Poutine - heart attack in a bowl

Mocha, the coffee and Sheesha (hookah) shop in GK-I and NOIDA, is great for unusual side dishes. Yesterday me and my bro tried out Poutine - a french canadian dish. The version served by Mocha had a cheese-curd dip and french fries alongside in a separate dish. The serving person did ask whether we want the gravy on the fries itself, but we balked at the idea. Maybe next time I will have the dish as it is originally served.

I was casually looking for more info on Poutine on the web. Turns out it is a relatively modern dish, and is supposed to be a very popular and “gross” junk food. I am calling it gross because of the way it is supposed to be served - french fries covered with barbeque sauce and cheese curd.

This Poutine primer says:

Poutine is Acadian slang for mushy mess and is best described as a heart attack in a bowl. […] When the curds are placed on the fries and the hot gravy is poured on top, the three flavors combine to produce what can only be described as the BEST junk food taste sensation on earth.

The wikipedia page on Poutine has more info on the history of the dish:

It originated in rural Quebec, Canada in the late 1950s and is now popular all over the country, especially in New Brunswick. Several communities claim to be the origin of poutine, including Drummondville, Quebec and Victoriaville, Quebec. The most popular tale is the one of Fernand Lachance, from Warwick, Quebec, which claims that poutine was invented in 1957, when a client ordered fries and cheese curds in a bag. Lachance is said to have exclaimed ça va faire une maudite poutine (“it will make a hell of a mess”), hence the name. The sauce was allegedly added later, to keep the fries warm for longer. In fact, linguists have found no occurrence of the word poutine with this meaning earlier than 1978.

comments powered by Disqus