A food *word* ! - Wordsmith.org

Had lunch at a local eatery and on the list of appetizers was a dish called "Pantin" (sp?) which is described as : "shoestring french fries with cheddar cheese and brown gravy." Haven't tried it yet - will probably be either awful or marvelous. I have a feeling it may be a Quebecois dish as we used to have lots of Canadian visitors from that area before the exchange rate became disadvantageous to Canadians vis a vis the US dollar.
Anyone know of this dish - and the correct spelling - and whether it's worth a try?
And do I really need to find something else that's good to eat? But that's another discussion altogether!

Yes, poutine is a Canadian (or to be more specific Quebecois) dish. I'm from Ontario, but I frequently visit Quebec and its served there quite a lot, although I've never actually tried it. Its very popular, just like regular french fries in the rest of Canada and the US.

I've never seen the fries you're talking about, wow, but cheese-covered fries are becoming quite popular around here. Frequently they are dusted with Old Bay seasoning, which some of the natives would put on anything, including ice cream. Personally, I don't care for cheese fries. The cheese makes them soggy and I like fries crisp.

Worth reading this food thread just to come across Quebecois. Is it pronounced:

Kuh-beh-SWAH?

> Quebecois.

I've seen it spelled Qu�becois, which should make it more like kay-buh-swa, non?

kay-buh-swa

�ois-sa matta youse?

Kuh-beh-SWAH?
You got it- at least around these here parts!

"Y'all're wrong about the pronunciation."

I allus thought it were "kay bek WAH," mais non?

I just listend to MW little anglicized horn pronounce it:

kay-buh-KWAHZZ

Edit: And AHD little horn said:

kay-buh-KWAH, like Nancy K wrote above.

Wonder why MW put that 'zz' sound at the end?

My money's on "kay bek' wa"

D'oh!

Mercy buckets por pointing out the absence of the cedilla, Fong.

mercy buckets

No hay de nada, max.

Yeah, farmers here charge for their dried grass as well.

charge for their dried grass

I just saw an advert by Manchester City Council:

Drug and Alcohol Action Team
JOINT COMMISSIONING MANAGER
We are seeking to recruit an experienced and highly motivated Joint Commissioning Manager...

This is a roll I feel I could be happy in

whoa, d��d. that'd be like a cool job.

btw, I always heard keh'-bek-wah

Merciful heavens, you would think no one here had ever studied French, even in high school. Qu�becois is a masculine noun or adjective and is pronounced kay-bec-wah. The feminine is Qu�becoise and is pronounced kay-bec-wazz. You don't remember Charles deGaulle starting out his speeches, "Fran�ois et Fran�oises ..."?

mercy buckets

sjm,

>Merciful heavens, you would think no one here had ever studied French

Calme-toi, byb - some of us had inserted a superogatory cedilla, that's all. Ce n'est pas le fin du monde.

In reply to:
Calme-toi, byb - some of us had inserted a superogatory cedilla, that's all.

And I'd simply assumed that the cedilla had been omitted.

assumed that the cedilla had been omitted

As it so often is.

you would think no one here had ever studied French

Who's this "no one," keemosabe?

I want to agree with Anna : " Y'all 're wrong about the pronunciation ".

The happiest years of my life were spent in the Province of Quebec , a beautiful place with

great contradictions.

Quebecois is often pronounced Qua Bec Kwah ...the K sounded. The phonological features of French

spoken in Quebec differs from area to area within the province and is sometimes at odds

with French of France.

To the to real Quebecois it is Ke Bec Kwah and not Qua Bec Kwah.

In the Pronciation phonitique de l'alphabet francais.....qu is pronounced like "k" the

"u" is not pronounced.

I say 'real' because they differentiate themselves or more appropriately, Seperate themselves

among themselves. If Rene Levesque , Jean Chretien , Jean Drapeau , Pierre Trudeau and

Robert Bourassa were in a building , you'll probably find the latter two somewhere out on

the portico with the others hudled around the fire speaking Joual...these fine gentlemen..all

Quebecers are regarded differently among themselves based on speech patterns.

To emphasize the point , a controversial book came out [don't remember name or author] in the mid

seventies that said ....and I paraphrase....that to be born in Quebec and to have a french

sounding name doesn't make you a Quebecer...rather it is the nasal and phonological speech

pattern that you have.......and to crown it all ....you have to be born with it. Bonjour

Thanks, caram.! I'm glad to know what's correct; I'd always thought the last syllable was 'swa'.

(I hope you don't mind me shortening your name, here. I do love the whole thing: what a happy sound--makes me think of dancing!)

That's a great explanattion carambola, but it did have one negative effect. It made me really wish that this Board's native Quebecoise was here.

It's usually said about Jean Chretien that he's impossible to comprehend in either official language.

I actually heard a thing on the radio where a linguist was talking about the types of mistakes he made - these were easy to study because his speeches are almost always recorded, and quite often "made off the cuff", showing very clearly his unique oratorial style. (Emphasis on the word unique!!!!)

>It's usually said about Jean Chretien that he's impossible to comprehend in either official language.

Appropriately enough, several of my Canuck friends call him, no doubt with the deepest affection and respect, King Jean Poutine.

Jean Poutine

That's probably a reference to a This Hour Has 22 Minutes skit in which one of the guys approached Dubya, probably shortly after has was "elected", and told him something along the lines of "blah blah blah...Prime Minister of Canada Jean Poutine congratulates you on your win, blah blah blah" and Dubya just said "Thank you" without realizing the name was wrong.

Now, it wasn't really fair because there was a lot of commotion and it'd be easy to miss the switched name. However, we can still feel a little indignant, since we're their nearest neighbours and the skit basically showed he doesn't even know our Prime Minister's name...

"Yuh tellin' me they have a Prih Ministuh up thehr?....Whut's a Prih Mistinuh?"

Damn, I can't even write the accent.

late to this thread....

btw, I always heard keh'-bek-wah

I know y'all figgered it out but I just wanted to add that I recently learned that in pronouncing French words, there's a rule you can follow with regard to whether you pronounce the last letter or not. Vowels, you don't - but if it's a consonant, do you? You do - if it's one of the consonants from the word "careful".

Hence the difference in pronunciation of Quebe�ois (final letter "s" and therefore not pronounced) and Quebe�oise - the latter's final letter is "e" (not pronounced, but the "s" now is because it is no longer the final letter - if that makes any sense!).