Jan 10: Poutine

Babette Turner-Underwood, who I first met at UKOUG 2006 and I sit beside in the office for now, decided that I should try my first Canadian delicacy yesterday lunchtime. Friends and regular readers will know that I have the diet of an unadventurous five year old - meat, chips, anything in breadcrumbs (you can fill in the rest of the list) - so I tend to run scared when people offer to feed me, but when she mentioned chips (french fries) and gravy, it sounded extremely promising!

On the way to the chip van, she mentioned the cheese :-(

Bizarre as it might seem, I don't like cheese. Well, I don't really like any dairy products now that I think of it. Babette reckons it might be a subconcious lactose intolerance and I'll grasp any excuse that I can ;-)

Poutine is chips, with cheese on top (stop at that point and you have a favourite of a number of friends and relatives) but with gravy poured over. As far as I'm concerned, that's gilding the lily, so I skipped the cheese, had chips and gravy and it was more than satisfactory.

I strongly suspect it was all a cheap bribe anyway because somehow Babette has roped me into giving one of the parallel presentations at Thursday's local user group meeting.

Posted by Doug Burns Comments: (10) Trackbacks: (0)

Trackbacks
Trackback specific URI for this entry

No Trackbacks

Comments
Display comments as (Linear | Threaded)

#1 - Alex Gorbachev said:
2007-01-10 13:54 - (Reply)

Oh no! Cheese was the best part and I would rather skip the grave but add some vinegar.

#2 - David Aldridge said:
2007-01-10 14:44 - (Reply)

At the "Outback Steak House" round these parts they have an appetiser called "Aussie Cheese Fries" that sounds similar, though I'm not sure about the gravy. At 3,000 calories and 200+ gms of fat I'm going nowhere near it.

http://www.primusweb.com/fitnesspartner/library/nutrition/steak.htm

#3 - Robert V said:
2007-01-10 15:09 - (Reply)

I hate that! People come to Canada and we serve them our very grossest cuisine. Poutine is just gross. I've hardly met anyone who can stomach that slop.

Go for some tourtiere instead. Or get some genuine Canadian maple syrup on your pancakes. Go to Tim Horton's for one of our coffees and donuts. Get a pizza with pepperoni, mushroom and Canadian back bacon. Since you're in Ottawa, go get a beaver tail for a snack.

Anything but poutine! Please!

#4 - Paul Vallee said:
2007-01-10 15:28 - (Reply)

Robert -

I promise to take him out for some authentic Canadian cuisine in the coming weeks. Given Doug's tastes, we'll see how it goes. ;-)

But really, visiting a country without at least being invited to have their most popular and famous fast food dish? That would be wrong!

Paul

#5 - Doug Burns said:
2007-01-10 15:36 - (Reply)

Given Doug's tastes, we'll see how it goes. ;-)

Exactly!

For what it's worth, I like chips and gravy ;-)

#6 - Dave Edwards said:
2007-01-10 16:27 - (Reply)

Doug,

The true poutine is made with *cheese curds*, but I'll let this gastro faux-pas slide this time.

Cheers,
Dave.[link=http://www.pythian.com/blogs/about-log-buffer]Log Buffer[/link]

#6.1 - Doug Burns said:
2007-01-10 16:33 - (Reply)

Yeah, yeah, I know, but they smell and taste funny, either way ;-)

#7 - Bill Thater 2007-01-10 17:27 - (Reply)

remind me to take you out for taco lingua at HOTSOS.;-)

#8 - joel garry 2007-01-10 19:56 - (Reply)

But really, visiting a country without at least being invited to have their most popular and famous fast food dish? That would be wrong!

I'll just mumble something about Peru and Burleson and leave it to google if anyone really wants to know.

And of course, google for "squid on a stick" for some other countries.

#9 - Jeff Moss said:
2007-01-11 07:18 - (Reply)

...all this fussiness over food from a man who's country brings us Haggis and deep fried mars bars eh!

;-)

Hope you're enjoying Canada - always wanted to visit myself.


Add Comment

Standard emoticons like :-) and ;-) are converted to images.
E-Mail addresses will not be displayed and will only be used for E-Mail notifications.
BBCode format allowed