Talk:Poutine/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Gog the Mild (talk · contribs) 21:09, 1 June 2019 (UTC)

• The last sentence of "Variations" is uncited. Gog the Mild (talk) 21:09, 1 June 2019 (UTC)
  • That paragraph and its last sentence Fast-food combination meals in Canada often have the options to have french fries "poutinized" by adding cheese curds (or shredded cheese in the Prairies and Western Canada) and gravy, or substituting a poutine for a fries side was there before I started the expansion. I'm not sure it's especially notable but didn't want to delete it unilaterally. The original citations in the paragraph were to restaurant websites. I added secondary sources (e.g.: food critics comparing fast-food chain poutines). But I think the restaurant websites are good enough to demonstrate the option of "poutinizing". Should I move the citations down? Would this be considered 'unlikely to be challenged'? Or maybe that sentence should be removed? I think the ubiquitousness of the dish is demonstrated without going into the trivia of menu options.

Point taken. It is GAN. I can live with it.

 Done

• "even used by some to stigmatize Quebec society" Just checking that you wouldn't prefer 'culture' to "society"?
  • I'd prefer 'society'. It's the same phenomenon as how lobster was bycatch eaten by the very poor (particularly fed to slaves), or how kimchi was the 'rotten' condiment linked to poverty and embarrassment, or how garlic was used to disparage Italian immigrants in the United States. It's attacking the people themselves, not just their culture.

 Done

• "it is often identified as quintessential Canadian food" It may be my BritEnglish, but maybe 'identified as a quintessential Canadian food'?
  • Fixed. That probably got messed up when the link was piped Canadian cuisine → Canadian food.

 Done

• "Quebec society"; "Québécois culture". Possibly inconsistent?
  • That is a little tricky, and maybe a touchy subject. The Québécois are recognized as a distinct nationality within Canada who have historically suffered various oppressions by Anglophones. I hope it isn't too confusing to the reader, but I feel the different terms are needed and hope that linking them is good enough; attempting to define the differences would be complex and outside the scope of the article.

    It may be a little confusing to a casual reader, but you are using the terms precisely, so fine. Link "Québécois" to Québécois people. And in the lead.

    I linked to Québécois people in §Variations. It is also linked in the first paragraph of the lead and the first paragraph of §Social mobility

 Done

• "Several restaurants in the area claim to be the inventor of the dish" Optional: 'the originators of the dish'.
  • Sorry for dithering on this. Quite right; a restaurant itself can't invent something. I didn't want to repeat "originator/ed" from the previous sentence. Instead, I swapped the first originated with created as: The dish was created in the Centre-du-Québec area in the late 1950s. Several restaurants in the area claim to be the originators of the dish
• "The dish "poutine" appears on the establishment's 1957 menu"; "in 1964 as "fromage-patate-sauce". Felt to be too long a name, this was later changed to poutine for a cook nicknamed "Ti-Pout" ". I appreciate that this will be what the sources say, but having "Poutine" on a memory at least seven years before the name originated is likely to confuse a reader. Possibly an editorial comment on this? (Given what is said under "Etymology" I am very doubtful about the cook's role.)
  • Ummm... the above quoted sections are about two different restaurants which each claim to have originated the dish.
  • I've no problem with adding an editorial note. For the cook Ti-Pout, Le Roy Jucep is a curbside drive-in diner which takes up most of a block. Customers park, and servers hurry back and forth taking and delivering orders. The story goes that servers made up a rhyme "Ti-Pout makes the pudding" (translated). When later polled about the name to be put on the menu for the popular item, the staff suggested poutine for Ti-Pout. My impression is that this was an inside joke for the staff rather than necessarily honouring the cook as the inventor.
  • I liked having a bit there about the different claims, and I have no reason not to believe that the dish was developed independently. It actually seems to be a customer-invented dish, which gives it a certain charm, as a dish which just emerged from the zeitgeist without really being invented by anyone in particular.

    I added an endnote for their claim to the name poutine at Le Roy Jucep.

Very good. And a nice use of footnotes.

 Done

• "Customers would mix cheese curds with their fries, which was added to the menu." Grammatically this doesn't quite work for me.

• • How about: Customers would mix cheese curds with their fries, a combination which was added to the menu. One option with gravy was called the "Mixte".

Works for me. (I am now feeling hungry.)

now updated in article.

 Done

• "a country snack food in Quebec's dairy region due to the narrow freshness window" Optional: comma after region.
  • A bit was added to that sentence and it does look too long/complex. For the full sentence For decades it remained a country snack food in Quebec's dairy region[,] due to the narrow freshness window of one or two days for cheddar cheese curds. What would you think about removing "one or two days for"? This is explained in more detail in §Recipe, and I don't feel it needs to be stated here.

Agreed. (And I should have realised that.)

 Done

• "Poutine arrived at the Ashton Snack Bar food truck in Quebec City in 1969." I must be missing something; what is special about this snack bar that it is singled out for mention?
  • The editor who added that didn't explain, but Chez Ashton is a Quebec-city based burger chain, and would seem to be the first chain to carry poutine. Maybe I should add a little to explain that it's more than a food truck, and remove the Burger King mention? I'd also like to remove the McDonalds and Harvey's mentions in that paragraph. (Burger King was the first big chain to experiment with poutine in Montreal–Sherbrooke outlets; other major chains joining a decade later were just following the trend; it also broke-up the original statement in a way which might be misleading.)

    That all makes sense to me. Dump the late comers, give Burger King a brief mention and expand the bit on Chez Ashton. Link Chez Ashton.

     Done

• "In the early 1970s, La Banquise began serving poutine in Montreal" Is this the first record of poutine being sold in Monreal? If so, could that be mentioned; if not, why is it notable?
  • My source says La Banquise was one of the places that gave poutine its start in Montreal, but doesn't definitively say it was the first. It was likely the first successful Montreal restaurant to serve poutine, as it's still in business 45+ years later, and did much to develop and popularize the dish (mentioned later in §Variations). Montreal is important to the story of poutine, as that's where it was developed and legitimized. Also, being a world-class city, Montreal is in a better position to spread the dish to the rest of the world.
• "spread across Canada and internationally" Optional: A mention of a couple of the non-Canadian outlets and/or countries serving poutine would be nice.
  • It's later mentioned that it's been served in London, Paris, Washington DC, Chicago. It's also served in Thailand. Do you list world class cities, cities known for cuisine, distant or unexpected places? I would find it very difficult to determine reasonable criteria and then defend them when editors inevitably try to list more and more.

Umm. OK.

 Done

• "some attribute it to the English word pudding"; "and a slang word for "pudding" " Confusing duplication. Possibly concentrate everything on the origin(s) of the name under "Etymology"?
  • There is some duplication and I struggled a bit with the layout in the early article, trying to order information so as to provide enough definition to understand what follows. My feeling is that the claims for 'inventing' poutine include both the basic recipe and the name. But a full treatment of the name needed its own section. I could put §Etymology first, but I felt it was important to know what poutine was before discussing its name. (BTW: I originally had Etymology as a L2 section; another editor changed it to a L3 section within §History.) I think that was my own effort at summary style, that §Origins answers enough of the what/where/when to give context to what follows. – Reidgreg (talk) 00:33, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

It looks ok, but I need to give the whole thing another read through: tonight or tomorrow.

More to follow.

Gog the Mild (talk) 17:26, 2 June 2019 (UTC)

• "In the basic recipe for poutine, french fries are covered with fresh cheese curds, and topped with brown gravy.[20] In a traditional Quebec poutine" Is "the basic recipe for poutine" the same as what is "In a traditional Quebec poutine"? If so, could this be made clearer? If not, ditto.
  • Would "authentic" be better? Or maybe "as served in the Centre-du-Québec region"? That's what I was trying to convey: the traditional/authentic/original/unadulterated Centre-du-Québec Québécois version.

    OK. But even reading the recipe again, I fail to see how the first sentence is not a summary of it. If you are trying to draw a distinction between "the basic recipe for poutine" and "a traditional Quebec poutine" I think that you have over-complicated it. I think that you need to rework it somehow, or just lose the first sentence.

    Removed.

 Done

• "Freshness and juiciness of the curds is essential, as air and moisture seep out of the curds over time" The "as" part doesn't explain the essentiality of the first part, just the mechanism. Could the wording be tweaked?
  • Freshness and juiciness of the curds is essential, as air and moisture seep out of the curds over time. This alters their acidity level and causes proteins to lose their elasticity, and the curds to lose their complex texture and squeakiness. How about: Freshness and juiciness of the curds is essential. Air and moisture seep out of the curds over time, which alters their acidity level and causes proteins to lose their elasticity, causing the curds to lose their complex texture and characteristic squeaky sound when chewed.
• "squeakiness" Qu'est-ce que c'est?
  • The "squeakiness" is literally that: fresh cheese curds make a squeaking sound as they are chewed. (Cheese curd is also known as squeaky cheese.) The fresher they are, the louder the squeak. Something to do with their elasticity and the tiny air bubbles. One source compares it to rubbing balloons together. Another states that really fresh poutine is loud enough that he has to turn up his car radio while driving (though I hate to think of someone driving while eating something as hot and messy as poutine).

    I've added another footnote for the "squeakiness".

• "with a hint of pepper, or a sauce brune" Should the comma be a semi-colon?
  • Good catch, fixed.

 Done

• Link Maritime.
  • Another good catch. Done.

 Done

• "Many places also offer vegetarian gravy" Optional: "places" -> 'stores'
  • How about "stores and restaurants" or "groceries and restaurants"?

    Fine. (The first sounds better to my Brit ear, but your choice.)

    Good, done

• "A thin gravy allows all the fries to be coated" Optional: "A" -> 'The'.
  • Done.

 Done

• "the fries so that they maintain their heat." Optional: "maintain" -> 'retain'.
  • Great, done!

 Done

• Details of the curds seems to be split, and partially duplicated, under "Recipes" second bullet point and in the final paragraph of the section.
  • I was uncertain about where to split that information, which seemed to go into too much detail for the bullet point (unless maybe I shoved it to the right as a second bullet indent). Would it be any better to move from "Freshness and juiciness of the curds..." down to begin the paragraph "The curds should be less than a day old"?
  • Would it be any better to change "amount used" to "proportion used"?

Fine now.

"amount used": your choice. "amount used" reads fine to me.

 Done

• "dynamic contrasts" What is this? I have no idea what dynamic contrasts are in the context of food. I suspect that many other readers wouldn't. Could you give a few words of explanation what the "dynamic" element is?
  • I guess that's another missing article. From Poutine Dynamics: The dynamic aspects of poutine are found in every bite. Robert J. Hyde and Steven A. Witherly suggest that “the most highly palatable foods are likely to have higher levels of dynamic contrast (moment-to-moment sensory contrast from the ever-changing properties of foods manipulated in the mouth).” The sensory contrast they refer to relies heavily on texture, but temperature, viscosity and irritation (from spices, acids, or carbonation) are also cited factors. Think of how unappealing a warm and soggy bowl of cereal is—that is, they argue, mainly because of its low dynamic contrast. In their article, ice cream, cold carbonated beverages and melted cheese on pizza are used to detail the type of foods that have a high level of dynamic contrast. So it's how the crisp-hot fries contrast with their fluffy interior and with the chewy-warm-squeaky curds. Dynamic is how these contrasts change during chewing and other oral manipulation, while the flavours merge and evolve as the fries and curds combine with the gravy.
  • How about: The texture, temperature and viscosity of poutine's ingredients differ and continuously change as the food is consumed, making it a dish of high dynamic contrasts. (Does the sentence itself explain the term?)

    It does. Excellent. (But I think that it should be either 'highly dynamic contrasts' or 'high and dynamic contrasts', but I am not going to push it.)

    Okay. I used the former. (Note: "dynamic contrasts" is used again three paragraphs further down.)

 Done

• "Strengthening these contrasts" Similar to above.

 Done

• "a distinctly different experience eating the poutine". Perhaps 'a distinctly different experience while eating the poutine'.
  • I earlier had experience of eating the poutine, and it's used two paragraphs up. I put the of back in.

    "experience of eating poutine/the poutine" in two places. Anything else?

 Done

• "Some eliminate the cheese" Some whats? Chefs?
  • Some recipes, I guess. Weird. Fixed.

 Done

• "mozzarella cheese may be an unavoidable alternative" Perhaps "unavoidable" -> 'acceptable'?
  • I dithered on that word for a while. The thing is, acceptable to whom? It certainly wouldn't be acceptable in Centre-du-Québec. People in certain regions who've never had poutine with fresh curds won't know the difference, so it seems acceptable out of ignorance or expediency. It mentions Saskatchewan, but the source for that indicates that the better restaurants there use curds, not mozzarella. So to me it seems more like good poutine vs. cheap fast food, rather than a true regional variation. One source, a national newspaper, called mozzarella versions "imposters" of the dish.

Acceptable in context. Ie to those paying for it. As opposed to saying "Skip the curds" or buying a pizza. Every fast food outlet does things which a chef would shudder at; they still sell the result. Ie it is acceptable to a person deciding whether to pay good money for it. And, IMO, it is clearly not "unavoidable" - they could avoid it by not offering the product - as the sentence seems to acknowledge by using the word "may".

Okay. Since it's already qualified with may, I see your point. Changed → acceptable.

• "Galvaude" and "Dulton". Just a query, the upper case letters look odd.
  • Agreed. It should either be non-italic capitalized as a proper noun or italic non-capitalized as a foreign word. The source used the former, and I don't see them throwing extra capitals around, so I'm inclined to do the same (they may be named after a place or person).

 Done

• "Variations" has too many short paragraphs.
  • I moved the nutrition sentence (would have liked to have more but there are too many variables) up to the mozzarella paragraph since it's talking about substituting a basic ingredient (potatoes). The other short paragraph is about gourmet poutines; I don't see an easy one to combine it with.

    It needs running in with the previous paragraph. And "This is a pre-2000 trend" reads to me as if you mean it had ended by 2000. If that is what you mean, fine. If you mean it started before 2000 and still continues the something like 'This trend originated pre-2000 and is credited ...'

    You're right, they're still doing it. Fixed the pre-2000, and added a little to the gourmet part.

For me "Poutineries ..." and "Gourmet poutine ..." still need running together, but it's not a GAN matter, so:

 Done

More to follow.

Gog the Mild (talk) 10:18, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

• I am not convinced that Cheeseburger is a reasonable addition to See also.
  • When did that get added?!! Removed.

 Done

• In politics: The Bush anecdote seems tangential to me, although arguably acceptable. However, it seems long; what would you feel about trimming it a little.
  • Talking to Americans was perhaps the most popular segment on a very popular national television programme at the time. It was one of those "water cooler moments" that got a lot of people talking about poutine in the context of Canadian identity. Unfortunately, I don't have any sources that get into the cultural impact of this as it relates to the popularity and acceptance of poutine, but will remain on the lookout.

OK.

"and Bush pledged to "work closely" with Mr. Poutine" The actual candidate Bush said this?

Google "bush talking to americans" (links would be copyvio). Not an exact quote, but yes. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 12:53, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

Thanks. I took "asked several people" to mean several people in a street in a Canadian city. If in fact the "several people" were more notable, could this be briefly flagged up?

I believe Talking to Americans was always taped in the United States. (Americans visiting Canada might be more knowledgable about Canada, so the gag wouldn't work as well.) This was some time before The Daily Show became popular and politicians weren't yet on guard for roving satirists. I found a source with the full quote and added it with the |quote= parameter. I can't really blame Bush for this. He's there before his own national press, fighting for an election, and some fresh-faced kid from the CBC tells him that the Canadian Prime Minister said "Bush looked like the man who should lead the free world into the twenty-first century" and asked for his response. I mean, that kind of endorsement, of course he's going to milk it. Bush's response: "I appreciate his strong statement [...] He understands I believe in free trade. He understands I want to make sure our relations with our most important neighbor to the north of us is strong. And we’ll work closely together." And hey, he knew that Canada was north of the United States. – Reidgreg (talk) 11:23, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

That judgement reminds me of Bush on Trump: "Hey! I don't look so bad now, do I?"

The issue could be resolved by replacing "several people" with 'several politicians' or 'several prominent people' or some such.

I don't have a source which identifies the earlier interviewees, so "several people" is the best I can do. Well, could say "several Americans" if that isn't repetitive.

• In politics: The role of poutine the foodstuff in the voter suppression article seems non-existent to me. Would your care to demonstrate a connection?
  • Nope. I improved the references on that but agree that there really isn't anything there that's notable for this article. It's a weird story. I've moved it to the talk page in case something ever does come of it.

 Done

– Reidgreg (talk) 00:33, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

That's it from me for now. I'll let you come back to me on these and then have another look through.Gog the Mild (talk) 17:01, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

@Gog the Mild: Thanks! I made some small changes in line with your recommendations, and mixed in some comments above. – Reidgreg (talk) 00:33, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

I'm getting an error with the last reference in the new Notes section. (I tried commenting it out and then the next reference up gave the same error.) Not sure what I did wrong but will try to sort it out. – Reidgreg (talk) 11:23, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

Fixed. – Reidgreg (talk) 12:05, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

Looking good. A handful of outstanding points above in blue. If marked as "Optional", they are; but if you could acknowledge them, at least I know that you have noticed them. Plus:

Link Charles Michel and Justin Trudeau.

Who is this Justin Trudeau person? Anyone of note?

Gog the Mild (talk) 19:16, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

Ah, I overlooked that. For a PM, he's been a bit of a rock star. Well, a Canadian rock star. Linked. I added "counterpart" to the Belgian PM to clarify.

This now reads, IMO, very well. You have done a good job of getting it in shape. Some further thoughts:

• "may be unable to sell enough curds for a bulk rate to justify the expense of daily deliveries." I know what you mean, but does it not read better if you remove "for a bulk rate"?

  It made sense as I was writing it, but I suppose readers don't need that spelled out, especially when two sentences down it talks about 100 kg orders at busy poutineries. Removed.

• "continuously in batches every few hours". Optional: remove "continuously".
• "New variations are continually introduced." Another pedantic point. Optional: "continually" → 'frequently'?

  Agreed, fixed.

• Québécois in the sense of Quebec French is over linked.

  Removed overlinking; (linked once in lead [pronunciation] and §Etymology)

• " Montreal's Le Gras Dur served a "pot poutine" with a gravy that included hemp protein, hemp seeds and hemp oil, served with ..." Optional: "served" twice in a few words. Perhaps replace the first with 'offered'?

  I suppose "plated with" is too formal? I changed the second "served" to "offered". The source uses offered first then served, hopefully this isn't too close but there's only so many ways to state it.

• "poutine has long been Quebec's adored junk food before spreading across" Should "has" be 'had'?

  Hmmm. It is still "adored junk food" but you're right, the structure of the sentence is speaking of that in the past. Changed to "had".

• "made inroads into proper culinary circles" Is there a more precise, and less judgemental, word than "proper"?

  Point taken. Higher also sounds bad that way, though that's the literal translation of haute cuisine. Established, elite, high-class, high-quality... Established or formal seem the most neutral. Maybe in the vein of critical? A little wordy but I tried "with food critics and established culinary circles".

• "Poutine served as a comfort food for the local community" Very optional: "served", while entirely correct, in this context can confuse (I struggle not to read it as a badly expressed ' was served as'.

  Changed: served as &rarr: was.

• "to disidentify with the dish". In Brit English that would be 'from', not "with".

  Good catch. Fixed.

• "as a Canadian dish instead of Québécois dish" 'of a Québécois dish'?

  Yipes! Fixed.

• again optional, but I found many of the sentences in Cultural aspects to look as if randomly allocated to paragraphs. Eg, perhaps group all of those relating to competitions together? Etc.

  It had been arranged by topic (eg: all the festivals in one paragraph, the national polls in one paragraph) then was reordered chronologically. You can see the previous layout in this revision. That's an interesting idea to group the food-eating competition and the Iron Chef competition together; they're very different, but they are competitions. I'll try reorganizing the section later today (for a trial). – Reidgreg (talk) 11:24, 6 June 2019 (UTC)

  Okay, I've posted a preliminary reorganization on the talk page at Talk:Poutine#Reorganization of §Cultural aspects. I noticed that Justin Trudeau is mentioned there and linked his article, so we can unlink the second mention. Let me know what you think. – Reidgreg (talk) 13:15, 6 June 2019 (UTC)

Gog the Mild (talk) 22:21, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

OK. All good bar the Bush anecdote. The New Yorker article you cite only mentions Bush being asked the question. This CBC article goes into a bit of detail, and mentions Michigan state governor John Engler being asked as well. It seems to me that there is sufficient RS to support "asked several people" → 'asked several US politicians, including then presidential candidate George W Bush ...'. This would make the scenario clearer for readers arriving at the article uninformed as to any background. What do you think? Gog the Mild (talk) 21:04, 6 June 2019 (UTC)

Okay, I added the source and changed: asked several people → asked US politicians. I'm not comfortable with "several" when we've only identified two.

We haven't really talked about the lead. It was the subject of multiple RfCs because of the controversial cultural appropriation business, and so I pretty much left it alone. It's been copyedited and the inline lists shortened slightly (just giving a few major festivals covering Quebec, Ontario and the US; and two examples of dish classifications). It's a little shorter than I normally see but it seems to adequately cover the major points of the article and is nicely focused. – Reidgreg (talk) 14:18, 7 June 2019 (UTC)

I've been kind of watching this review for when the lead might come up, as I was one of the key participants in those RfCs (which were really one long drawn-out RfC with many subheadings). It's a long read, but the whole thing really boiled down to whether or not it was necessary to specify in prose that Quebec is a Canadian province, and whether or not Quebec being a Canadian province meant that poutine should be described as Canadian rather than Quebecois. The first part was interesting, but the second part was really a culturally insensitive ideological argument, and IMO that's what led to it being such a long process. It's interesting that the ultimate consensus was to use "proposal 1", but over time the lead has migrated so that it now more closely resembles "proposal 4", without any significant objection. Anyway, I think the current lead reflects the spirit of those discussions. Unless there's something that's standing in the way of a GA, it's probably fine. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 15:31, 7 June 2019 (UTC)

From my point of view, everything is covered, GANwise, and the nominator has, IMO, done an excellent job of knocking this article into shape. Re the lead, it is arguably a little brief, but it meets the GA criteria. Given its history, I have no intention of poking at it. I will be promoting. I hope that someone is thinking about FA; assuming they are, when it gets to FAC give me a ping.

Good Article review progress box Criteria: 1a. prose () 1b. MoS () 2a. ref layout () 2b. cites WP:RS () 2c. no WP:OR () 2d. no WP:CV () 3a. broadness () 3b. focus () 4. neutral () 5. stable () 6a. free or tagged images () 6b. pics relevant () Note: this represents where the article stands relative to the Good Article criteria. Criteria marked are unassessed