The story
Poutine appeared in the dairy country of Centre-du-Québec, where fresh cheese curds were sold at roadside snack bars. The most repeated story says that in 1957, at a restaurant in Warwick, regular customer Eddy Lainesse asked owner Fernand Lachance to toss curds on his fries, and Lachance warned it would make a damned mess, une maudite poutine. Gravy came later to keep it warm. In Drummondville, Jean-Paul Roy of Le Roy Jucep says he was first to sell the full trio of fries, curds and gravy as poutine, in 1964. From these counters it spread across Quebec and then Canada.
Rival claims
Warwick (Fernand Lachance, Le Lutin qui rit, 1957), Drummondville (Jean-Paul Roy, Le Roy Jucep, sold from 1958 and on the menu as poutine in 1964) and Princeville (La Petite Vache) all claim it, and there is no consensus. The pin, at Victoriaville, sits about 12 km from Warwick and 14 km from Princeville but about 40 km from Drummondville, which is a sensible centre for the region.
Also known as Quebec poutine, poutine québécoise.
On the Meridish menu
Poutine was the street food course on menu No. 3 on October 3, 2026. Its clue in the game, which hints at the place without naming it:
Fries and squeaky cheese curds drowned in gravy. Snack bars in several towns of this rural region claim they invented it, in the late 1950s or early 1960s.
In Meridish, every dish is pinned to the town or city most widely credited with creating it. A guess within 25 km scores all 100 points. How scoring works.
Sources
- theglobeandmail.com/news/national/the-sticky-mess-of-the-origins-of-poutine/article1205547
- thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/article/history-of-poutine
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poutine
Food history is often disputed. Think we've pinned it in the wrong place? Tell us at hello@meridish.com, ideally with a source.
