It's Poutine Week here at Plaidspin! Plaidspin is the name of the Kinja sub-site you're on right now, apparently.


Part 1: A Day at the World Poutine Eating Championship

Part 2: Poutine: A People's History

Part 3: Fast Food Poutines, Ranked

Defining Poutine

What is poutine? Well that's easy. In case you've been shielded from Canada, or from standup comedians' jokes about Canada, or from trends in hipsterish food-truck comfort fare: poutine is a snack dish invented in Quebec. In recent decades it's also become a popular staple across Canada, from high school cafeterias to the type of trendy joints where the menus include an Instagram hashtag.


Right now, poutine's just on that tipping point where it might reach some level of mainstream trendiness in the US, threatening to become the next banh mi, or huevos rancheros, or tajine. Brooklyn seems to be the beachhead of the poutine invasion, with the restaurant at the Urban Outfitters in Williamsburg already overtaken.

But what's in poutine? (Which, by the way, is perfectly acceptable to pronounce in English as poo-TEEN, even though a lot of English-speakers will try to overpronounce it with a phony French inflection as pu-TAIH, inadvertently saying the French word for "whore.") Well, poutine is fries covered in gravy and cheese curds.


That's it, right?

Now, this is where things start to get dicey. Poutine purists - like any other purists out to defend their local foodstuff - love making a big stink over perceived authenticity (just try asking a Chicagoan about real pizza sometime, or, on second though, don't.) What type of fries are acceptable, what type of gravy, what type of cheese, can there be any other toppings, and on and on. Ask 10 Canadians about acceptable poutine ingredients and you'll get 10 different answers.


In general, zealots of "REAL poutine" will insist on sticking to the original Holy Trinity of thick-cut steak fries, real brown beef gravy, squeaky-fresh cheddar cheese curds, and no bullshit add-ons. Any creative modification to the recipe is treated about as warmly as trying to rewrite Shakespeare. Or, wait - depending on who you ask, maybe some add-ons are OK. Peas? Sure, whatever! Bacon? Potentially! Foie gras and wasabi and braised bison assholes? I guess, maybe!

People argue over shit like "acceptable poutine toppings" in Canada as if they were schisms between radicalized religious sects. And don't even get Gawker started.


Here's what everyone is forgetting: poutine is greasy fast-food garbage for drunks.

To hear poutine purists tell it, using the wrong kind of gravy on your poutine is the first sign of the downfall of Canadian society. Using shredded cheese instead of curds is tantamount to burning the flag. And adding vegetables to your poutine? Well you'd might as well just take a greasy shit on the Vimy Ridge Memorial if you hate Canada so much, traitor.


But wait, when did poutine become synonymous with Canada like that? Why would a nation pick a shitfaced-late-night-snack as the one topic they'll fight to the death defending?

Poutine as Cultural Symbol


Part of this comes from being a relatively young nation with very few symbols to shape our shared identity. We didn't have the signing of the Declaration of Independence, we didn't storm the Bastille – our nation wasn't formed through bonds of bravery and bloodshed. We were a colonial afterthought that politely requested our independence in 1867. Britain was probably sick of their grown-ass son Canada still living in their basement and mooching off of them by that point anyways.

From that blank canvas devoid of any shared cultural memories, Canada mainly just made up its own cultural symbols as it went along. Most notably, a type of leaf became the embodiment of our national character, not for any profound reason other than it was from a tree that grows in parts of Canada, and it looked really symmetrical.


Forgive me for this bit of a cultural-reflection tangent, but if you look at the history of Canadian culture, it's generally the result of a fusion that lies somewhere between British influences and American influences. As the two largest pressures on Canada throughout its history – Britain in a more traditional and formal sense, America in a more popular and direct sense – Canada has taken influences from both, and has generally staked its claim to Canadianness somewhere directly between the two.

Canada, Borrower of Influences:


Canada is a nation of borrowers. We borrow some books from Britain, we rent a DVD from America, we put Aboriginal influences in our Netflix queue, we keep what we like from each.

Very few things in this world belong uniquely and authentically to Canada. Sure, there's beer and donuts, lumberjacks and snow, totem poles and beavers - those are all fine symbols, but are they really authentically Canadian in the grand scale of the world, or just things we borrowed?


Alright, so there's one thing that Canada can lay claim to more than any other country: hockey. No one's taking hockey from us.

Another inalienably Canadian domain: the nation's great shared climate and geography, from the Rockies to the Maritimes to the Arctic tundra. That's something to take pride in.


And third, at the risk of overstating the cultural importance of a dish that borrows heavily from British, French and American influences, I'll add a third item to that list. Something that transcends the mere symbolic and approaches the level of Canada's cultural fabric: the humble poutine.

The Roots of Poutine

The etymology, and origins, of the dish are still disputed.

Various towns in Quebec have tried to retcon poutine's origin story more times than Marvel has retconned Spiderman. But since "no one knows where it came from" doesn't make for a good story, poutine articles will generally just pick one of these origin stories and stick with it:


Perhaps the most common story: poutine was invented in 1957 at a restaurant called Le Lutin qui rit in Warwick, QC. A hungry construction worker named Eddy asked for fries, gravy and curds mixed on the same plate, to which the owner said "Ça va faire une maudite poutine" ("It'll make a damn mess.")

A restaurant in Drummondville, QC claimed they invented poutine in 1964 (and applied for a trademark claiming as much), with the word poutine derived from the English word "pudding".

Others say it came from a dairy in Victoriaville, or from an Acadian dish also called "poutine". (The word "poutine" seems to have held a lot of different meanings over the years, but the definition meaning fries, gravy and cheese wasn't added to the dictionary until 1982.)


I'm not one to take sides in matters of small-town pride, so for our purposes, let's say that poutine was invented by Jean-Jacques Cigarettes at a stripclub buffet outside Montreal. He made it for Expos player Rusty Staub in 1969, and "poutine" is derived from an Iroquois word, meaning place where the beef-water flows over the twigs.

In any case, from those roots in smoke-filled diners in rural townships in the 70s, poutine became a staple in Montreal by the 80s, a staple across Canada by the early 90s, and a trendy sensation by the 00s, appearing on upscale menus topped with everything from foie gras to lobster tails. If you listen to poutine proponents tell it, this sloppy fast-food fry dish eaten by stoned university students would then become the culmination of all Canadian culture achievements - a sacrosanct artifact of our people, a part of our heritage.


Poutine features prominently any time you Google "Canadian culture." Poutine ranked #10 in a CBC poll of the greatest Canadian invention of all time, beating out the likes of the electron microscope, the Blackberry, the paint roller and basketball. Canadians were even pissed off when an American won the World Poutine Eating Championship.

A brief detour, and it's all I'll say on the matter: some Poutine Truther is out there reading this, getting all bent out of shape that poutine is even being referred to as "Canadian." For you see, poutine is actually proudly Québecois, and those square-headed English Canadians wouldn't know proper poutine if they tripped over it. Hey: save your outrage for some perceived slight against Celine Dion.


Poutine wasn't popularized until the 1970s. We're not talking about a centuries-old unique cultural product that can only be properly sourced locally, we're talking about a fast food dish younger than the Big Mac. English Canada Columbused


Right, where were we: Why did poutine become so popular in Canada, to the point where it became more myth than meal? Well, for one, it's different. Americans don't have poutine. Brits don't have poutine (which is honestly shocking, as it combines their three major food groups of cheese, gravy, and deep-fried.) When you're a little-brother country, you take those distinctions where you can get them. Poutine is our way of holding up a sign that says "this is ours, and it makes us ever so slightly unique." Oh look, it's Canada. Hey Canada, how's that... poutine you like to eat.

Maybe on a deeper level, there's a reason why it had to specifically be poutine that Canada would embrace that much, and not just any old Canadian food. We like symbols that match up with our own perceived notions of a group of people. Philadelphia is blue-collar, and they eat cheesesteaks made with stringy beef leftovers and Cheese Whiz: it works. Californians are skinny assholes, and they eat salad: it works.


If Canada's greatest cultural contribution had been some sort of pasta salad or chilled soup, it just wouldn't resonate on the same level. But there's something about poutine that just matches up with the world's idea of a Canadian. Something hearty, y'know? Once you get in from hauling lumber down a frozen mountain, you need something hot and filling to warm your heart.

Poutine's warm, it's comforting. It mixes elements that shouldn't go together but somehow makes them work. It's weird. It's funny. It's a bit of a mess. It can be adapted however you want.


Poutine is Canada, in a cardboard takeout box.