March 26, 2025 • 13 mins
Poutine is just one of those comforting dishes that's a must have when visiting the great nation of Canada. Is it good for you? Nope. But who cares right?
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hey, and welcome to the short stuff. I'm chops and
there's chuck and cherries here. Wait, no, she isn't. No,
cherry's not here, Dave's not here. We're left on our
own like a pair of losers. And this is short stuff.
That's right.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Big thanks to HowStuffWorks dot com, the Canadian Encyclopedia, and
Food and Wine magazine Wow for the information that I
called about Canada's national dish. At seven hundred and forty
calories and forty one grams of fat per serving, the
French fried brown grayby cheese curd squeaky delight, that is poutine.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
Yes, I love poutine. How about you?
Speaker 2 (00:47):
What's not to like?
Speaker 1 (00:48):
I don't.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Of course I love poutine. I can't eat a lot
of that kind of thing.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Well, now, who can't?
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Because you know, I'm trying to look be healthier and
look better and poutine does not lend itself to that.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
You look, you look both, by the way.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
I appreciate that. But in Canada, you got to eat
some of that poutine.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
You definitely do. Whenever we visit Toronto, I'm always on
that stuff. You have taught. One reason why we can't
eat it as much is because we live in the
southeastern United States, whereas poutine was originally invented in Quebec,
which can get awfully cold in the middle of winter,
so it actually makes a lot of sense to eat
(01:26):
a higher calorie diet during that time, like a bear.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
That's right. It popped up in the nineteen fifties in
the snack bars of rural Quebec and started gaining in popularity,
you know, kind of spread out from there. As we'll learn,
it eventually started popping up in fast food menus in
the nineteen eighties like McDonald's and Burger King and stuff
like that in Quebec, and then eventually over the border
(01:52):
into Ontario, and nowadays you can find it all over
the world, even though if you want you know, if
you want that og, you got to get it somewhere
in Quebec, right.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
And if you're a purist, you definitely have to get
it from Quebec. That's just the way it goes, that's right.
So there's a bunch of different families or people who
lay claim to inventing poutine, but they all hail from
the same area called the Santra de Quebec, which means
center of Quebec, which is ironically in the south, and
(02:25):
that is a really important place because that's where the
fromagerie is, the cheesemakers who made these squeaky cheese curds
that are essential to poutine if you're a poutine purist,
where they're made. And there's the first guy who will
meet is from Warwick in Quebec, and his name was
Fernand la Chance of Cafe Ideal, and he said that
(02:50):
he first added courage to fries because one of his customers,
Eddie Linness, said, Hey, add some curds to these fries.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Yeah, that was in nineteen fifty seven, and he replied
in French, I'm not even gonna try it. But he
replied in French that will make a damn mess. But
he did it anyway, served it in a paper bag.
It became pretty popular and people started kind of customizing it,
adding vinegar and ketchup and stuff. And then six years
ended that he started to serve that on a plate
(03:19):
because it was such a mess and customers were like, hey,
they're on the plate now, They're not in this bag
staying warm. They're getting cold. So he said, ah, dump
some brown gravy on that stuff. And said, how you
like that for warm? But in French?
Speaker 1 (03:33):
But in French? Do you want me to try the
French quote? Sure, oh sure, sava te fair un modi
poutine nice. So okay, we've got our first first entrant,
Fernando la Chance, courtesy of Eddie Leness. This is nineteen
fifty seven, I guess, And no, nineteen sixty three is
when he added the gravy. Fifty seven, Yeah, that's when
(03:55):
poutine complete. Poutine was nineteen sixty three. But our next
guy comes from in Drummondville, Jean Paul Roy, and he said, no,
I had a place, a driving restaurant called LaRoy Juice
up and in nineteen sixty four, which was clearly a
year later, he said, I've been serving fries with this
sauce though since nineteen fifty eight. I called it patat sauce,
(04:19):
and he's a customer started adding cheese curds. I was
selling those at the snack counter and they started dumping
those in there. So he started doing that and added
it to the regular menu and named it fromage patat
sauce And kind of a fun little side note there,
Apparently he couldn't find a container in his province like
that could even hold this stuff.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
It was so heavy. So he had to go to Toronto
to source a vendor who could provide these sturdy containers. Yeah,
pretty fun.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
So poutine actually the name of it is it essentially
means messy or mess at least in slang and Quebec
for sure. But people say that it's probably your pop.
Possibly one of the etymological theories is that it hails
from the English word pudding and not putting like you
and I think that has the jiggly skin off top
(05:10):
that you have to peel off when you take it
out of the refrigerator. This is putting as in like
figgy pudding, which is essentially like a mixture of various foods,
sometimes fig and that it can be kind of messy.
It's not like it's just like a hodgepodge, just kind
of mixed together that kind of messy. And so putine,
(05:30):
possibly from poudine, is where this whole thing came from.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
Yeah, or maybe one of the other like ten to
fifteen explanations of root words like French words like pete
or how would you say poutite, which is a potato regue,
So that you know, no one agrees on that. Kind
of like a lot of the stuff that we talk
about with these origin stories of foods, a lot of
people will they claim, and no one agrees on who
(05:58):
the person is, although I'm sure there will people people
write and say no, it's definitely for sure one of
these people, or maybe even someone else.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
Yeah. So what we do know is that it showed
up from the more rural area of Sentre du Quebec
to Quebec City in nineteen sixty nine at a place
called Ashton Snack Bar. It made it to Montreal in
nineteen eighty three, and then it started to spread far
and wide from there. They say, we take a break
and we come back and we trace poutine spread like
(06:28):
so much gravy flowing over a pile of fries.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
Great, all right, So where we left off, poutine was
(06:59):
spreading like brown gravy through the streets all over Canada.
Different variations started to pop up, like Italian poutine with spaghetti,
sauce or sausage instead of like the gravy veggie poutine.
There are regional variations. Apparently Montreal style has smoke meat.
(07:19):
I've had it, you know, have you? Yeah, how do
you like it.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
It was great. I mean, it's hard to mess up
poutine in my opinion.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
Yeah, but you know, as far as traditionalists go, it's
just the straight up kurds and gravy.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
There was also one more thing. I'm sorry. There's also
a restaurant in Toronto I can't remember, also totally name check,
but they made like Korean poutine. Oh, I can't remember
what made it Korean, but it was the bomb Okay.
I think it had some sort of smoked meat on
it as well.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
All right, I try that. By the seventies, poutine had
spread to the United States and New York and New Jersey.
They called it disco fries and use shredded motts instead
of those cheese curds because you know, one thing we
mentioned it was made where it was made, because you
get those cheese curds fresh, and they say, like, hey man,
if you're keeping these curds for a couple of days,
(08:12):
they don't squeak anymore, and it's not the same. So
this this disco fries thing is an abomination.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
Yeah, but it's a great name.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
Yeah, pretty good.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
So it first started to spread to national restaurant chains
back in nineteen eighty five, there was a Quebec fast
food franchise called Freetz Frits and they did not last
very long, but they seemed to be on record as
the first national chain or at least large regional chain
(08:42):
to feature poutine. But the one that really kind of
kicked it off was Burger King. One of their franchisees,
Jean Louis Roy, back in nineteen eighty seven, was like,
I really want to offer poutine. Burger King, please let
me offer poutine, and the Burger King thought on it
and said, wish granted, And so this first burger King
(09:03):
franchise started selling poutine, and I guess it sold well
enough that Burger King was like, we're going to sell
this in all of our Quebec restaurants.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
Yeah. McDonald's followed suit afterward. They added it to the
menu in nineteen ninety and then in Quebec only, and
then expanded to the rest of Canada and got a
shout out Harvey's Canadian fast food joint. Harvey's started doing
so in nineteen ninety two, and then something happened in
the two thousands when sort of elevated comfort food became
(09:36):
a thing and people were like let's let's try and
charge you know, thirty five bucks for chicken pop pop.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
Yet Edison bulbs everywhere, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
Edison bulbs, you know, lighting up rooms all over the place,
like barely. So they said, yeah, let's let's do that
with poutine. And I think Martin Picard of what's that
restaurant Jo, that's right. He the first, supposedly, or at
least first to become known for serving elevated poutine when
(10:05):
he invented his Foi gras poutine.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
Yeah yeah, and so other people are like, oh, foi gras,
how about lobster? How about braised beef? And yeah, As
you as more and more like professional chefs kind of
did their own spin on it, it got further and
further away from what it was originally. And I don't
know who spoke to a chef, Hugh Atchison from Montreal,
(10:30):
I believe right, he grew up in Ottawa, Okay, so
but he grew up on poutine. He said there was
a poutine truck parked down the street from his high school,
which I would have been in big trouble every day
if they're if I had grown up like that. But
he's basically saying like the people who were coming up
with these spins on it probably had never even been
(10:51):
to Quebec, had never had actual poutine, and that it's
not supposed to be gussied up. It's like a very simple,
basic street dude. And he was really angry. I think
in the interview they said that he kept pounding his
fist and eventually took off his shoe and was pounding
his shoe on the table while he.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
Was shouting about Oh, I don't believe that when Hugh
attis in great person. He has restaurants here in Atlanta
and Athens, Georgia, so he's a he's a top chef
guy too, so I love volt.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
What's he? What's he?
Speaker 2 (11:25):
What? What?
Speaker 1 (11:26):
In Atlanta?
Speaker 2 (11:27):
Well, I mean he you remember the coffee shop at
Pont City Market that was his Oh okay, yeah, great
downstairs and his Empire State South in Atlanta Edison Bulbs
and yeah, Edison Bulbs. And then five and ten in
Athens is his restaurant because Athens has got some like
legit good restaurants.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
Now, Yeah, five and ten was great that that went
in where what was the like super threadbare restaurant that
had been there for a million years? Before five and ten,
it was like an Athenon institution.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
Oh, I don't know, I was just there. I tried
to go to five and ten, but they were booked
up because I went to those RAM shows again this
year and the Athens is just still one of my
favorite places to do great. Yeah, but this is about
Quebec and Canada, and he actually and closes out his
quote by saying, it's just really comforting garbage food.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
That's awesome, which I love. So I guess that's it, right.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
Yeah, I got nothing else. You know, go visit Canada,
go to Quebec and order some poutine.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
Yeah, but even just maybe also if you can't make
it to Quebec, like look up how to make as
close an approximation as you can and enjoy it that way.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
Yeah, I think that they're I think General Mirror here
in Atlanta serves poutine, so you know, I might give
that a shot.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
Sure, sure, since Chuck said he's going to give it
a shot, everybody, that'd mean short Stuff is out.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
Ever you listened to your favorite shows,
Hey, and welcome to the short stuff. I'm chops and
there's chuck and cherries here. Wait, no, she isn't. No,
cherry's not here, Dave's not here. We're left on our
own like a pair of losers. And this is short stuff.
That's right.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Big thanks to HowStuffWorks dot com, the Canadian Encyclopedia, and
Food and Wine magazine Wow for the information that I
called about Canada's national dish. At seven hundred and forty
calories and forty one grams of fat per serving, the
French fried brown grayby cheese curd squeaky delight, that is poutine.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
Yes, I love poutine. How about you?
Speaker 2 (00:47):
What's not to like?
Speaker 1 (00:48):
I don't.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Of course I love poutine. I can't eat a lot
of that kind of thing.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Well, now, who can't?
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Because you know, I'm trying to look be healthier and
look better and poutine does not lend itself to that.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
You look, you look both, by the way.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
I appreciate that. But in Canada, you got to eat
some of that poutine.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
You definitely do. Whenever we visit Toronto, I'm always on
that stuff. You have taught. One reason why we can't
eat it as much is because we live in the
southeastern United States, whereas poutine was originally invented in Quebec,
which can get awfully cold in the middle of winter,
so it actually makes a lot of sense to eat
(01:26):
a higher calorie diet during that time, like a bear.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
That's right. It popped up in the nineteen fifties in
the snack bars of rural Quebec and started gaining in popularity,
you know, kind of spread out from there. As we'll learn,
it eventually started popping up in fast food menus in
the nineteen eighties like McDonald's and Burger King and stuff
like that in Quebec, and then eventually over the border
(01:52):
into Ontario, and nowadays you can find it all over
the world, even though if you want you know, if
you want that og, you got to get it somewhere
in Quebec, right.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
And if you're a purist, you definitely have to get
it from Quebec. That's just the way it goes, that's right.
So there's a bunch of different families or people who
lay claim to inventing poutine, but they all hail from
the same area called the Santra de Quebec, which means
center of Quebec, which is ironically in the south, and
(02:25):
that is a really important place because that's where the
fromagerie is, the cheesemakers who made these squeaky cheese curds
that are essential to poutine if you're a poutine purist,
where they're made. And there's the first guy who will
meet is from Warwick in Quebec, and his name was
Fernand la Chance of Cafe Ideal, and he said that
(02:50):
he first added courage to fries because one of his customers,
Eddie Linness, said, Hey, add some curds to these fries.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Yeah, that was in nineteen fifty seven, and he replied
in French, I'm not even gonna try it. But he
replied in French that will make a damn mess. But
he did it anyway, served it in a paper bag.
It became pretty popular and people started kind of customizing it,
adding vinegar and ketchup and stuff. And then six years
ended that he started to serve that on a plate
(03:19):
because it was such a mess and customers were like, hey,
they're on the plate now, They're not in this bag
staying warm. They're getting cold. So he said, ah, dump
some brown gravy on that stuff. And said, how you
like that for warm? But in French?
Speaker 1 (03:33):
But in French? Do you want me to try the
French quote? Sure, oh sure, sava te fair un modi
poutine nice. So okay, we've got our first first entrant,
Fernando la Chance, courtesy of Eddie Leness. This is nineteen
fifty seven, I guess, And no, nineteen sixty three is
when he added the gravy. Fifty seven, Yeah, that's when
(03:55):
poutine complete. Poutine was nineteen sixty three. But our next
guy comes from in Drummondville, Jean Paul Roy, and he said, no,
I had a place, a driving restaurant called LaRoy Juice
up and in nineteen sixty four, which was clearly a
year later, he said, I've been serving fries with this
sauce though since nineteen fifty eight. I called it patat sauce,
(04:19):
and he's a customer started adding cheese curds. I was
selling those at the snack counter and they started dumping
those in there. So he started doing that and added
it to the regular menu and named it fromage patat
sauce And kind of a fun little side note there,
Apparently he couldn't find a container in his province like
that could even hold this stuff.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
It was so heavy. So he had to go to Toronto
to source a vendor who could provide these sturdy containers. Yeah,
pretty fun.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
So poutine actually the name of it is it essentially
means messy or mess at least in slang and Quebec
for sure. But people say that it's probably your pop.
Possibly one of the etymological theories is that it hails
from the English word pudding and not putting like you
and I think that has the jiggly skin off top
(05:10):
that you have to peel off when you take it
out of the refrigerator. This is putting as in like
figgy pudding, which is essentially like a mixture of various foods,
sometimes fig and that it can be kind of messy.
It's not like it's just like a hodgepodge, just kind
of mixed together that kind of messy. And so putine,
(05:30):
possibly from poudine, is where this whole thing came from.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
Yeah, or maybe one of the other like ten to
fifteen explanations of root words like French words like pete
or how would you say poutite, which is a potato regue,
So that you know, no one agrees on that. Kind
of like a lot of the stuff that we talk
about with these origin stories of foods, a lot of
people will they claim, and no one agrees on who
(05:58):
the person is, although I'm sure there will people people
write and say no, it's definitely for sure one of
these people, or maybe even someone else.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
Yeah. So what we do know is that it showed
up from the more rural area of Sentre du Quebec
to Quebec City in nineteen sixty nine at a place
called Ashton Snack Bar. It made it to Montreal in
nineteen eighty three, and then it started to spread far
and wide from there. They say, we take a break
and we come back and we trace poutine spread like
(06:28):
so much gravy flowing over a pile of fries.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
Great, all right, So where we left off, poutine was
(06:59):
spreading like brown gravy through the streets all over Canada.
Different variations started to pop up, like Italian poutine with spaghetti,
sauce or sausage instead of like the gravy veggie poutine.
There are regional variations. Apparently Montreal style has smoke meat.
(07:19):
I've had it, you know, have you? Yeah, how do
you like it.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
It was great. I mean, it's hard to mess up
poutine in my opinion.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
Yeah, but you know, as far as traditionalists go, it's
just the straight up kurds and gravy.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
There was also one more thing. I'm sorry. There's also
a restaurant in Toronto I can't remember, also totally name check,
but they made like Korean poutine. Oh, I can't remember
what made it Korean, but it was the bomb Okay.
I think it had some sort of smoked meat on
it as well.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
All right, I try that. By the seventies, poutine had
spread to the United States and New York and New Jersey.
They called it disco fries and use shredded motts instead
of those cheese curds because you know, one thing we
mentioned it was made where it was made, because you
get those cheese curds fresh, and they say, like, hey man,
if you're keeping these curds for a couple of days,
(08:12):
they don't squeak anymore, and it's not the same. So
this this disco fries thing is an abomination.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
Yeah, but it's a great name.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
Yeah, pretty good.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
So it first started to spread to national restaurant chains
back in nineteen eighty five, there was a Quebec fast
food franchise called Freetz Frits and they did not last
very long, but they seemed to be on record as
the first national chain or at least large regional chain
(08:42):
to feature poutine. But the one that really kind of
kicked it off was Burger King. One of their franchisees,
Jean Louis Roy, back in nineteen eighty seven, was like,
I really want to offer poutine. Burger King, please let
me offer poutine, and the Burger King thought on it
and said, wish granted, And so this first burger King
(09:03):
franchise started selling poutine, and I guess it sold well
enough that Burger King was like, we're going to sell
this in all of our Quebec restaurants.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
Yeah. McDonald's followed suit afterward. They added it to the
menu in nineteen ninety and then in Quebec only, and
then expanded to the rest of Canada and got a
shout out Harvey's Canadian fast food joint. Harvey's started doing
so in nineteen ninety two, and then something happened in
the two thousands when sort of elevated comfort food became
(09:36):
a thing and people were like let's let's try and
charge you know, thirty five bucks for chicken pop pop.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
Yet Edison bulbs everywhere, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
Edison bulbs, you know, lighting up rooms all over the place,
like barely. So they said, yeah, let's let's do that
with poutine. And I think Martin Picard of what's that
restaurant Jo, that's right. He the first, supposedly, or at
least first to become known for serving elevated poutine when
(10:05):
he invented his Foi gras poutine.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
Yeah yeah, and so other people are like, oh, foi gras,
how about lobster? How about braised beef? And yeah, As
you as more and more like professional chefs kind of
did their own spin on it, it got further and
further away from what it was originally. And I don't
know who spoke to a chef, Hugh Atchison from Montreal,
(10:30):
I believe right, he grew up in Ottawa, Okay, so
but he grew up on poutine. He said there was
a poutine truck parked down the street from his high school,
which I would have been in big trouble every day
if they're if I had grown up like that. But
he's basically saying like the people who were coming up
with these spins on it probably had never even been
(10:51):
to Quebec, had never had actual poutine, and that it's
not supposed to be gussied up. It's like a very simple,
basic street dude. And he was really angry. I think
in the interview they said that he kept pounding his
fist and eventually took off his shoe and was pounding
his shoe on the table while he.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
Was shouting about Oh, I don't believe that when Hugh
attis in great person. He has restaurants here in Atlanta
and Athens, Georgia, so he's a he's a top chef
guy too, so I love volt.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
What's he? What's he?
Speaker 2 (11:25):
What? What?
Speaker 1 (11:26):
In Atlanta?
Speaker 2 (11:27):
Well, I mean he you remember the coffee shop at
Pont City Market that was his Oh okay, yeah, great
downstairs and his Empire State South in Atlanta Edison Bulbs
and yeah, Edison Bulbs. And then five and ten in
Athens is his restaurant because Athens has got some like
legit good restaurants.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
Now, Yeah, five and ten was great that that went
in where what was the like super threadbare restaurant that
had been there for a million years? Before five and ten,
it was like an Athenon institution.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
Oh, I don't know, I was just there. I tried
to go to five and ten, but they were booked
up because I went to those RAM shows again this
year and the Athens is just still one of my
favorite places to do great. Yeah, but this is about
Quebec and Canada, and he actually and closes out his
quote by saying, it's just really comforting garbage food.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
That's awesome, which I love. So I guess that's it, right.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
Yeah, I got nothing else. You know, go visit Canada,
go to Quebec and order some poutine.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
Yeah, but even just maybe also if you can't make
it to Quebec, like look up how to make as
close an approximation as you can and enjoy it that way.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
Yeah, I think that they're I think General Mirror here
in Atlanta serves poutine, so you know, I might give
that a shot.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
Sure, sure, since Chuck said he's going to give it
a shot, everybody, that'd mean short Stuff is out.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
Ever you listened to your favorite shows,
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