Everything about Poutine totally explained
» This is the Quebec-style dish. For the completely different Acadian dish, see poutine râpée.
Poutine (
Quebec French pronunciation ) is a dish consisting of
French fries topped with fresh
cheese curds, covered with brown BBQ chicken gravy and sometimes other additional ingredients. The freshness of the curds is important as it makes them soft in the warm fries, without completely melting. It is a quintessential
Canadian comfort food, especially but not exclusively among
Québécois.
Poutine is a
fast food staple in
Canada; it's sold by many fast food chains (such as
New York Fries and
Harvey's) in the provinces, in small diners and
pubs, as well as by roadside "poutine trucks" and "fries stands," commonly known as "casse-croûtes" in Quebec. International chains like
McDonald's,
A&W,
KFC and
Burger King also sell mass-produced poutine across Canada, especially in Quebec. Popular Quebec restaurants that serve poutine include
Chez Ashton (
Quebec City), La Banquise (
Montreal),
Lafleur Restaurants,
La Belle Province, Le Petit Québec and
Dic Ann's Hamburgers. Along with
fries and
pizza, poutine is a very common dish sold and eaten in
high school cafeterias in various parts of
Canada.
Origins
The dish originated in rural
Quebec,
Canada in the late 1950s and is now popular in parts of the country. Several
Québécois communities claim to be the birthplace of poutine, including
Drummondville (by Jean-Paul Roy in 1964),
Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, and
Victoriaville. One often cited tale is that of Fernand Lachance, from
Warwick, Quebec, which claims that poutine was invented in 1957, when a customer ordered fries while waiting for his cheese curds from the Kingsey cheese factory in Kingsey Falls (now in Warwick and owned by
Saputo Incorporated). Lachance is said to have exclaimed
ça va faire une maudite poutine ("it will make a damn mess"), hence the name. The sauce was allegedly added later, to keep the fries warm longer.
Variations
There are many variations of poutine. A common variation, Italian poutine, substitutes the gravy with spaghetti sauce (a thick tomato and ground beef sauce, roughly analogous to
Bolognese sauce), while another variation includes sausage slices. Greek poutine consists of shoestring fries topped with a warm Mediterranean vinaigrette, gravy and
feta cheese. Newfoundland poutine consists of fries, dressing (similar to stuffing, but not moist) and gravy.
Some restaurants in Montreal offer poutine with such additions as
bacon, or Montreal-style
smoked meat, although these are not as common.
Some such restaurants even boast a dozen or more variations of poutine. For instance, more upscale poutine with three-pepper sauce,
Merguez sausage,
foie gras or even
caviar and
truffle can be found.
Some named variations may not necessarily be prepared with the same ingredients in different establishments. For example, a variation called "poutine Galvaude" adds shredded turkey and green peas, similar to the typical
Québécois "hot chicken" sandwich.
Some variations even eliminate the cheese altogether, but most French-speaking
Québécois would call such a dish a "frites sauce" ("french fries with sauce") instead of poutine.
When ordering a fast food combination meal in Canada, you can very often pay extra to get your french fries replaced with a poutine.
In addition to Canada, poutine can also be found in many border regions of the
United States, for example in northern
New England. It is a popular item among small, privately-owned restaurants. In the state of
Maine and in northwestern
New Brunswick, poutine is frequently referred to as "mixed fries", "mix fry", or simply "mix", although the term "poutine" has been gaining in popularity in recent years, especially in
Aroostook County. Residents sometimes pronounce the word "poo-tine", but most pronounce it "poot-tsien".
These regions offer further variations of the basic dish. Cheeses other than fresh curds are commonly used (most commonly
mozzarella cheese), along with beef, brown or turkey gravy. In the county culture especially, a mixed fry can also come with cooked
ground beef on top and is referred to as a hamburger mix, though this is popular than a regular mix. Diners in New York City and Long Island serve "cheese fries", using either American (processed) cheese or Mozzarella. New Jersey diners refer to the same dish as "disco fries" and serve it with brown gravy, almost exclusively using Mozzarella.
Etymology
The word
poutine has a bewildering variety of meanings in French, and is of uncertin provenance. The online version of the
Dictionnaire historique du français québécois lists 15 different meanings of
poutine in Quebec and Acadian French, including, among various culinary senses, "a dessert made from flour or bread crumbs," like
pudding in English. The word
pouding, borrowed from the English
pudding, is in fact a synonym in this sense. The pejorative meaning "fat person (especially a woman)" of
poutine is believed to derive from the English
pudding "a person or thing resembling a pudding" or "stout thick-set person".
In many uses of
poutine, a relation to the English word
pudding is uncertain. One of these additional meanings is "unappetizing mixture of various foods, usually leftovers," the meaning from which the name of the dish with fries is derived. (This sense may also have given rise to the meaning "complicated business, complex organization; group of operations whose management is difficult or problematic.")
While the
Dictionnaire historique (under sense 1 of
poutine) mentions the possibility that
poutine is simply a francization of the word
pudding, it suggests (under sense 9) that the form
poutine was more likely inherited from dialects spoken in France, but that some of its meanings resulted from the later influence of the similar-sounding English word
pudding. It cites the Provençal forms
poutingo "bad stew" and
poutitè "hodgepodge" or "crushed fruit or foods";
poutringo "mixture of various things" in Languedocien; and
poutringue,
potringa "bad stew" in Franche-Comté.
The
Dictionnaire historique dates the word
poutine in the meaning "fries with cheese and gravy" to 1978.
Poutine in politics
In a segment on the television series
This Hour Has 22 Minutes during the
2000 American election,
Rick Mercer convinced then-Governor of Texas
George W. Bush that Canada's Prime Minister,
Jean Chrétien, was named
Jean Poutine and that he was supporting Bush's candidacy. A few years later when Bush made his first official visit to Canada, he joked during a speech, "There's a prominent citizen who endorsed me in the 2000 election, and I wanted a chance to finally thank him for that endorsement. I was hoping to meet Jean Poutine." The remark was met with laughter and applause.
Related dishes
While at first glance the dish may seem similar to American 'disco fries', poutine with melted cheese, shredded cheese, or cheese slices isn't regarded as "genuine" poutine, which is served with curd cheese.
In
New Brunswick, there's an earlier traditional
Acadian dish known as
poutine râpée, which is completely different from the "poutine québécoise". The Acadian poutine is a ball of grated and
mashed potato, salted, filled with chicken or
pork in the centre, and boiled. The result is a moist greyish ball about the size of a
baseball. It is commonly eaten with salt and pepper or
brown sugar. It is believed to have originated from the
German Klöße, prepared by early German settlers who lived among the Acadians. Many other dishes, similar or not, are known by the same name.
Acadians of Western
Nova Scotia feast on a similar dish which is called
râpure, or
rappie pie in English. Râpure is baked in a pan in a hot oven, and is often served with molasses.
Chips and Gravy is a staple of the cheaper bistro style menus, in such places as
Royal Canadian Legion and Workers Clubs, where the food offered wouldn't be considered "fast food" but is still cheap and filling, especially for children. (The word "chips," commonly referring in the United States to flat, crunchy slices of potato, is a synonym for 'french fries' elsewhere in the English-speaking world).
In the
United Kingdom and on the
Isle of Man, it's common to find "chips, cheese & gravy" for sale in a
Chip shop or "chippy". This usually consists of brown gravy and grated mild
Cheddar cheese.
In
Newfoundland and Labrador most non-national chain restaurants serve a traditional dish called CDG or chips, dressing and gravy. Dressing is a mixture of mainly white bread crumbs and savoury and is often referred to as stuffing outside of Newfoundland and Labrador. Chips, dressing and gravy is served much like poutine, except for the dressing substituting for the cheese. While loved by Newfoundlanders and Labradorians, the dish isn't widely known of outside the province.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Poutine'.
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