Whatever you call him, Putin

Over the past 40 years, French-Canadian culture has undergone a complete transformation. It's now almost impossible to imagine what it once looked like. After two or three decades of asserting its identity and generational change, Quebec has been reborn as an entirely new society.

Yet we remain trapped in a culinary culture that predates our birth. While Europe, Asia, and the Mediterranean boast cuisines refined over centuries, we still live within the confines of our past culinary traditions. This is despite French-speaking Quebecers now being discerning gourmets who enjoy novel dishes and live in a city boasting hundreds of world-class restaurants.

When discussing traditional Quebec cuisine, we inevitably lower our voices. Ask a French Canadian what dishes graced their childhood dinner tables, and you'll get predictable answers: shepherd's pie, baked beans, pork sausage, bread pudding, bean soup.

At weddings, anniversaries, funerals, the so-called feast consists of ham sandwiches on ear-shaped, nutritionally worthless white bread. Sweet mustard is slathered between the slices. Then there are the hard-boiled eggs and sausages our ancestors served in smoky taverns. Like the drunken patrons who lingered there, they're pickled in vinegar that's long past its prime.

In short, our daily meals are bland and utterly uninteresting. The only good thing is that you can shove them into your stomach without chewing at all.

So I was stunned to learn that poutine, the most flavorless dish in French-Canadian cuisine, is being savored outside our country. Poutine is fried potatoes topped with tasteless cheese curds and gravy. Its territory has expanded beyond Canada's borders, invading North America, Europe, and even reaching Japan. Defending it as expanding culinary diversity is futile. It merely glosses over our past embarrassments. This mass of self-loathing and bodily incompatibility, stripped of its ingredients' original form, mercilessly assaults your arteries. The only thing guaranteed is thirty days of indigestion after eating it.

Yet, secretly, this contrarian delights in seeing the worst dish in French-Canadian culinary history riding the wave of globalization. If the world loves our past so much, I welcome it with open arms.

(Supervised by: Dentsu Inc. Aegis Network Business Bureau)