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Ok, I could take a shot on this, even if it might've been beaten to death.
Americanization is a very bipolar thing here in Finland. Obviously, we're quite familiar with some aspects of the American culture, and also filled with stereotypes, as at the end of the day quite few of us have ever been in the US.
Ok, let's start with cuisine. Hot dogs and burgers are widely known, but they are a segment of the fast food scene, and hold no leverage in anything else. On a BBQ party you never never encounter those, or other American delicacies. American seafood, Maine lobster, Philly cheesesteaks, mac & cheese or donuts you'll never see here. Most people don't know what they even are. If we want street food, it's a cheap pizza or a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doner_kebab. We know tortillas, tacos and chili con carne, but that's about it about Mexico as well.
Entertainment. Ok. Hollywood blockbusters are shown at cinemas here, but we also have a wide array of European movies. Some Americans think that Hollywood and American TV shows are the only ones that supply the Western World's entertainment, but that isn't the case. Almost all TV series (British word) I watch are indeed American, but the last four movies I watched were German, English, Russian and Chinese. There's a lot of great Finnish films and TV shows as well. Adding the nostalgic Bergerac, Der Alte and so on... Most documentaries shown here are either Scandinavian, German, BBC or French. I even hesitated watching one when the narrator had an American accent.
Culture. This is difficult. Some jerks here celebrate Halloween, which has nothing to do with our culture. Thanksgiving, I know it involves turkey, but I only a few years ago learned that it was due to the first succesful harvest in America and not the arriving of the Mayflower.
The consumer culture rose here as well as there when people got wealthier, but I can't say it had anything to do with americanization.
So, maybe the americanization is more like in music and popular culture, without really knowing what America is, but mostly what it appears to us. And the American extroverted mentality isn't really familiar to us either. We think Americans as "shallow" personalities, being more what they want to appear to be and not what they really are.
"It is a myth that globalization involves the imposition of Americanized uniformity, rather than an explosion of cultural exchange. For a start, many archetypal "American" products are not as all-American as they seem. Levi Strauss, a German immigrant, invented jeans by combining denim cloth (or "serge de Nîmes," because it was traditionally woven in the French town) with Genes, a style of trousers worn by Genoese sailors. So Levi’s jeans are in fact an American twist on a European hybrid. Even quintessentially American exports are often tailored to local tastes. MTV in Asia promotes Thai pop stars and plays rock music sung in Mandarin. CNN en Español offers a Latin American take on world news. McDonald’s sells beer in France, lamb in India, and chili in Mexico..."
Americanization is EVERYWHERE in my city! There are American cars and fast-food restaurants everywhere, and some people even fly the American flag outside their windows.
Sorry waving the American flag in SF is considered offensive since many other nationalities live there too. The city recently banned trucks to advoid conservatives.
If we're talking about cuisine, Canada is like an inferior version of the U.S. Leaving aside large cities like Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal, we don't have as much of an ethnic influence (Mexican, authentic Chinese, authentic Indian) in our food. It's mostly burgers, fries, pizza, pasta, Caesar salad, you get the drift. When there's a fundraiser, you can always bet it's a steak night or wing night. Desserts are simple, usually different variations of flour, butter, sugar and eggs mixed up in different ways. Everything that is supposed to be savory has sugar in it. Before a Mexican restaurant opened in my town in 2010, I rarely ever went out to eat. Oh and anything served with feta or a lemon wedge on the side counts as Greek food.
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