MONTRÉAL (CUP) — It was a nutritionist’s worst nightmare: 40 litres of gravy, 22 kilograms of cheese curds and 300 pounds of potatoes cut up and fried-all assembled to produce the largest poutine ever made.

As part of the CBC’s ongoing Montréal Matters festival, whose theme this year is food, Maisonneuve magazine organized the event.

“There was talk at the office recently about having a poutine party at a lodge and combining it with mud wrestling,” said Poppy Wilkinson, managing editor at Maisonneuve, who was on hand to host the event. “But the mud wrestling part of that idea was scrapped and today we decided we would just allow people to come out and show their love for poutine, something that is very much a part of Québec culture.”

Mike Tarantilis of La Belle Province, the restaurant that hosted the event, said staff at the greasy spoon had been working since eight o’clock in the morning, preparing the record-setting poutine. They began by lining a seven-inch by three-and-a-half-inch sort of trough with aluminum foil and filled it with fries, then added the cheese curds and, finally, ladled the 40 litres of steaming gravy all over.

One of the people on hand to enjoy a little piece of the gooey culture was Daryn Didyk, a sociology student at McGill University. He said that nothing in Vancouver, where he’s from, measures up to Montréal poutine.

“You can get it at McDonald’s, but honestly, that stuff makes me to want to puke,” he said.

-Dave Weatherall

CUP Québec Bureau Chief