Poutine Cuisine

After our explorations around Nova Scotia during the summer of 2024, The Search for Rose Michaud took a back seat while we made a cross-continental trip. We focused on family, friends, and supporters more than historical research over those weeks. But by September we were headed back toward Quebec in pursuit of poutine and other pleasures of French cuisine.

Poutine is an iconic French-heritage dish of crispy fries and fresh cheese curds (substitute shredded mozzarella if curds are unavailable), smothered in delicious hot brown gravy. It originates in the Province of Quebec but has come to be called Canada’s national dish over the past decade. Even my husband, who doesn’t carry a drop of French blood, orders it regularly.

“We see our homeland more clearly when we are away from it than when we are in it.” –Nawal El Saadawi

And amazingly, we found poutine on menus all over Canada, from seaside villages in Nova Scotia to northern Ontario’s Great Lakes and big woods (and bigger bugs). From prairie towns to Alberta farm country to the BC fruit belt. Sometimes across the border too. If you’ve never tried it, I encourage you! Start with the original version, although so many variations have been concocted that some suggest poutine is a food category of its own, like sandwiches or pizza.

It’s definitely a noteworthy entry in potato-recipe cookbooks these days. While I doubt if Rose Michaud Calvert would have found it on restaurant menus in the 1930s, she might well have made it for her granddaughter Melissa Travis in the ’80s. Who knows what other potato creations Melissa came up with to serve for lunch during the post-earthquake winter of Destiny at Dolphin Bay?

On the Poutine Trail

The exact provenance of the word poutine evades certainty. Some believe it’s a gallicization of the English word pudding. However, it most likely stems from a Québécois slang word meaning “mess,” and this from several regional dialects of France, where it translates as “hodgepodge” or “bad stew.” The combination of “fromage-patate-sauce” might look like a mess, but it’s by no means bad! 

Several competing restaurants in the Centre-du-Québec area claim to have invented poutine in the late 1950s, but no consensus exists. At any rate, it has a long history in Québécois cuisine. For years, it remained a country snack food, even a junk food, consumed in small diners (cantines or casse-croûtes), roadside shacks, and ice hockey arenas.

“Good food is the foundation of genuine happiness.” –Auguste Escoffier

Today, the humble poutine has become celebrated as a symbol of French-Canadian culture. Its popularity has spread throughout the rest of Canada, the United States, and even into Europe. Some food critics credit it as the country’s most famous culinary creation. Maclean’s magazine places it ahead of maple syrup as a “favourite iconic Canadian food.”

Starting in the early 2000s, poutine has gained international fans in all types of restaurants from fast food to haute cuisine. From a Burger King version in 1983 to the first poutinerie in Paris, La Maison de la Poutine, in 2017. The dish has even celebrated Canada Day in London’s Trafalgar Square for several years.

No Routine Poutine

The variations cannot be counted—and they may differ widely from the traditional recipe. Some versions switch out the cheese; some eliminate it altogether. Some prefer sweet potatoes to white, baked to fried. Sometimes the gravy changes to three-pepper sauce, Moroccan harissa, lobster sauce, seafood chowder, or red-wine veal jus.

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.” –Mark Twain

Then there are the toppings, some sophisticated, some rustic: foie gras, caviar, truffle, braised beef, sausage, brisket, pulled pork, or Montreal-style smoked meat. The Quebec City-based chain Chez Ashton is known for its poutines Galvaude (with chicken and green peas) and Dulton (with ground beef).

Ukrainian-inspired poutine with pierogis instead of fries reflect another immigrant cuisine. Wendy’s offers poutine in the form of Baconator fries. And some poutineries will frequently offer holiday specials, such as Thanksgiving poutine with turkey, stuffing, and cranberry sauce. You can find Cajun poutine in New Orleans, poutine ice cream in New Zealand, and poutine-flavored potato chips in some stores in Canada.

Wow, that’s amazing. (Or not. See my post on ice cream here.)

Poutine Passion

Tracing the spread of the poutine trend lies outside the scope of this post, but believe me, you’ll now find this French-Canadian specialty anywhere and everywhere. As you will realize from the above, the dish has evolved dramatically since its origins in rural Quebec 75 years ago. Younger people have begun to reappropriate poutine as a symbol of Québécois cultural pride.

“Winter is the time for comfort, for good food and warmth, for the touch of a friendly hand and for a talk beside the fire: it is the time for home.” –Edith Sitwell

As the dish becomes more and more appreciated internationally and mainstream-Canadianized, some critics see this as a hijacking of Quebec’s distinctive identity. A theft of the cultural limelight, so to speak.

It all depends, doesn’t it? Isn’t Quebec a part of the mosaic of Canada? And shouldn’t Canada embrace Quebec and its unique heritage? Tensions lurk, balance is fleeting, but in my experience the Québécois seem happy to share.

“People who love to eat are always the best people.” –Julia Child

Their dish is now celebrated at many annual poutine festivals in major cities across Canada and the U.S. The first poutine festival was held in Warwick, Quebec, in 1993, and by 2021 had grown into the world’s largest, with over 700 restaurants serving 350,000 dishes of different poutines. Timothy Beaulieu founded the New Hampshire PoutineFest to stir up interest in French-American culture.

And how about this for freaky food? A promotional campaign for the 2018 film Crazy Rich Asians featured the “world’s richest poutine.” It contained Wagyu steak, lobster, truffles, shiitake and chanterelle mushrooms, edible orchids, and gold flakes. All for the price of just under…$450. 😊

On the opposite end of the scale, iconic Canadian coffee shop Tim Hortons started selling poutine in 2018. I haven’t tried it yet. Anybody know if it tastes like coffee and donuts?