Poutine's journey from humble to gourmet

The dish is made with french fries (as hot as you can get them) covered with a generous handful of cheese curds and topped with gravy - and voilà, you have one of Quebec's best-known foods! Poutine is the ultimate comfort food for Québecois. And these days it is becoming more popular outside of la belle province. In fact, the World Poutine Eating Championship will take place in Toronto on May 22 at BMO Field, hosted by Smoke's Poutinerie.

Poutine was invented in the Bois-Francs region of Quebec, an area known for its dairy foods, maple syrup and nutrient-rich cranberries. There are two conflicting claims as to where the first poutine was served. Regardless of whether the first to serve the dish was Fernand Lachance of Warwick's L'Idéal cafe or Jean-Paul Roy of Drummondville'sLe Roy Jucep, it is clear the dish was first served sometime in the region during the late 1950s. It is equally clear that poutine began as a creation of the people.

A barrel of cheese curds sat on the counter of every casse-croûte then, a beneficial side effect of the milk surplus in the region. The unpressed, unripened cheese could be prepared quickly by dairy producers; restaurant operators could leave it out at room temperature thanks to a salt content sufficiently high to inhibit bacterial growth, and keep the folk coming back for more.

So people would come into these little mom-and-pop diners on the weekend, and they would order cheese alongside a plate of fries and gravy. At some point, someone thought to mix the three ingredients together, and poutine was born. Eating in Quebec has never been the same since.

Poutine is a rich food that contains a good deal of fat, sodium and calories. No one is going to argue that. But it does have one saving grace, nutritionally.

"Quebec cheddar curds are considered a great low-carb, high-protein and high-calcium snack," says certified holistic nutritionist Joanna Lynn of Montreal.

The best cheese is fresh, squeaking when you bite into it; it's white - never colored orange; and it's produced locally.

"Quebec dairy farmers do cheese curds the way Coltrane does jazz; that is to say intensely," says Norm Duguid, former caterer and ex-pat Quebecois who now lives in Ontario. Duguid is a man who is very serious about his poutine, and his love of fine foods does not get in the way of his enjoyment of this casse-croûte treat. "You want to make poutine? Move to Quebec. Poutine's intensity weakens the further you get from the historical source."

"Poutine likes its roots," Duguid says. "It's humble and it knows it. Pimping out your poutine with veal stock and truffle oil is merely a waste of those comestibles. You can put poutine in a party dress and teach it the queen's English, but at the end of the night it's going out back to drink beer and smoke with the boys in the band."

Despite Duguid's insistence, there does indeed exist a whole realm of gourmet poutine. In her poutine pilgrimage, food sleuth Marion Kane experimented with a number of variants served in different establishments. Max Poutine in Victoriaville boasts a menu of 75 different varieties, including a poutine with Greek toppings. Montreal's Au Pied de Cochon is famous for its gourmet poutine.

"When you think of poutine's very humble beginning as a simple food, and how it is now something that is being taken up by master chefs and turned into something gourmet ... it is pretty amazing," says Montreal culinary arts student Jim Green. He spoke highly of Martin Picard's foie gras poutine, which in his estimation "pretty much elevates poutine to a level of heart-stopping richness."

Green, who has been cooking since the age of 15 and looks forward to opening a restaurant that will focus on wild game, makes several versions of poutine that are far from the ordinary. Imagine a poutine made with goat's cheese, blue cheese or water buffalo cheese. And none of Duguid's gravy-from-a-can for him; Green's sauces are made from roasts of duck or venison or moose, to which he'll add cream or a splash of wine.

Claire Faguy and Louis Gaal, proprietors of Ontario's Blue Gypsy Wines, both formerly of Quebec, were able to rise to the challenge of pairing a traditional poutine with wine.

"You need to pair poutine with something that will cut through the oil and heavy flavor of the gravy, without upsetting the balance of the caramel and cheese," Gaal said. "The perfect pairing would be our cranberry wine. Just as the combination of cranberry sauce works well with the gravy traditionally served with turkey, so should it be a good match to the elements of poutine."

And if you can't find a fruit wine locally?

"In the absence of cranberry wine, a sweeter white such as a Reisling would be a suitable accompaniment to the caramels in the sauce," Gaal said.

From a simple people's food of small town Quebec, to a gourmet food worthy of great vintages and skilled chefs alike, poutine may have evolved during the past 60 years or so. But regardless of the form it takes, it is a dish well loved.

Sources:
Andy Blatchford, "World poutine-eating contest in Toronto? Quel scandale!" (Canadian Press)
Marion Kane, "Sleuthing La Poutine." Video
Marion Kane "The war of the curds." (Toronto Star)