Poutine is becoming a worldwide obsession, seeping into pop culture and even triggering a cultural confrontation in the otherwise genuinely sanguine country: Canada. It seems that some cultural apostates in Montreal — and worse, poutine lovers across Canada and the rest of the world — have been referring to poutine as “Canadian.”
This is, of course, blasphemy to the Quebecois, who pride themselves on their French-Canadian culture as a distinct and heralded identity quite separate from the rest of the country. Poutine, they say, is theirs, and it is certainly not Canadian.
“Poutine is Quebecois; it is not Canadian,” Zak Rosentzveig, 25, told the New York Times in a recent article detailing the cultural skirmish. The Times referred to Rosentzveig as “a poutine-obsessed economist from Montreal.”
The article explores just how French Canadian the Quebecois consider themselves as well as poutine. The article says that the Quebec legislature the Quebec legislature passed a resolution saying merchants there should stop greeting customers with “Bonjour hi” — a hybrid expression — and to say just “Bonjour” instead. Cuz, you know, that’s a priority.
But more importantly, the article shows how poutine is growing into the international pop sensation that only gravy, fries, cheese curds — and lobster! — could do.
It notes how a guy 28-year-old guy named Nicolas Fabien-Ouellet, 28, is a self-described “poutinologist” who recently presented an academic paper arguing that Canada had culturally appropriated a dish so quintessentially Quebecois that it amounted to a theft. He’s now writing a book on poutine culture.
And the last for best: Chuck Hughes won an Iron Chef America contest in 2011, crushing his opponent with a special dish. You guessed it, lobster poutine.
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