Posts Tagged Grate

Okay, okay, the title is a bit misleading; Quebecers don’t actually sexually assault their cheese, but you might hear them say they do. I was rather amused when my brother asked me to rape the cheese the other day. It was obvious that he meant to say “grate” the cheese, but I couldn’t help but laugh all the same. I guess that’s what happens when you’re bilingual: you sometimes mix the two languages up.  Raper, the verb to grate in French, has no bad meaning, but, surprisingly enough, other words used to describe certain foods in Quebec are a bit gross. Take my favourite desert for example: les pets de soeurs- which can be translated as, get this, “nun farts.” Believe it or not, I think nun farts are friggin’ delicious- but I wouldn’t ask to eat them outside of Quebec. If you are already well acquainted with our province, you will know that there aren’t really any local Quebecois dishes. We pretty much follow the typical North American diet, except that we have expanded it with our own twist: poutine, which is basically French fries with special cheese and a special brown sauce. The cheese used for poutine is not raped, but rather pooped. “Crottes de fromage,” as the little chunks are called, can be translated as “shit of cheese” or “poop cheese.” -FYI, the best poop cheese comes from Coaticook.- As for the sauce, I am not sure what actually goes into it, but I have heard some pretty bad anecdotes…  they might as well call it “sauce à crotte” so it matches the cheese…