World, Meet Poutine

This Canadian fave could be the biggest new comfort-food trend

- Leila El Shennawy

AT ANY TIME, in almost any eatery north of the border, diners are digging in to plates piled with poutine. Born in Quebec, this artery-clogging comfort food-crispy fries topped with cheddar cheese curds and doused with beef gravy-is finding fans far from home.

The word poutine likely comes from a Quebecois slang word for a "mess"-an admittedly apt description. Poutine superfan Sylvain Charlebois, a food economist and the author of Poutine Nation, confirms that the earliest version of the dish was invented in 1957 in Warwick, a small dairy town in southern Quebec, where cheese curds are sold in bags as a snack. A hungry takeout customer named Eddy Lainesse asked restaurateur Fernand Lachance to put cheese curds and fries together in a brown paper bag because he was in a hurry, to which Lachance replied, “Ça