Canadian cuisine is barely visible within Canada, much less the United States. However, Canada has one dish that is gaining prominence below the 49th parallel, even if people aren't quite sure what it is.
Poutine is spreading across the United States, and I hit the road to a land known for cheese to see its take on the Quebecois dish.
As I mentioned earlier, Miller Park in Milwaukee had a contest over last winter to add new food items to the ballpark menu. Poutine came in 2nd to a kebab featuring the 5 prominent sausages.
One piece of advice that I unfortunately ignored was looking up online the location of the obscure food item. I started in the 2nd deck, the poutine was in the 1st deck, and my seat was in the 4th deck. Several concession workers had no idea what I was talking about.
Turns out, the Brewers have the poutine in the Pommes Frites area near Section 129, in case you are headed to see the 1st place Brewers. The item isn't listed on the menu under "poutine" but "Montreal." Once I saw "Montreal," I knew I reached my destination.
Wisconsin is known for cheese and cheese curds, so I was looking forward to see the cheese impact of the Miller Park poutine. While Quebec is proud of its cheese curds, Wisconsin celebrates cheese in all forms. So in multiple ways, poutine has a kinship with cheeseheads.
So let's go to the scorecard to see how this Wisconsin version of a Montréal classic looked on the plate (get it, home plate):
On the negative side of the sheet, poutine purists will point to the obvious difference: waffle cut fries certainly aren't traditional. And the cheese was lightly scattered, and tiny in size, making little impact in the dish. And the poutine at the ballpark sets you back $7.
On the plus side, the dish smelled liked poutine when it was placed in front of me. The concessionaires used plenty of gravy. And the poutine did hit the spot.
This was the second ballpark where I have seen poutine. In 2002, I saw three Expos games at Olympic Stadium in Montréal, but I didn't order it then. This was back before I discovered what poutine could do to the palate.
The Expos traveled to Milwaukee from 1998-2004, but poutine wasn't well-known at that time outside Canada.
This version of poutine won't make the Temptation Hall of Fame. It would have scored more with a little bit more cheese and $2 off the final bill. Miller Park's poutine wasn't a home run, more like a bloop single.
picture via me
Oh my. I looks very delicious. I should have my dinner now. Thanks for the post.
Posted by: alexa | May 28, 2012 at 05:58 AM
My favorite. I really love this dish. Yum yummmy
Posted by: Brad | June 13, 2012 at 01:36 AM