Hungry Hippo

Poutine, that is. And for me, too, as you can see. On our way to the Broken Social Scene show, the Canadian collective du jour, we indulged in some gutt-clogging fun at Pommes Frites. In this picture, what you see are two servings of 1000% of your lifetime recommended intake of acrylamide, trans-fat, pesticide and MSG. Thank god I only managed to eat two-thirds of my poutine.

But now, let me take a moment to wax poetic on the mighty poutine. For the uninitiated, poutine is the Quebecois delicacy of layering fries with cheese curd, and then dousing the whole she-bang with hot gravy. Ideally, for me, Belgian fries and real cheese curds are used--the kind that squeak in your teeth. This grotesque concoction is what broke my metabolism while in living in Muntreal: night of drinking beer + poutine before bed = FAT. And the next morning, I would eat the cold, congealed leftovers. It was just that irrestible. I could never understand why the poutine phenomena has only stayed in Quebec. I mean, it was so ubiquitous that you could get poutine at Burger King up there. Also, being the food for champions, it never failed to keep me warm in the bitter Canadian winters--it's tasty and practical!

I still get nostalgic and misty-eyed at the memory of Mtl. poutine. To be honest, I think Pommes Frites has pretty tasty poutine, but minus the curd squeak. The fries were a good balance of crispy and mealy, and were well packed and nicely layered with the cheese. The gravy was tasty enough, and the amount of gravy was just right; enough to flavour and lubricate the whole thing, but not so much that the fries were swimming in gravy. Nobody likes to have to fish their fries out of puddles of gravy.