Stuff You Should Know - Short Stuff: Poutine: Canada's Pride

Episode Date: March 26, 2025

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?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome to Pod of Rebellion, our new Star Wars Rebels rewatch podcast. I'm Vanessa Marshall, voice of Harrison Dula, Spectre 2. I'm Tia Zirkhar, Sabine Ren, Spectre 5. I'm Taylor Gray, Ezra Bridger, Spectre 6. And I'm John Le Brody, the Ghost Crew Stowaway moderator. Each week, we're going to rewatch and discuss an episode from the series and share some fun behind the scenes stories. Sometimes we'll be visited by special guests like Steve Blum,

voice of Zabarelio,re 4 or Dante Bosco, voice of Jaiquel and many others. So hang on because it's going to be a fun ride. Cue the music. ["Pomp and Circumstance"] Listen to Potter Rebellion on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. ["Pomp and Circumstance"] Hey, and welcome to The Short Stuff. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck, and Jerry's here. Wait,

no, she isn't. Jerry'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. Big thanks to howstuffworks.com, the Canadian Encyclopedia in Food and Wine Magazine for the information that I called about Canada's national dish at 740 calories and 41 grams of fat per serving, the French fried brown gravy cheese curd

squeaky delight that is poutine. Yes, I love poutine. How about you? But it's not to like. I don't. Of course I love poutine. I can't eat a lot of that kind of thing. Well, no. Who can't? Because I'm trying to be healthier and look better,

and poutine does not lend itself to that. You look both, by the way. I appreciate that. But in Canada, you got to eat some of and poutine does not lend itself to that. You look both, by the way. I appreciate that, but in Canada, you gotta eat some of that poutine. You definitely do. Whenever we visit Toronto, I'm always on that stuff. You have to. But 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 a higher calorie diet during that time, like a bear. That's right. It popped up in the 1950s in the snack bars of rural Quebec and started gaining in popularity, kind of spread out from there. As we'll learn, it eventually started popping up in fast food menus in the 1980s, like McDonald's and Burger King and stuff like that, in Quebec, and then eventually over the border into Ontario. And nowadays you can find it all over the world,

even though if you want that OG, you gotta get it somewhere in Quebec. Right, 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 Centre du Quebec, which means center of Quebec, which is ironically in the south. And that is a really important place because that's where the fromageries, the cheese makers 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 we'll meet is from Warwick in Quebec. And his name was Fernand Lachance of Café Ideal. And he said that he first added curds to fries because one of his customers, Eddie Lannes, said, hey, add some curds to these fries.

Yeah, that was in 1957. And he replied in French, I'm not even going to 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 into that, he started to serve that on a plate 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, oh, dump some brown gravy on that stuff and said, how you like that for warm? But in French. But in French. Do you want me to try the French quote? Oh, sure. Ça va te faire une modeudite poutine. Nice. So, okay, we've got our first entrant, Fernand Lachance, courtesy of Eddie Lannes. This is 1957?

I guess, no, 1963 is when he added the gravy. Yeah, that's when poutine, complete poutine was 1963. But our next guy comes from in Drummondville, Jean-Paul Roy, and he said, no, I had a place, a drive-in restaurant called Le Roy Juicep, and in 1964, which was clearly a year later, he said, I've been serving fries with this sauce though since 1958. I called it Patat sauce. And he said customers 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, it was so heavy. So he had to go to Toronto to source a vendor who could provide these sturdy containers. Pretty fun. So poutine actually, the name of it is, it essentially means messy or mess, at least in slang in Quebec for sure. But people say that it's probably or possibly one of the etymological theories is that it hails from the English word pudding. And not pudding like you and I think that has the jiggly skin off top that you have to peel off when you take it out of the refrigerator.

This is pudding 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 poutine, possibly from pouding, is where this whole thing came from. Yeah. Or maybe one of the other like 10 to 15 explanations of root words like French words like pâté or how would you say that one? Poutite? Poutite which is a potato ragout. So 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 lay claim and no one agrees on who the person is although I'm sure there will be people write in and say no it's definitely for sure one of these people, or maybe even someone else. Yeah, so what we do know is that it showed up from the more rural area of Saint-Troédu, Quebec, to Quebec City in 1969 at a place called Ashton Snack Bar. It made it to Montreal in 1983,

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 so much gravy flowing over a pile of fries. Great. The more you listen to your kids, the closer you'll be. Find resources to help you support your kids and their emotional well-being at SoundItOutTogether.org. That's SoundItOutTogether.org. Brought to you by the Ad Council and Pivotal. Are your ears bored?

Yeah. Are you looking for a new podcast that will make you laugh, learn, and say, que? Yeah. Then tune in to Locatora Radio, season 10 today. OK. I'm Dioza. I'm Mala.

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Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right. So where we left off, poutine was 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 smoked meat. I've had that. But, you know, have you? Yeah.

How do you like it? It was great. I mean, it's hard to mess up poutine, in my opinion. Yeah. But, you know, as far as traditionalists go, it's just the straight up curds and gravy. There's 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 All right, I try that By the 70s poutine had spread to the United States in New York and New Jersey They called it disco fries and used shredded mozz 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, they don't squeak anymore and it's not the same. So this disco fries thing is an abomination. Yeah, but it's a great name. Yeah, pretty good. So it first started to spread to national restaurant chains back in 1985, there was a Quebec fast food franchise called Frites, F-R-I-T-S.

And they did not last very long, but they seem to be on record as the first national chain, or at least large regional chain, 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 1987, was like, I really want to offer Poutine, Burger King. Please, let me offer Poutine. And the Burger King thought on let me offer poutine."

And the Burger King thought on it and said, wish granted. And so this first Burger King 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. Yeah. McDonald's followed suit afterward. They added it to the menu in 1990 and then in Quebec only and then expanded to the rest of Canada. And got a shout out to Harveys, Canadian fast food joint Harveys started doing so in 1992. And then something

happened in the 2000s when sort of elevated comfort food became a thing and people were like, let's try and charge, you know, 35 bucks for chicken pot pie. And Edison bulbs everywhere. Yeah, Edison bulbs, you know, lighting up rooms all over the place, like, barely. So they said, yeah, let's do that with poutine. And I think, uh, Martine Picard of, um,

what's that restaurant, Josh? Au Pied de Cochon. That's right. He was the first, supposedly, Picard of, what's that restaurant Josh? Laupier de Cochon. That's right. He was the first supposedly, or at least first to become known for serving elevated poutine when he invented his foie gras poutine. Yeah.

Yeah. And so other people are like, oh, foie gras, how about lobster, how about braised beef? And 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, 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 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 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 food. 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 was shouting buttons. Oh, I don't believe that one. Hugh Atchison, great person. He has restaurants here in Atlanta and Athens, Georgia. So he's don't believe that one. Hugh Atchison, 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 all. What's he what's he what what in Atlanta? Well, I mean, he the you remember the coffee

shop at Pond City Market? That was his okay. Yeah, great downstairs and his Empire State South in Atlanta. Oh, I love it. Edison Bulbs. Yeah, Edison Bulbs. And then Five and Ten in Athens is his restaurant. Oh yeah. Because Athens has got some legit good restaurants now. Yeah, Five and Ten was great. That went in where, what was the super threadbare restaurant that had been there for a million years

before Five and Ten? Oh jeez. It was like an Athens institution. 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 REM shows again this year and then Athens is just still one of my favorite places to go. Yeah, but this is about Quebec and Canada and Hugh Atchison closes out his quote by saying, it's just really comforting garbage food.

That's awesome. Which I love. So I guess that's it, right? Yeah, I got nothing else. You know, go visit Canada, go to Quebec, and order some poutine. Yeah, but even still, 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. Yeah, I think that there are, I think General Muir here in Atlanta serves poutine,

so I might give that a shot. Sure, sure. Since Chuck said he's gonna give it a shot, everybody, that means short stuff is out. ["I Heart Radio Theme"] Stuff you should know is a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts, My Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcasts,

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