Poutine, Part Deux

ARE YOU READY? After an unconscionable delay, we continue! Avec le manger du poutine!

But first, a tiny bit of set-up.

It seems fairly common knowledge that poutine is something one eats (and likely you have already come up with this conclusion) when one is, to use my new favorite phrase, “in one’s cups.” Knowing this, and fearing that we might not be able to fully enjoy poutine without the guiltless, hungry attitude brought on by drink (the latter reason, of course, being much of the reasoning behind the former), my supervisor and I set off on a bar crawl that would take us from where we work, near Washington Square Park, down and across the island to our star destination, TPoutine. It was a very successful crawl, which is to say both that we had fun and that, upon arriving at TPoutine, we were quite drunk. By this point, we had also been joined by Lance and by my supervisor’s guy (going on, I shall refer to them as Alexa and Max).

The menu at TPoutine is overwhelming – you can see it on the website, where you should go anyway, just for the intro. There are burgers and sandwiches and ice cream...it's the kind of menu that looks greasy-delicious even when sober. When drunk, it's the kind that makes you want to get one of everything. Luckily, we had a goal. Alexa and I had predetermined that we would get one classic poutine and one variation – in this case we went for the smoked meat poutine, which is really just the classic with smoked meat. You should read that article, too. Seriously, friends, the education I am giving you here is priceless.

Then, we proceeded to stuff our gullets. And oh my goodness, friends. I know I mentioned that I had fallen in love with poutine in Poutine, the original post. But even recounting how happy it made me and my taste buds has me in a tizzy! It was so crispy, so unctuous, so salty! And the way that slight rubberiness of the cheese curds matched the starchy fries and liquid gravy was a revelation. I cannot imagine a more straightforward form of satisfaction than a good deal of drinking followed by a good deal of poutine.

It’s absolutely necessary to note that Lance got what Mr. Trillin claims is perhaps the second most popular variation on poutine: fries and gravy with chicken and peas. I think of it as an homage to Canada’s English colonizers, and though I was originally opposed to it for its lack of cheese curds, it turned out to be possibly as delicious as the original, sweeter and more nutritious-seeming. I enjoyed eating my original or smoke meat versions until I could hardly stand the saltiness, then chomping on a bit of Lance’s for some tasty balance.

It’s also worth noting that TPoutine has some shortcomings. The space is narrow and difficult for groups. The décor tries maybe a little too hard. And our poutine took so long to come that if I hadn’t been rather deep in my cups I would have been rather disgusted. (As a result of slow service, a byob policy that prompted Lance to get us a bunch of forties, and the fact that Max ordered later than the rest of us did, I have no idea what kind of poutine he got. I remember it looked good, though. I think it had mushrooms). Futhermore, the woman at the counter, while friendly, did not seem to have anything invested in knowing her business or giving good service.

But, like the lamer plot points in Avatar, I really didn’t care. The poutine was that worth it: the Pandora of my awesome analogy.

You know what else? Smoked meat is some tasty biz. There’s a Jewish Canadian deli just opened up near my hood. I believe I have some more research to do....

Poutine

SO! Hi, everyone. Happy belated new year to you and yours. I have to say that while I'm perfectly happy about a new year, January is quite possibly my least favorite month. I think it's been this way for a while, but I’m only now starting to see the pattern, possibly because I don’t have anything particular against the month itself. To the contrary, I enjoy the old concept of a fresh start or clean slate, the beginning of something new. I envision a white expanse in the crisp morning light, a cleansing wind: January. But in practice, January is never full of new things, it’s a return, after the manic and exhausting suspension of the holidays, to old things, many of which are delightful (friends, one’s own apartment and city) but many not (getting up early in the mornings, having less time to play, budget). And while I am finally (finally!) in a job that I actually like, that experience has been alarmingly insufficient mitigation to the strain I feel of this return. And I don’t need to point out that it is COLD.

So imagine my thrill to have discovered something both delightful and new! Something decadent and, even better, edible! Ladies and gentlemen, I have been introduced to poutine and I am in love.

Poutine, for those who don’t know (my understanding of just how much in the American collective unconscious poutine is at the moment being minimal), is a close cousin of what we in the U.S. call disco fries, which is to say french fries, gravy, and cheese. But where disco fries tend to have shredded cheddar or mozzarella, poutine has cheese curds. That’s right, friends, cheese curds! Perhaps you remember my enthusiasm about cheese curds from a previous post, although I love them so much that perhaps someday they will warrant their own post.

In any case, poutine comes to us from the same friendly neighbors to the North that brought us Tim Horton’s Donuts. Oh Canada, your culinary gifts are unparalleled. My direct supervisor at work was the first one to tell me about poutine, and her infectious excitement was only increased by an article by Calvin Trillin in the most recent New Yorker that is entirely about poutine. It is also one of the funnier things I’ve read all year and I highly encourage you to peruse it (though you'll need a subscription to do so online. Trip to the library, perhaps?). Both my supervisor, a woman so enjoyable that she also deserves her own post, and Mr. Trillin informed me that poutine now has a presence on the Lower East Side in NYC. And my supervisor, being a genius, gave me a gift certificate for a poutine-eating date for Christmas, which I cashed in last Friday.

Oh no! Will you look at that? My lunch break is over and this post is already long. GUESS WHAT? Two-part post. Stay tuned and I will tell you of my poutine-eating adventures on the LES. I’m pretty excited.