Pacific Views

Poutine!

Quebec's national dish makes the NY Times.

For those unfamiliar with poutine, its basic form is french fries topped with cheese curds and brown gravy. A real artery-clogger. And even though you can get it everywhere in Quebec, it's definitely not high cuisine:

[Chefs] at some of Montreal's finest restaurants are known to prepare it, but only behind the closed doors of their kitchens to feed their staff members. They would not be caught dead putting the dish on their menus. Intellectuals swear they have never tried it, though some have been known to be too embarrassed to admit they eat it.

We have to admit to laughing at poutine ourself until our last visit to Canada, during which a friend in Montreal took us out and bought us this:

[La vraie poutine. Photo: Magpie]

Omigawd.

We spent the rest of our time in Canada searching out even the attenuated Maritimes version of poutine and eating it as often as possible. Our need for poutine even drove us to a late-night skulk to the 24-hour Sobey's in Fredricton, New Brunswick, looking for take-out poutine but being forced to settle for just cheese curds.

Luckily for us, poutine was not always hard to find, as witness the sign at this KFC in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island:

[Kentucky Fried Poutine. Photo: Magpie]

Yes, we admit that we are powerless over our craving for poutine. Posted by Magpie at April 26, 2004 08:06 PM | Canada | Technorati links |