Résumés
Abstract
Taking everyone by surprise, poutine—an unpretentious Quebecois dish originally made of fries, cheese curds and brown gravy—found its way onto the Canadian State Dinner menu organized by the White House in March 2016. Drawing on my personal relationship with poutine, this paper intends to expose how poutine has managed to enact a form of social mobility. The tasting experience of poutine is first deconstructed through its taste ‘on the tongue’ and its taste as a dynamic social process, to investigate poutine’s palatability and mainstream appeal. Through this tasting analysis, poutine emerges as a new(er) and distinct way to consume food that is increasingly adopted and adapted. A working definition of poutine as a new dish classification label in its own right (just like sandwiches, dumplings, soups, flatbreads or sushi) is proposed. The social mobility of other foods (e.g. lobster, kimchi, garlic, and sushi) is further explored, before discussing how poutine is also connected to a stigma, which weakens the agency of the Quebecois. Using the social identity theory, it appears that Quebecois youth are dismissing this ‘poutine stigma’ through a revaluing approach, which resembles a reappropriation of poutine, not necessarily linguistically (as seen with ‘black’, ‘queer’, or ‘geek’), but rather in a culinary fashion. Coupling poutine’s sociohistorical stigma and its growing Canadization (that is, the presentation, not the consumption per say, of poutine as a Canadian dish), two related situations—the ongoing process of poutine culinary appropriation and the threat of Quebecois cultural absorption by Canadians—are exposed.
Résumé
Prenant plusieurs au dépourvu, la poutine—un plat québécois d’origine populaire typiquement composé de frites, de fromage en grains et de sauce brune— fut servie à la Maison-Blanche en mars 2016 à l’occasion d’un dîner d’État. Avec pour toile de fond la relation que j’entretiens avec la poutine, la présente étude s’attarde à la manière dont ce plat sans prétention a réussi un véritable tour de force en termes de mobilité sociale. L’expérience gustative de la poutine est d’abord déconstruite à travers une analyse de sa dynamique « en bouche », puis par une attention portée au goût en tant que dynamique sociale, ce qui permet d’éclaircir la palatabilité et la notoriété de ce mets. À la lumière de ces questionnements, la poutine apparaît comme une manière spécifique d’apprêter et de consommer les aliments, de plus en plus adoptée et adaptée. Je propose donc d’envisager une définition de la poutine comme nouvelle catégorie culinaire, c’est-à-dire moyen de distinguer un plat comme prototype ayant ses dérivés (tout comme le sont les sandwichs, les raviolis, les soupes, les galettes ou les sushis). Par la suite, la mobilité sociale d’autres aliments (comme le homard, le kimchi, l’ail et le sushi) est étudiée afin de recontextualiser la poutine comme outil historique de stigmatisation du peuple québécois. La théorie de l’identité sociale est ensuite introduite afin de révéler comment la jeunesse québécoise s’est réapproprié la poutine d’une manière positive et affirmative, opérant ainsi un « revirement de l’injure » (comme cela s’est vu avec les termes « black », « queer », ou « geek ») au niveau de son identité culinaire. Finalement, en juxtaposant le contexte sociohistorique de stigmatisation associé à la poutine et sa « canadianisation » grandissante (ce qui n’est en rien lié à sa consommation, mais à la présentation du mets en tant que « plat canadien »), les processus d’appropriation culinaire et de menace d’absorption de la culture québécoise au profit de celle canadienne sont exposés.
Parties annexes
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