There used to be a restaurant in Montreal called Vladimir Poutine.
Google tells me they are no longer in business. If they were still in business, I bet they could capitalize on the hatred for Putin, by say letting patrons punch an effigy of him or something like that.
A French friend told me that the La Poutine restaurant in Paris was getting lots of threatening phone calls from people. I looked up the what Poutine means and learned that it was a Quebecois dish consisting of fries, gravy and cheese curds…like the sort of dinner that would go down well after a drunken night out in Glasgow.
Serving that up in Paris is a bold move. Some of the calls might have been from snobby customers complaining that this dish is an affront to Parisian cuisine.
You’re not far off. Substitute “Montreal” and you’re there.
How many caesars does it take to wash down a plate of poutine?
Another part of Canadian cuisine which is a mystery to me.
More drinks need clam juice…
Best substitute Salade Olivier or something.
This topic reminds me of something strange I read about many years ago, during the period of time in which we still had telephone books, and had become nationally aware of the El Niño phenomenon affecting the weather:
There was a guy in California named “Al Niño” who kept getting calls, phony and otherwise, when the Californian soil had become saturated with rain, while the news media had become saturated with stories about El Niño. He was asking people to stop.
I’d prefer the original “Poutine,” but this’ll do.
And it does it so very, very well… It’s likely just as well that this dish is not widely available in the US. I’ve made a point of treating myself to it on each of my two trips to Quebec.
Then your gut shouts “SHUT UP, YOU! I’M ENJOYING THIS!”.
The controversy isn’t just in Quebec; I first heard of it because of a French restaurant chain (I see I’ve been ninjaed on this by filmstar-en):
No matter how many times I hear “Putin” pronounced correctly, I still somehow feel compelled to say it as if it sounded like the snack food. I guess I just feel bad about the idea that his name would sound like a slang term for breaking wind. But I also hope it annoys him just a tiny bit.
Supposedly back during the Al Queda era people were boycotting a business owned and named after the owner who’s name was Osamu. I joked that they should also boycott Astro Boy and Kimba the White Lion created by Osamu Tezuka.