One might think of a simple case of fried potatoes, grain cheese and brown sauce. A canteen dish, a snack at the end of the evening. However, Putin, this Quebec culinary monument, reveals historical tensions in its country of origin, both political and identity. As often, the simplest things are those that say the most. And in Canada, Putin has something to tell.
A dish that has become political
The electroshoc starts with a dinner. And not just any. The evening of March 10, 2016, Justin Trudeau, then appointed Prime Minister of Canada for four months, was received by the United States President Barack Obama at the White House. On the menu, concocted by the Crista Comerford chef: Alaska’s Poutan served with asparagus, chanterelles, bacon and herbs butter in individual casseroles and … Putin.
Offer fries, of course with smoked duck shavings and a wine sauce, on the White House table, fueled the interest of Nicolas Fabien-Ouellet, at the student-researcher in nutrition and agrifood systems at the University of Vermont, in the United States. This Quebecer used to receive comments on his relationship to Putin from his American colleagues.
The political dinner around a Putin ended up transforming her daily life into a research object, leading to an article, “Putin Dynamics”in which Nicolas Fabien-Ouellet questions the social mobility of the dish. A real media buzz occurs as soon as the study was published in December 2016: the North American media Huffpost Quebec, The New York Times, National Post, Radio-Canada or Vice in turn write on the subject. Thus asking a fundamental question: why is this dish assimilated to Canadian gastronomy?
“To say that Putin is a Canadian dish is like saying that there is no Quebec kitchen, literature or cinema.”
Putin is much more than a simple dish: it is a revealer of the contradictions of Canada, torn between his desire for unity and the recognition of its diversities. It embodies tensions between Quebec culture and Canado-English culture. The same goes with the national anthem of Canada (aptly named O Canada), for example, which was composed in Quebec by eminent Quebecers. Or even ice hockey, beavers, maple syrup, toques, circus of the sun and, of course, Céline Dion.
A cultural appropriation by Canada?
SO, “To say that Putin is a Canadian dish is to say that there is no Quebec kitchen, literature or cinema”summarizes Nicolas Fabien-Ouellet. He continues: “You have to understand how culture is perceived here. In Canada, it is a multiculturalism that makes the emergence of a national culture. In Quebec, it is more interculturalism, in which we want to preserve French -speaking culture, anchoring. ”
In short, Canada is trying to bring together the country’s historical and social diversity under the term of multiculturalism to achieve a national identity. However, “If you were to bring together citizens of British Columbia, Nunavut, Quebec, Ontario and Newfoundland and Labrador and try to find a common cultural link other than multiculturalism, I doubt that you will succeed. Multiculturalism is important for English -speaking Canadians, but not for Quebecers or natives ”Ian Alexander Cuthbertson analysis, independent Canadian researcher and article “Politicizing Putin” (“Politicize poutine”).
This is why Quebec defends interculturalism. In this province of eastern Canada, we consider that all those who live and immigrate to Quebec must support fundamental values such as “Secularism, equal women’s rights and French as a common language”.
“This principle is opposed to the multicultural model of“ mosaic ”, because it stipulates that common characteristics must be maintained. Quebec does not want to be a multicultural society: certain cultural elements are not negotiable ”specifies Ian Alexander Cuthbertson. For example, since its adoption in 2019 and despite legal appeals, a controversial law on secularism has been confirmed by the Quebec Court of Appeal in March 2024. The text affirms that the province is a “Secular state” And prohibited from judges, police, teachers and other civil servants from carrying religious symbols in the exercise of their profession, which is contrary to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
“As Canada has no strong cultural identity, some may want to make food a cultural marker, in order to make a Canadian identity.”
However, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has argued that Canada had no deep identity. “Countries with strong national identity – linguistic, religious or cultural – have trouble integrating people from different backgrounds effectively. In France, there is still a typical citizen and an atypical citizen. Canada does not have this dynamic ”he said to the New York Times in December 2015. His father, Pierre Elliott Trudeau, then Prime Minister too, had made a similar statement in 1971, saying that Canada had no official culture. In a Canadian official document dating from 1978, it is indicated: “Cultural pluralism is the very essence of Canadian identity. Each ethnic group has the right to keep and flourish its own culture and its own values in the Canadian context. ”
This multiculturalist vision leaves Quebecers perplexed, even angry. This tension results in the presence of several independence and sovereignist parties on the territory. On several occasions, they asked for their independence, especially on the sidelines of the 1980 and 1995 referendums on Quebec’s sovereignty. Each time, the “no” won. Since then, a symbolic motion has been filed in November 2006 by the House of Commons (the lower chamber of the Canadian Parliament), which designates the Quebec province as a nation.
“The (local) policy is complex”admits Ian Alexander Cuthbertson, who recalls that contemporary Canada was built on several waves of immigration and colonizations by the French and the British. “I agree that Canada has no strong cultural identityhe nuances. This is perhaps the reason why some want to make food a cultural marker. To make a Canadian identity. “
An origin disputed in the heart of Quebec
Beyond a national problem, Putin creates tensions within Quebec. To display your heritage, you have to know its origin. But there is a major problem on this subject: it is impossible to answer the question “Where does Putin come from?”.
Two localities in Center-du-Québec, located between the cities of Montreal and Quebec, compete for the fatherhood of this emblem: Warwick and Drummondville. A bell tower quarrel or a fight for collective memory, for Quebec identity? Each one claims in any case the creation of the dish, as if to better anchor in the history of this dishes that has become emblematic.
“Putin comes from Warwick, you have to stop asking the question …”
In Drummondville (around 80,000 inhabitants), it was chef Jean-Paul Roy who would have invented Putin, selling it in 1964 in his restaurant Le Roy Juce. He even had the trade mark “the inventor of the Putin” approved. As proof, an official registration certificate of this name, granted in November 1998 by the Office of Intellectual Property of Canada, is displayed in the restaurant.
Do you know where Putin was invented? To start the weekend of the National Day and Saint-Jean, we went to the Roy Juce in Drummondville, who claims to be the inventor of Putin. Really? It depends on the person to whom we ask the question. pic.twitter.com/z9olzfxzbp
– Justin Trudeau (@justintrudeau) June 24, 2018
In Warwick, about fifty kilometers to the east and where less than 5,000 souls live, plates are installed. For the locals, the Putin would have been born at the ideal cafe and was made by Chef Fernand Lachance in 1957. To mark the memory of the place, today replaced by a beauty institute, a plaque was installed in December 2023, accompanied by another world record of the largest Putin, made in August 2019.
The ‘Inventor’ of #poutine Still Eats It Every Day at 84 years old! Now that’s a life goal! ⚜️💙🇨🇦 #quebec #Warwick #Canadahttps://t.co/vzhzciymvy pic.twitter.com/0ole1hlnqj
– Blue Caribou (@bcsnackbar) November 13, 2018
“Putin comes from Warwick, you have to stop asking the questionimmediately ships Valérie Deschamps, Quebec storyteller and historian. The only question we need to ask is: when we are going to make us believe that a woman did not have her role to play in the 1950s? We still talk about food … “ In his podcast Teammadame – Le BroadoValérie Deschamps fights to narrate the story from the point of view of women in Quebec, since “Even the defeated have a story except women”.
Then she is indignant when she discovers an article from the French-speaking daily newspaper Le Nouvelliste, published on July 21, 2001 (visible above), in which Fernand Lachance says she has designed the famous Putin with the help of his wife, Germaine Letter. “We present it as” the woman of “regrets Valérie Deschamps. She is absent from books, stories. As I always say: in front of every great woman, there is always a man who shades him. ” Thus, the storyteller and historian has just devoted an episode of her podcast to “The contribution to the Putin of Germaine Lettre Lachance”.
An increase in popularity and a new symbol of pride
Definitely, the poutine crystallizes tensions. Nicolas Fabien-Ouellet sees the opportunity to question how we define a national dish, in another article published in January 2019, “The Canadian Cuisine Fallacy” (“The illusion of Canadian cuisine”). According to him, we can present a dish as national if it is present in revenue books, in school canteens and if it is part of the daily lives of citizens.
Poutine ticks all these boxes … in Quebec. Even if “Yes, Putin is consumed a little outside the borders of the beautiful provincerecognizes Nicolas Fabien-Ouellet. As tacos are consumed outside Mexico. But the preponderance is really exclusively Quebecois, if only in history. ”
Historically, however, Quebecers had not made this dish a standard of their cultural identity. While poutine was considered junk food, even as a precarious meal, the oldest can be blushing in the face of the social displacement that this portion of fries-boom-sauce crosses, as Nicolas Fabien-Ouellet points out in his article “Putin Dynamics”.
Since the early 2000s, Putin has experienced a dazzling social ascent. She is now inviting herself in chic restaurants and is exported abroad. An astonishing course, like that of lobster or sushi, passed from the status of foods of poor to that of prized dishes. In fact, Quebec youth has reclaimed Putin as a symbol of local pride.
This long -mocked dish is now claimed as a cultural emblem of Quebec. According to Nicolas Fabien-Ouellet, young people use Putin to reaffirm their identity, to counter stigmatization and cultural assimilation. This phenomenon extends far beyond youth. Festivals putting the Putin in the spotlight are multiplying in Quebec, proof of a found identity found.
