Just got back from a trip to Canada where I had some of my favorite junk food - poutine. Chips topped with cheese curds and gravy. It's grown hugely in popularity the last few years and is spreading into the U.S. Knowing the Geordie palate I thought it'd be popular there too. Anybody familiar with it?

Yes Paul, very familiar! I was introduced to it a few years ago in Montreal, I think it was "discovered†in Quebec, most of the fast food outlets (McDonalds etc) now offer it. I'm sure it would go down a treat in the local chippy or at the match! Eh!

Tell us more!

Never heard anything about it !

You have to remember the French & there ancestors will eat anything with sauce on it....

Cheesey chips........few places in Bedders?

Apparently a Quebecker cooked it up in the 1950's as just the job to warm a bloke up and keep him warm in the long Canadian winter. It stayed pretty much a Quebec regional dish until it started to grow in popularity in the 1980's-90's. Once it hit the big cities, like Montreal, it exploded and was soon adopted in English speaking Canada. They now have poutine restaurants in Toronto, Calgary and Vancouver. The Calgary chain recently opened a poutine restaurant in Chicago. Canadian expats - especially celebrities - have popularized it in L.A. and New York so it's an option in some restaurants there. For anybody who goes to Montreal, try La Banquise, one of the most famous poutine restaurants in the country now. It has something like 37 different poutine options from the regular chips, cheese curds and gravy - to barbecue sauce instead of gravy. They also do a pepper sauce and they have extreme options like bacon gravy or smoked meat sauce with bloody big chunks of pastrami.