Bacon, poutine, maple syrup top list of most searched Canadian foods in 2012

Canada is a country of many splendours and achievements, but the presence of a vast and well-defined national cuisine has not traditionally been of those things.

So while we certainly prepare the food of other cultures brilliantly, it's hard to think of a list of internationally known Canadian foods that extends far beyond bacon, poutine, maple syrup and beer.

And wouldn't you know it, those happened to be the Canadian food and beverage items we plugged into search engines more than any other this year, according to Google's annual Zeitgeist list of top search trends.

For Canadians with a meal on the mind, bacon topped the 2012 charts, propelled, no doubt, by apocalyptic fears of a global bacon shortage.

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Coming in at a close second, poutine continued to prove its merit as the country's greatest contribution to the world of comfort food.

Our incredible maple syrup reserves propelled the sweet stuff to third place, aided by this October's great Quebec syrup caper.

Rounding out the top five were a pair of holdovers from our colonial days. In fourth spot, Yorkshire Pudding, that great British staple, showed it can stick to a top five as effectively as it sticks to your digestive tract.

And bannock, a variety of flatbread imported from the Isles, rounded off the most searched Canadian foods list.

Smoked meat, Kraft Dinner, butter tarts, sucre a la crème and sugar pie behaved like the perfectly sequenced meal-followed-by-dessert to complete the top 10.

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Over in beers, Molson (well, at least the Canadian outpost) stoked our national pride enough for us to make it the top searched brew this year. Good old pub staple, Guinness, came next, followed by Budweiser, Coors and Labatt.

Craft beers gained enormous traction in 2012, with Vancouver's own Granville Island attracting the masses in record number.

Other Canadian artisanal beers to hit the top five were Big Rock, Muskoka and Creemore, indicating that we've become serious contenders in the international brew wars.

Though our search habits may steer toward the national, the Canadian Press reveals that Canadians are embracing ethnic foods more than ever.

A recent report by the Canadian Federation of Independent Grocers claims that within a decade the presence of ethnic foods on our grocery shelves "continues to explode."

On a less positive note, so does our salt and sugar intake — a tendency that is unfortunately highlighted by the foods we so dearly love.