Introducing 'Le Crunchwrap'
I'm hitting the road for six months, starting in Montreal!
Dear Friends,
Welcome to The Le Crunchwrap!
I’ll be on the move for the next six months (1) to work on a big new project as well as several small ones AND (2) to aggravate you (and my intestinal tract) with dispatches from around North America.
To start, I’ll be working out of Montreal over the next six weeks. Then La Familia Crunchwrap is driving west to Northern California (Oakland) for the winter and eventually back in New York in March. Do you have good people or recommendations in any of these places? Is there a Great Ball of Yarn somewhere in Northern Michigan that will make the smallness of the universe suddenly apparent in a life-changing way? Please let me know.
In our inaugural Le Crunchwrap, I’ll be pondering the metaphysics of good poutine, sharing some links, and hyping some live book events ahead.
BUT FIRST…If you’re a new subscriber (hey), here’s a little bit about me and this newsletter:
I’m Adam Chandler, a journalist (usually) based in New York. I write for a bunch of places about history, culture, work, fast food, business, regular-speed food, Americana, and more. I’m also the author of two books, Drive-Thru Dreams and 99% Perspiration which, in spite of some really bad Columbus jokes, came out earlier this year to wide acclaim. (You might also know me from some unwieldy hand-talking on The History Channel’s The Food That Built America and other programs.)
In this newsletter, I cover Critical National Issues like waning social cohesion in America, Taco Bell’s collaborations with Cheez-It and Milk Bar, and the vital cultural endurance of Billy Joel. I welcome your responses and notes and might publish them if they’re funny, insightful, or not mean.
Poutine Report #1
In thinking of how to make a caricature of myself and Montreal, I’ve made the bold editorial decision to square some of Le Crunchwrap’s focus on close studies of the gassy, unwieldy life of poutine from its birthplace here in Quebec.
First off, I don’t know how to describe poutine without offending people who know what is or patronizing people who don’t. Canonically, it’s french fries and cheese curds bound together in a sloppy-yet-alchemic way by savory brown gravy. Other provinces and places often eschew the cheese curds for other cheeses. Local lore claims that poutine comes from the Quebecois slang word for mess, but regardless of its origins, people love poutine and people hate poutine. There is no middle ground about poutine.
And like a Crunchwrap, poutine is endlessly customizable, riffed upon to reflect cultural traditions and/or cater to various levels of inebriation. There is butter chicken poutine and bulgogi poutine. Below is a Haitian poutine from a Montreal joint that comes topped with griot. (I haven’t had this yet, but will report back.)
Our inaugural Poutine Report™ comes from Restaurant Anna’s, a small, unfussy restaurant in the northern part of Montreal’s Plateau. I chose this spot in part because it’s around the corner where I’m staying and, though exhausted, I wanted to have poutine within a day of arrival to truly acculturate.
But also and more importantly, I chose Restaurant Anna’s because the place isn’t precious. It has no website or a twee backstory. The tables are particle board and almost certainly come from China. Its name…doesn’t entirely make sense. And that’s perfect because I wanted workaday poutine, goddammit. No adornments, no high-flying virtue beyond sustenance for the sake of sustenance. This is poutine that you eat after tapping a maple tree, playing a hockey doubleheader, or repealing a law that requires margarine to be white in color in order to protect the dairy industry.
Now, there are plenty of (subjective) barometers for what makes good poutine. From my research, using fresh, hand-cut fries and from-scratch gravy will win over the foodie set in a way that is less important to a culinary neanderthal like me.
As an American with limited access to decent poutine, I place a premium on a heavy curd ratio because, as in many dishes, the presence of enough cheese will cancel out most sins. Think, for example, of overcooked burgers, summer camp baked potatoes, or your aunt’s potato au gratin. I’m not alone in focusing on the dairy here. My more enlightened fellow cheeseheads point to the “squeak” sound that quality cheese curds make when chewed as a mark of careful craft. (If you want nightmares for a month, here is a video of another guy named Adam doing cheese curd ASMR on YouTube.)
To be sure, I respect benchmarks like high squeak. However, if I’m being honest, I haven’t developed my poutine palate enough to care about that. More than anything, I want a steady, hand-holding amount of cheese, for the fries (be they organic or Ore-Ida) to be good and crispy, and for the gravy that doesn’t remind me of being on dish duty. Restaurant Anna’s poutine absolutely cleared my very low bar.
I’m pleased for this to have been Poutine #1 because, ultimately, while I’m here in Montreal, it will be a goal of mine to refine my own standards for poutine so I can be truly smug about it from here on out. I’m excited and honored to have you with me on this vital journey of personal growth.
Catch Me
For those nearby I have THREE UPCOMING EVENTS for my new book, 99% Perspiration. Come hang with me during Jewish Book Festival szn, including one in my hometown of Houston, Texas.
November 3: Houston / The Houston Jewish Book and Arts Festival
November 5: Cherry Hill, NJ / Katz Festival of Arts, Books and Culture
November 9: Fairfax, VA / Olam Tikvah x Jewish Book Council
Nu, What Else?
“We’ve now entered a consumer landscape where ‘grams of protein per grande beverage’ is a unit of both measurement and aspiration.”
– For Sherwood, I chronicled the MAHA-flavored change in American coffee culture, which IMHO is unbelievably fascinating.
“We have to reject the idea that our only, best power is our pocketbooks. That’s a desecration of civics, as corrosive as the idea that debate is the pinnacle of civil discourse. It cheapens our actions by degrading what we believe is possible. Our power isn’t in making one of the choices that are presented to us. Our power is in shaping the choices available to us.”
– Tressie McMillan Cottam’s NYT piece on the Disney+ boycott, free speech, and this entire moment in American life is a must-read (gift link).
“[N]ot all peace is equal, and this strange, eventful history offers many reasons to suspect that the present peace with Iran will be a brief parenthesis in the long story of mutual enmity.”
–As the dust (hopefully) settles between Israel and Hamas, I appreciated Graeme Wood’s Atlantic piece zooming out from Gaza and digging into how the strategic priorities of the entire Middle East (and much of the world) flow in and out of this conflict. (gift link)
That’s it for now. See you out there and thank you as always for reading!
Bonne journée,
Adam
I’m on the group of people who love poutin. I’ve visited Canada four times and I make it a point to try poutine from different places. I hope to catch you on your book signing one of these days. Have fun on your tour!