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Comment by philistine | Hacker News Reader

I don’t feel like anybody is asking for any shop to stop serving anything.

The paper is highlighting the dual identity of being Québecois: whenever Canada celebrates anything Québécois it’s Canadian, but when it’s a bad thing then that’s not Canadian.

I remember the terrible jokes at the expense of poutine when I was a kid. How it was a horrible Québec thing. Now the jokes have stopped because poutine is deemed wonderful, but poutine is no longer Québecois, it’s now Canadian.

That’s cultural appropriation, and the reasonable thing to do is to express its existence, internalize the meaning of this act, and move on. No one should stop serving poutine.

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> The paper is highlighting the dual identity of being Québecois: whenever Canada celebrates anything Québécois it’s Canadian, but when it’s a bad thing then that’s not Canadian.

You've hit the nail on the head with this statement. I don't mind that poutine (or any other very Québecois dish) is available in other parts of Canada or the world - heck, I find that amazing! What I do mind is exactly what you've described: when Québec does something good it's Canadian, when it's something bad it's Québecois.

You mean, like when I was a kid and I did something bad and was suddenly described as “your kid”, but when I did something good and was suddenly described as “my kid”?

Yeah, I don’t think that has ever changed.

Thanks for the perspective. Maybe it's an age or exposure thing but I never knew of poutine to ever be a bad thing or a joke.

I, too, must have grown up after the poutine enlightenment. It’s been a delicious comfort food for as long as I can remember!

But mayo on fries? What the hell is that?! :D

Edit: although, back to the idea of cultural appropriation... we have poutine in Saskatchewan, and it’s fantastic, but it’s definitely not Québécois poutine. I spent a week in Montreal this summer and the poutine there is on a whole other level of amazingness.

It's a dish of 3 ingredients, but you really need to get those 3 ingredients perfect. You need very fresh cheese curds, the right gravy (it's a mix of beef and chicken stock as a base) the right size and cut of fries to stay structurally intact when flooded with the gravy.

Poutine is not some elaborate French pastry that has specific a specific recipe that must be followed to the letter. It's the culinary equivalent of the broad side of a barn. It's pretty hard to miss.

Poutine made with slightly over cooked (makes them less prone to breaking apart) frozen fries,shredded Mexican cheese blend and beef gravy all from Walmart is still poutine.

We could debate this ad nauseam; it depends on where you fall on the ingredient/structure matrix for a poutine.

Here's the equivalent matrix for sandwiches:

https://i0.wp.com/flowingdata.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05...

The jokes haven't stopped. You grew up and stopped hanging out with schoolchildren.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekzaRINoe0I

Last time I checked Quebec reaped the benefits of Alberta's oil sands... didn't they?

Are you like a Russian troll trying to sow dissent or something? We're talking about poutine!

Nope. The OP is talking about cultural appropriation as if Quebec and Canada were 2 different places. They’re not.

Seriously?

Yes. I don't understand the surprise.

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