THE OFFP Tests:
Poutine: What Québec does
to French Fries
Not only have way too many Quebécois written in to tell us all about their favourite French Fry Cuisine, Poutine (see the international French Fries page), one of them actually sent us an entire Poutine Kit so that we could make our own Official Poutine, cheese curds and all.
We at the Select Ware Laboratories, Culinary and Food Science Division, eagerly awaited this Canadian Care Package. Due to incompetence on the part of Canadian and American Postal Authorities, it took eight days for the package to get from Quebec to New York City, a distance of around 450 miles (725km). The cheese curds had probably gone bad (they certainly smelled a bit sour).
Our First Experiment became a test of the quality of the cheese curds themselves.
Experiment 1b was simply a repetition of Experiment One 24 hours later, which was used solely to confirm our results (or lack of them). As the same methods and procedures were used and the same (lack of) results were obtained, this experiment is not listed.
Thursday, February 29 (1996). Thor's Day, and the hammer fell.
After preparations, (including a full-clean up of the laboratory followed by the viewing of an episode of Top Cat), we set off to the Select Ware Food Science and Technology Laboratories with camera and lab notebooks in hand to perform Experiment Two. On Friday and Saturday the photographs were developed and the code was written. On Sunday, the photos were scanned and the pages installed.
Eleven and a half years later, the pages were reprogrammed and cleaned up. We still haven't found the missing gravy packet scan.
As promised, we prepared our Poutine as authentically as possible, considering our foreign locale.
Preparation of this concoction will continue (and photographs for further scientific and critical analysis will be provided) using various companies' products as they are received. Reports will be submitted on these pages. Strict scientific methodologies (as best as possible) will be adhered to.
Yours truly, world-reknowned French Fry expert (and the system log can prove the part about being world-reknown) will carry out all preparations and will also be the primary taster. She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed, who, although not the biggest French Fry fan in the world, is Bavarian (and
everyone knows what gastronomic experts Bavarians are), and may assist. Then again, She may abstain. SWMBO must be obeyed no longer. Assistants may or may not participate depending on the primary tester's current living arrrangements.
While we follow scientific methods, we will, through no fault of our own, be in some violation of statistical requirements. Our current sample size is 1, and proper statistical analysis requires a sample size of at least 30 for accuracy. We will achieve our ultimate informational goal only with your help, especially you Québecois (and we should get credit for not calling you Kay-Beckers!). If you can, send us the ingredients for Poutine. You'll be doing us and the entire French Fry-loving world a favour. Maybe.
Other Poutine Links
- The Poutine, She's Delicious from one of our most favourite writers on-line, Cheeseburger Brown. This piece includes many links to additional poutine stories and resources.
- Don't miss Cheeseburger's Trimester Reports and his children's book, Goodbye to Kitty.
- Project Galactic Guide from the City University*.
- Not the best source of information, but it's there.
- LARD - Leftovers At Random Destinations
- SGI employees obviously have too much time on their hands!
Note: the select-ware link is one of our domains which was stolen. Please don't follow it!
- Gilbert Detillieux' Poutine Page
- Gil doesn't say much about Poutine, but he was still one of the early group of people to write about poutine.
- An Ode to the Giant Poutine
- In 2004, Montreal's Maisonneuve held a poutine party: 182kg of potatoes, 40 l of gravy and 22kg of cheese curds.
- Hugo Fortin(Uni. Laval, Canada) wrote a poem about Poutine but it's gone now.
- Actually, it's about the after-effects, and it's in French. We hope he sees this and sends it in.
- Wikipedia, of course.
- There was no Wikipedia in 1996 or even in 2000.
Show me the Cheese Curd test!
Take me straight to the Poutine Test!
