If you found my recent post about Poutine mouth-watering (or weird or gross or inspiring), you'll definitely want to check out an entertaining Wall Street Journal piece on the notorious Canadian conccotion of fresh cheese curds, french fries and gravy.
In "Quebec's Baddest Poutine," author Adam Leith Gollner tells about "Poutine Week" in Montreal, an event where chefs, professional and otherwise, attempt to gild this already-over-the-top lily. (WSJ photo by Will Lew.)
The article is informative --- "For a cheese (curd) to squeak its utmost, it needs to be less than a day old;" and pretty funny, too --- "The problem with aiming to make poutine fancy is that the dish is meant to be trashy. Trying to improve it is like adding a penthouse to a mobile home."
Gollner goes on a roadtrip in "poutine heartland" and shares with us the good, the bad and the inedible. (Chez Ben, below, falls into the "good" category.
"This may all sound a little off-putting (off-pouding?), but I can testify, as a native Quebecer who grew up making poutine as an after-school snack, that a good poutine is often a bad poutine. When you're craving one, you don't want something exquisitely prepared with seasonal heirloom veg. You want a down-and-dirty dish."
"Unlike other lowly-yet-delicious foods like mac and cheese or pizza, there's not much of a range between the best and the worst poutines. Even at its zenith, poutine is still kind of gross. As pleasurable as it can be to eat one, you never feel better afterward—unless you're hung over."
Read it (in WSJ) and weep. Or make your own. Or book a flight to Quebec.
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