From Warwick to Drummondville, poutine has emerged as a Quebec culinary symbol. With its 60 years of history and its worldwide success, it deserves a place in UNESCO’s intangible cultural heritage.
Poutine is celebrating its 60th anniversary this year. As we know it, it was created in 1964 by trained master saucier Jean-Claude Roy, in Drummondville. The combination of fries, sauce and cheese curds has been making people happy for over six decades. Le Roy Jucep, this typical “sixties” restaurant, lit by neon lights, is still there to serve its delicious poutine. This simple dish emerged from nothing, but oh so carries a unique story!
The history of poutine, however, does not belong to a single man or a single restaurant. The origin of poutine would rather come from Warwick, in a rural area of Center-du-Québec. According to the book Putin Nationthe parentage of poutine is attributed to Fernand Lachance and his wife Germaine of the restaurant L’Idéal, which later became Le Lutin qui rit, where the word “poutine” was included for the first time on the menu in 1957.
Their poutine did not include sauce, since, according to what people say, Fernand did not like sauce. Germaine, for her part, added her grain of salt with her own sauce sold as an accompaniment. It was the time of the Duplessis years, of the “great darkness” where the Catholic Church controlled almost all dimensions of citizens’ lives.
Later, potato stands multiplied and began to sell poutine throughout the region. But in 1972, Ashton Leblond became the real instigator of the popularity of poutine by founding Ashton restaurants, which sold it throughout the Quebec region. For him, highlighting Quebec know-how in cheese curds was essential. The cheese had to sit on top of the fries.
The immense popularity of poutine in the Quebec region, thanks to the Ashton chain, has encouraged several other chains such as Harvey’s, Burger King and even McDonald’s to add poutine to their menu. And the rest, as they say, is history.
The success of poutine would certainly not have existed without the ingenuity of our Quebec cheesemakers who made the cheese curds that make “skouik skouik”, the classic signature of the dish.
The heritage of poutine, without pretension, impresses us. There is reason to celebrate. Poutine is found on menus all over the planet. In Washington, Los Angeles, Paris, Shanghai, Melbourne, Cape Town, Rio de Janeiro, everywhere the dish remains forever associated with Quebec and Canada. Besides maple syrup, it is the most famous Quebec and Canadian dish around the world. Neapolitan pizza took more than 100 years to become known worldwide, thanks to immigration and the mastery of pizza dough and wood-fired ovens. Poutine did it in less than 60 years.
However, pizza and the skill behind this legendary dish have received significant recognition that poutine, according to many, also deserves. In 2017, UNESCO listed Neapolitan pizza and its artisan pizza makers as part of the intangible cultural heritage of humanity.
Yes, since 2003, UNESCO began declaring intangible cultural heritage, including dishes, with the adoption of the Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage. This convention aims to protect the traditions, forms of expression, knowledge, skills and tools that communities, groups and sometimes individuals consider to be part of their cultural heritage.
The problem is that Canada has never signed this convention and has no dishes registered by UNESCO. Canada, pushed by Quebec, could not only become a signatory to this convention, but also submit poutine as the first Canadian dish to be added to the list of intangible cultural heritage of humanity by UNESCO.
reference: www.lapresse.ca