved to Canada in his 20s, and then went to BOSTON UNIVERSITY in the united states and then lived in america after. He filed for his patent and invented in the US.

So that's like saying that if i did something famous i would be called a "famous wisconsinite" even though i only lived their for a very brief period in my life.

So Canada, keep your poutine and your caulking gun but don't kidnap Mr. Bell!

 

YEH, Chris, tell 'em where to put that caulking gun!! :USEROCKY:

Janine

 

Bloody Caesars are my fave drink...also Beer and Clamato juice in the summer.

The juice isn't chunky with clams, but smooth like tomato juice. Sort of like a Bloody Mary but with much more flavor (not fishy either...I really don't like clams on their own).

I always thought the Mayans invented basketball??

Good link Jonathan!

 

This is the way I know them and have made them. I guess the original had smooshed up clam innards in it. :drool:

Janine

 

Some Canadians point to Bell being a classic case of the Canadian brain drain to the U.S. that happens with a lot of our scientists and pretty much all of our entertainers (the good ones). Bell actually came up with the idea for the telephone while living in Canada (it was during his summer holidays between semesters), he worked on the practical application back in the U.S. while at school but he made the first long distance phone call between a Paris Ontario shoe store and his home in Brantford Ontario the following summer. Needless to say, he got money for creating the first commercial application of the telephone in the U.S. -- the U.S. always offers better money! No health care, but better money!

 

Well - actually its a scottish brain drain he didn't even get to canada to age 23.
So Scotland should be the one complaining.

 

Someone else please claim the poutine! It's nasty and as a Cannuck and Quebecer, I find it quite embarassing that it even made it to a list of inventions - let alone the "greatest" list of Canadian inventions!

That said, it's not quite as nasty as New Brunswick poutine - and if there was a contest in Canada for the "original" poutine, NB could make claim to the name - it's a boiled grey ball made of shredded potatoes with a piece of pork fat in the middle. YUCK!

 

LOL -- I have only had poutine twice in my life (the fat and carb content is off the scale). I had it once in Montreal and it was disgusting, and I had it once from a street vendor in Ottawa and it was DELICIOUS. I dared not tell any Quebecor that I liked the Ottawa poutine better or they would think it was some anti-French statement!

 

i've never heard of poutine. I am off to google---sounds like something I need to try!

 

The Quebec Poutine Brigade would have been on you like a dirty shirt!

But you could have fought them off with a caulking gun...

 

I saw the ad for that show and I meant to
watch it.
Was that CTV?

I've always associated Poutine with Quebec,
not Canada as a whole.

AGB travled and worked both sides of the border
it seems, but he visited Baddeck, Cape Breton in 1885,
built a home there, and died at home there in 1922.

"I have travelled the globe. I have seen the Canadian and American Rockies, the Andes and the Alps and the highlands of Scotland, but for simple beauty, Cape Breton outrivals them all."

- Alexander Graham Bell

Bell's estate, Beinn Breagh (Gaelic for 'beautiful mountain') can be viewed from the rooftop gardens of the complex.

 

LOL -- well as a home renovator I can tell you, I have MANY caulking guns in my tool cupboard. I'm not that good a renovator, so the caulking gun is an essential tool! What else are you going to use to cover up all those Robertson screw heads?

 

My family and drafty old house thank you kindly for the caulking gun. :smug:

 

We could have a contest, Jonathan. DH and I renovated our ol' abode - and it's been 90% finished for the last 6 years and we started 16 years ago! Those guns sure come in handy.

Pinky-A-GO-GO - Quebec Poutine is a mass (or mess) of greasy french fries topped with lotsa fresh (squeeeeeeekeeee) curd cheese and a ladle or two of greasy gravy - a heart attack in a bowl!

 

So its the equivelant of cheese fries but the cheese in its more natural form unlike the cheese from a pump variety normally on cheese fries?

 

Yes, -- and add gravy on top. If the fries are fresh, hot, chunky, and crisp, the cheese chunky, in a combination of melted and unmelted, and the gravy flavourful and not too salty or greasy, they can be very good, but if the fries are luke warm, soggy, undercooked and greasy, the cheese tasteless and melted, and the gravy too salty and greasy with no flavour other than 'packet' or 'canned' flavour, its disgusting.