Fries with benefits, or rather: Poutine
Fries are clearly having their moment, but when aren’t they? At food festivals, but also in chic fry boutiques, where they’re paired with 10 grams of caviar and a dollop of crème fraîche. And it’s not just here that fries are enjoying their heyday. Or let’s put it this way: almost the only place where fries are not having their heyday is in the Canadian classic poutine.
For years, American food magazines have been writing about what we’ll temporarily call the ‘kapsalon avant-la-lettre’: poutine. A traditional Canadian dish of fries, cheese curd and gravy (lots and lots of gravy). Just as fries on this side of the pond are going upmarket with toppings ranging from foie gras to caviar and pulled papaya, poutine is enjoying a culinary heyday in Canada and the States. The festival hit buried under Gruyère, schnitzel, sauces and other culinary creations is quite rightly fries with benefits there.
Poutine may have originated in Drummondville—or perhaps in an entirely different Canadian town—in the 1950s. It quickly grew into a national dish. The fact that it is quintessential comfort food undoubtedly helped. After all, think of the national dish of any country and you’re bound to end up with something boasting sky-high comfort levels.
The poutine religion
Some even go so far as to call poutine a religion. Among them is Gregory Hubert of Smoking BBQ in Bromont, Canada.
And it does seem like a religion when you see the devotion with which the dish is not only prepared, but continually refined. There are entire poutine competitions that keep elevating the dish to greater heights. The most important one, The Golden Fork Award, is held in the alleged birthplace of Drummondville at the annual Festival de la Poutine.
There, it’s not just any well-meaning amateurs who create their own versions, but highly acclaimed restaurant chefs. Such as Alpine poutine with raclette and Gruyère. Or dessert poutine, with apple julienne instead of potato fries, gravy and salted caramel. Meanwhile, even frozen poutine has made its way onto Canadian supermarket shelves.
Kapsalon avant-la-lettre
In the States too, poutine’s popularity and variety are growing rapidly. It seems to be the American version of the food-truck favorite known in England as loaded fries and in our own country as kapsalon. And there too, it is conquering both the festival and restaurant scenes. In New York, San Francisco or Los Angeles, it’s only a matter of time before the very first poutine bar opens.
Despite its comet-like status in food-trend pioneer America, poutine remained the Great Unknown here. And that’s remarkable, because when Americans let off a culinary fart, we copy it here ever faster. Now that the European culinary climate is so fries-with-benefits-friendly, could it finally manage to make the Great Crossing? Or would a tradition of making cheese curd have to be initiated first? Because poutine without cheese curd is like a fry without its… well, you know.
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