When the Japanese think of Georgia, they naturally think of Georgia coffee, the brand of canned coffee made with the finest beans from the slopes of Mt. Oglethorpe. Similarly, what would Vermont be without the delicious taste of Vermont Curry, made with all those rare spices the state is so famous for? (In reality, Georgia Coffee gets its name from from being the home state of the Coca Cola Company, while Vermont Curry supposedly contains the taste of apples from the state, although no one knows this.) Like in other countries, Japanese marketers often pair place names with food products to sell them more effectively, and as a result people can develop the strangest associations. Like Oregon Strawberries, the most famous “brand” in Japan thanks to the efforts of the Oregon Strawberry Commission, or Bulgaria Yogurt, sold in supermarkets across the country, or the inability of Japanese to comprehend that there’s anything in the state of Kentucky but chickens and KFC. We do this all the time, too, with words like Canadian Bacon, which you can’t find in Canada, except maybe at McDonald’s, or Swiss Cheese, which I’m told is known as Emmenthaler cheese in Switzerland, since it comes from the Emmenthal region.
