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Illustration by Brooklin Holbrough
“I’d like a large double-double, please.”
In Canada, this might be the most straightforward coffee order you could place. It’s repeated by millions of Tim Hortons customers every day. But this time, my request was met with confusion.
“Sorry?” asked the server from behind the counter.
“Oh, um, you know, like … a large coffee with milk and sugar?”
“Ah, yes,” he replied as he rang up an order for a latte.
“No, no, no. Not a latte,” I said. “Just regular filtered coffee, but with milk and sugar. You know?”
After a bit more back-and-forth, he began to grasp what it was I wanted. Well, sort of. In the end, I walked out with a “white Americano” (an espresso with additional hot water and milk). The sugar, the server had informed me, would have to be added myself using the packets on the side of the counter.
It’s not exactly the kind of double-double I’m used to. But close enough.
I also wanted to get a doughnut, but the unnerving interaction had left me questioning the wisdom of that. Better not risk it, I thought. I left with just the coffee, which tasted just like that outlet itself: vaguely familiar, but with something slightly amiss.
To be fair, I should probably cut the server some slack. After all, this wasn’t your typical Tim Hortons in Calgary or Kingston or Kamloops – this was in Cardiff, Wales. I had heard that Tim Hortons expanded to the United Kingdom, but this was the first time I had seen one for myself.
As a Canadian living in the U.K., I’m often asked if I miss any foods from home. This question is invariably followed by another: “What is ‘Canadian food,’ anyway?”
I don’t entirely blame them for their confusion. Despite some outstanding seasonal ingredients and regional specialties, there isn’t a unifying national cuisine. The only truly “pan-Canadian” food, I would argue, is Tim Hortons.
I live in London where there are a multitude of cafés, bakeries and markets serving high-quality croissants, mince pies, Chelsea buns, Bakewell tarts and other local pastries. It isn’t uncommon to find shops specializing in doughnuts, many of which serve monstrosities the size of a small cake and adulterated in over-the-top ingredients from roasted marshmallows to salted caramel to crispy bacon. Don’t get me wrong, these doughnuts have their time and place. But sometimes I just want a simple classic that doesn’t cost £5. Like a Boston Cream, or a Double Chocolate or a Maple Dip.
My favourite doughnut, however – the ‘Canadian food’ I miss most – is that Tim Hortons mainstay, the unsung hero of their menu: the Old Fashioned Plain. I am the first to admit that from a purely aesthetic perspective, it is far from noteworthy. It isn’t glazed, frosted or dusted with sugar; it isn’t filled with custard, cream or jam; it isn’t covered in sprinkles of any colour or shape. Instead, it has a rather uninspiring and uniformly bland-looking outer crust. Other than its slight sweetness, its only notable quality is a few flecks of cinnamon. Or is that a hint of nutmeg? Maybe it’s vanilla? It’s too subtle to tell. It is precisely this sort of ordinariness and spartan authenticity that gives the Old Fashioned Plain its charm. For me, it just works but sometimes the Old Fashioned Plain is outright mocked. If someone brings a dozen doughnuts into the office, it’s always the last one to remain in the box. You can easily imagine it being quietly removed from menus nationwide on a whim by some young management consultants with no sense of tradition or history, or by experienced marketing executives who know the price of everything but the value of nothing.
Another reason why I like the Old Fashioned Plain is because it reflects Tim Hortons’s place in wider contemporary Canadian culture. Since its founding in 1964, the coffee chain has become an integral part of the Canadian psyche, ingrained as part of our national identity. What cannot be denied, even by its strongest critics, is that Tim Hortons appeals to a broad cross-section of Canadian society. It is precisely this sort of humble, no-nonsense, unpretentious egalitarian ethos that appeals to Canadian sensibilities.
I’ve yet to return to any Tim Hortons in the U.K. since that discouraging visit in central Cardiff. It made me realize that it’s not just the individual items I miss. What I’m nostalgic for is the experience that goes along with them. It’s the comfort of knowing that you’re never too far away from one, whether in the city or on a road trip; it’s standing in line with all manner of people before being handed a doughnut in that distinctive, crinkly, brown-paper pouch; it’s going through the drive-thru with your family on the way home on a cold winter night; it’s savouring that last double-double in the international departures lounge at the airport – or that first one upon arrival.
So I think I’ll just wait until I’m back home in Canada, where I can enjoy my straightforward order of an Old Fashioned Plain and a double-double – no explanations required.
Mark Bessoudo lives in London.