It’s not like we don’t have this stuff in the states – that is to say the composite elements: fries, gravy, cheese curds; but apparently, poutine belongs in the same mythocultural category as deep-fried coke or BLT sandwiches made with a pound of bacon – culinary Nessies whose very existence can only be spoken of in barely audible whispers by men and women forever changed by the experience.

At least, that was my experience after a conversation with a friend who, having spent much of her life in persistent pursuit of poutinized perfection, revealed the existence of this dish to me with something I expect was a mixture of national pride (she might have been humming “Oh, Canada” to herself), the delight that comes from sharing the existence of something you love, and possibly the sadistic glee that one child might get from revealing to another that yes, giant squid do exist and one will very likely suction your face off in the near future. One, some, or all, it’s hard to tell – she can be quite inscrutable when she wants to be and the subtle shades of meaning imparted by her grin have yet to be fully decoded by behavioral scientists.

What followed this revelation was an attempt on my part to prove not only that an entire nation of people did consider the combination of starch, starchy fat, and fat an acceptable snack, but that they did so without falling into utter and total madness. Cursory web searches revealed the usual suspects, but these things can be faked. Personal interviews were met with either disgusted looks (the average American considers fries the sacred domain of ketchup, prefers their cheese curds breaded and deep-fried, and thinks of gravy as an edible substance twice during the average year), or furtive glaces that might have been better suited to espionage films. The consensus? It existed, but no man, woman, or beast in my acquaintance had strength enough to try.

We fast forward to some several weeks later, when She-Who-Grins and I stood in front of Smoke’s Poutinerie (the West Adelaide location). There had been subtle hints that I might be introduced to what was heretofore described to me as an edible Ark of the Covenant, but no indication as to where or when this might occur. Thinking back, the cryptic nature of her clues and our hurried journey through Toronto’s entertainment district – her iPhone and bottomless grin our only guides – might have been part of some austere methodology espoused by a particularly stringent group of Canadian cultural anthropologists. To this day, I have no idea if her insistence that I lose my P(outine) card in her presence was childish delight or a necessary component of a longitudinal study involving the reaction of Americans to the synthesis of potato, brown glorp, and cheese.

Regardless of her intention, I was propelled up a short flight of stairs and through a single glass door into what I was assured

was a temple to the poutinist’s ancient and fattening craft. Standing together at the corner, She-Who-Grins wasted no time in telling both counterperson and cook that I had never had taken communion at the altar of the starchy-gravied curd and laid my imperfections bare. Up to this point, I had done what I thought an admirable job blending in with the local populace – my country of origin apparent only in my charmingly awkward pronunciations of subway stops (fun fact: the American tongue is physically incapable of pronouncing “Dundas” – trust me, those of you who THINK you got it right didn’t); but now I was revealed as an interloper, a strange creature from a land that had only cream gravies that had never been poured atop a fry. While I did attempt to address the fact that yes, in America we do have brown gravy, I don’t think I was taken seriously.

Order assembled, table acquired and She-Who-Grins maintaining appropriate academic distance, I ate the Nessie.

Attempts at explaining the flavor would be pretty pointless – if you’ve eaten gravy, fries, or cheese at some point in your life, imagine them all together and you’ve got the basic idea. There is no alchemy that occurs at the moment of combination, the disparate elements to not suddenly fuse into a divine and perfect whole (at least not initially – once the cheese melts, it’s a different story). This isn’t a bad thing, however – as the individual components are familiar and comforting, and none stands out enough from the other to be particularly disturbing. The cheese, as the name of the dish implies, gets everywhere.

She-Who-Grins fired off a quick message to someone – probably her research team – stating that I was “underwhelmed”; while this wasn’t the whole truth, it is fair to say I wasn’t blown away by the experience simply because, well, I’m an American, and as a rule, we do horrible things to our gastrointestinal tracts (earlier discussion of the chili five-way filled She-Who-Grins with the same kind of inexplicable dread that gripped my fellow countrymen).

Asking whether or not I like the stuff is kind of pointless: of course I do – it’s cheese, gravy, and fries. I have, at one point, eaten these things separately and rather enjoyed those experiences, and eating poutine is a bit like doing all that at once. If I have one thing to say on the subject, it’s that while the whole of Canada seems to think poutine the anytime treat (seriously, it’s everywhere – even places that don’t serve fries as side dishes have it), for me, it’s a bit iffy. While I have consumed the aforementioned chili dish at several points in my lifetime, I tend to do so only after a very long night drinking and usually only because greasy / cheesy / noodley seems to taste better when you’re coming down from a steady drunk. My reaction to what was purportedly a perfectly prepared pile of poutine might have been improved had I come stumbling out of a bar and into Smoke’s. At that moment, I could probably see what has been snidely called “Canadian nachos” in the light they truly deserve. Something to attempt next time, I think.

PS: At the time of this publication, She-Who-Grins’ monograph “The Mythoculinary Customs of the North American Blogasaur: An Ethnographic Study” will be available in bookstores shortly. Her cross-country lecture circuit is scheduled to begin in the fall and conclude sometime next year.