{"id":136,"date":"2019-11-05T15:21:01","date_gmt":"2019-11-05T20:21:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www-chris.dawsoncollege.qc.ca\/humanities\/?p=136"},"modified":"2021-08-04T16:57:05","modified_gmt":"2021-08-04T20:57:05","slug":"blog-post-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www-chris.dawsoncollege.qc.ca\/humanities\/2019\/11\/05\/blog-post-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Politicizing Poutine"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><strong>Ian Alexander Cuthbertson<\/strong><br \/>\nHumanities Faculty<\/p>\n<p><em>This blog post originally appeared on <a href=\"https:\/\/edge.ua.edu\/\">Culture on the Edge<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Poutine\">Poutine<\/a>, a delicious mess of french fries, cheese curds, and gravy, has recently been <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2010\/WORLD\/americas\/10\/02\/canada.poutine\/\">described<\/a> as Canada\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thestar.com\/life\/food_wine\/2012\/06\/07\/poutine_is_canadas_unashamed_national_dish_fed.html\">national dish<\/a>. Given poutine\u2019s origins in rural Qu\u00e9bec, these claims shed light on the tensions at play in the ongoing construction of Canadian identity.<\/p>\n<p>Poutine\u2019s status as Canada\u2019s national delicacy remains unofficial despite a recent <a href=\"http:\/\/business.financialpost.com\/news\/wendys-launches-poutine-campaign\">campaign<\/a> to give poutine the national recognition it deserves.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/0PvBHDOJ9Bo?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Yet marketing campaigns aside, poutine is already widely recognized as being <a href=\"http:\/\/globalnews.ca\/video\/2345364\/why-poutine-is-the-quintessential-canadian-dish\">quintessentially<\/a> Canadian.<\/p>\n<p>Locating (or rather fabricating) a shared national culture is important in Canada, which recently celebrated its sesquicentennial. Canada\u2019s pre-Confederation colonial history in which French settlers, who eventually claimed a unique identity as Canadiens, were later colonized by English settlers in successive waves after 1763 has resulted in a country long divided along linguistic and cultural lines: a country consisting of <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Two_Solitudes_(novel)\">two solitudes<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>These linguistic and cultural differences have long fueled nationalist and sovereignist movements in Qu\u00e9bec and in 1980 and 1995 Qu\u00e9bec held referenda to separate from Canada and become a sovereign nation. Although federalists narrowly defeated the separatists, the Canadian government officially recognized Qu\u00e9bec\u2019s distinct cultural identity in 2006 when parliament passed a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.parl.gc.ca\/HousePublications\/Publication.aspx?DocId=2534202&amp;Language=E&amp;Mode=1\">motion<\/a> asserting, \u201cthe Qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois form a nation within a united Canada.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But it would be a mistake to view Canada as a country divided neatly in two. The plight of indigenous or First Nations peoples in Canada continues despite recent <a href=\"https:\/\/www.liberal.ca\/realchange\/a-new-nation-to-nation-process\/\">commitments<\/a> to renew a \u2018nation-to-nation\u2019 relationship, leading some to refer to indigenous communities as Canada\u2019s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theglobeandmail.com\/opinion\/third-solitude-is-not-alone\/article739388\/\">third solitude<\/a>. Moreover, Qu\u00e9bec is not the only province to consider <a href=\"http:\/\/alberta.independence-movement.org\/category\/for-a-better-independent-alberta\/\">independence<\/a> from Canada.<\/p>\n<p>Canada has long struggled to assert its own unique national identity and to find shared cultural markers. In 1971 Canada introduced an official <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cic.gc.ca\/english\/multiculturalism\/citizenship.asp\">policy<\/a> of multiculturalism, which has led some critics to <a href=\"http:\/\/news.nationalpost.com\/news\/canada\/multiculturalism-in-its-controversial-glory-is-canada-a-country-without-a-core-culture\">claim<\/a> that Canada has no distinct culture of its own. In an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2015\/12\/13\/magazine\/trudeaus-canada-again.html\">interview<\/a> with the New York Times r, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau remarked that Canada has \u201cno core identity\u201d which has led some to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2017\/jan\/04\/the-canada-experiment-is-this-the-worlds-first-postnational-country?CMP=share_btn_fb\">wonder<\/a> whether Canada may be the world\u2019s first post-national country and others to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.torontosun.com\/2017\/01\/06\/trudeau-doesnt-appreciate-canadas-greatness\">assert<\/a> that Canada does indeed have a culture of its own, no matter what the Prime Minister thinks. Faced with such an identity crisis, is it any wonder that Canadians are eager to identify shared cultural values, practices, and meals?<\/p>\n<p>The problem is that poutine, like many other notable markers of \u2018Canadian\u2019 identity (ice hockey, toques, the Canadian <a href=\"http:\/\/canada.pch.gc.ca\/eng\/1443808632942\/1443808632944\">national anthem<\/a>) originated in Qu\u00e9bec. The dish was <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca\/en\/article\/history-of-poutine\/\">invented<\/a> either by Fernand Lachance in Warwick in 1957 or else in Drummondville by Jean-Paul Roy in 1964 and although its precise origins are obscure, Qu\u00e9bec\u2019s claim to having invented Canada\u2019s purported national dish is undisputed. Even in its brief appearance on the American television program Modern Family, the dish is described as a \u201cFrench-Canadian delicacy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ekzaRINoe0I?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The dish that has been touted as quintessentially Canadian was practically unknown outside of Qu\u00e9bec until the mid 1980s. The first brief mention of poutine in The Globe and Mail, then Canada\u2019s largest daily newspaper, occurs in 1982 where it is described as a \u201cplate of mystery.\u201d Two years later, poutine is described as an \u201cunlikely combination\u201d of cheese curds, french fries and gravy that makes for an \u201codd dish.\u201d Poutine has not always enjoyed its current lauded status, as a cartoon drawn in 1987 by the Montreal Gazette\u2019s political cartoonist <a href=\"http:\/\/www.aislin.com\/wordpress\/\">Aislin<\/a> suggests.<\/p>\n<a class=\"link-to-img\" href=\"https:\/\/www-chris.dawsoncollege.qc.ca\/humanities\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/95\/1999988n.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-150\" src=\"https:\/\/www-chris.dawsoncollege.qc.ca\/humanities\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/95\/1999988n.jpg\" alt=\"1999988n\" width=\"700\" height=\"638\" \/><\/a>\n<p>So is poutine Canadian or Qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois? As is the case when considering any strategic act of identification, this question misses the point entirely. For those interested in constructing a shared Canadian identity in the face of multiculturalism and in the wake of its colonial history (as well as for those hoping to sell oddly flavoured <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wildprairiesoap.ca\/poutine-lipbalm.html\">lip balm<\/a>), poutine is \u201cuniquely Canadian.\u201d For Montr\u00e9al chefs like <a href=\"http:\/\/chuckhughes.ca\/\">Chuck Hughes<\/a>, poutine has instead been <a href=\"http:\/\/torontolife.com\/food\/qa-with-chuck-hughes\/\">appropriated<\/a> by the rest of Canada and remains quintessentially Qu\u00e9becois. In other words, poutine\u2019s status as either Canadian or Qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois is political. Its contested status is the result of a variety of stakeholders laying claim to a fabricated essence to serve their own particular interests.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/labanquise.com\/\">La Banquise<\/a>, a well-known poutinerie in Montr\u00e9al, provides a history of the (in)famous dish in both <a href=\"http:\/\/labanquise.com\/poutine-histoire.php\">French<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/labanquise.com\/en\/poutine-history.php\">English<\/a> on its website. Both versions describe poutine as \u2018our national dish.\u2019 But whereas a Qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois reading the description in French will likely interpret the word \u2018nationale\u2019 to refer to Qu\u00e9bec, Canadians reading it in English will likely interpret \u2018national\u2019 to refer instead to Canada. In this case the restaurant is presumably interested in selling poutine, which perhaps explains its willingness to let both Canadians and Qu\u00e9becois have their poutine and eat it too.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Poutine has been described as Canada\u2019s national dish. Given poutine\u2019s origins in rural Qu\u00e9bec, these claims shed light on the tensions at play in the ongoing construction of Canadian identity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":142,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[12,10,11,9],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www-chris.dawsoncollege.qc.ca\/humanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www-chris.dawsoncollege.qc.ca\/humanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www-chris.dawsoncollege.qc.ca\/humanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www-chris.dawsoncollege.qc.ca\/humanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www-chris.dawsoncollege.qc.ca\/humanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=136"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www-chris.dawsoncollege.qc.ca\/humanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":199,"href":"https:\/\/www-chris.dawsoncollege.qc.ca\/humanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136\/revisions\/199"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www-chris.dawsoncollege.qc.ca\/humanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/142"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www-chris.dawsoncollege.qc.ca\/humanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www-chris.dawsoncollege.qc.ca\/humanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www-chris.dawsoncollege.qc.ca\/humanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}