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Short Stuff: Poutine: Canada's Pride · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the short stuff. I'm chops and
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: there's chuck and cherries here. Wait, no, she isn't. No,
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: cherry's not here, Dave's not here. We're left on our
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: own like a pair of losers. And this is short stuff.
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: Big thanks to HowStuffWorks dot com, the Canadian Encyclopedia, and
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: Food and Wine magazine Wow for the information that I
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: called about Canada's national dish. At seven hundred and forty
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: calories and forty one grams of fat per serving, the
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  Speaker 2: French fried brown grayby cheese curd squeaky delight, that is poutine.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: Yes, I love poutine. How about you?
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  Speaker 2: What's not to like?
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: I don't.
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  Speaker 2: Of course I love poutine. I can't eat a lot
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: of that kind of thing.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: Well, now, who can't?
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  Speaker 2: Because you know, I'm trying to look be healthier and
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: look better and poutine does not lend itself to that.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: You look, you look both, by the way.
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: I appreciate that. But in Canada, you got to eat
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: some of that poutine.
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  Speaker 1: You definitely do. Whenever we visit Toronto, I'm always on
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: that stuff. You have taught. One reason why we can't
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: eat it as much is because we live in the
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: southeastern United States, whereas poutine was originally invented in Quebec,
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: which can get awfully cold in the middle of winter,
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: so it actually makes a lot of sense to eat
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  Speaker 1: a higher calorie diet during that time, like a bear.
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: That's right. It popped up in the nineteen fifties in
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: the snack bars of rural Quebec and started gaining in popularity,
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  Speaker 2: you know, kind of spread out from there. As we'll learn,
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: it eventually started popping up in fast food menus in
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  Speaker 2: the nineteen eighties like McDonald's and Burger King and stuff
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: like that in Quebec, and then eventually over the border
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: into Ontario, and nowadays you can find it all over
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: the world, even though if you want you know, if
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: you want that og, you got to get it somewhere
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: in Quebec, right.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: And if you're a purist, you definitely have to get
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: it from Quebec. That's just the way it goes, that's right.
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  Speaker 1: So there's a bunch of different families or people who
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  Speaker 1: lay claim to inventing poutine, but they all hail from
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  Speaker 1: the same area called the Santra de Quebec, which means
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: center of Quebec, which is ironically in the south, and
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: that is a really important place because that's where the
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  Speaker 1: fromagerie is, the cheesemakers who made these squeaky cheese curds
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: that are essential to poutine if you're a poutine purist,
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: where they're made. And there's the first guy who will
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: meet is from Warwick in Quebec, and his name was
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: Fernand la Chance of Cafe Ideal, and he said that
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: he first added courage to fries because one of his customers,
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: Eddie Linness, said, Hey, add some curds to these fries.
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that was in nineteen fifty seven, and he replied
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: in French, I'm not even gonna try it. But he
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  Speaker 2: replied in French that will make a damn mess. But
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  Speaker 2: he did it anyway, served it in a paper bag.
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  Speaker 2: It became pretty popular and people started kind of customizing it,
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: adding vinegar and ketchup and stuff. And then six years
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: ended that he started to serve that on a plate
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  Speaker 2: because it was such a mess and customers were like, hey,
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: they're on the plate now, They're not in this bag
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  Speaker 2: staying warm. They're getting cold. So he said, ah, dump
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  Speaker 2: some brown gravy on that stuff. And said, how you
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: like that for warm? But in French?
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  Speaker 1: But in French? Do you want me to try the
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  Speaker 1: French quote? Sure, oh sure, sava te fair un modi
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  Speaker 1: poutine nice. So okay, we've got our first first entrant,
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  Speaker 1: Fernando la Chance, courtesy of Eddie Leness. This is nineteen
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  Speaker 1: fifty seven, I guess, And no, nineteen sixty three is
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: when he added the gravy. Fifty seven, Yeah, that's when
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: poutine complete. Poutine was nineteen sixty three. But our next
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  Speaker 1: guy comes from in Drummondville, Jean Paul Roy, and he said, no,
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  Speaker 1: I had a place, a driving restaurant called LaRoy Juice
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  Speaker 1: up and in nineteen sixty four, which was clearly a
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  Speaker 1: year later, he said, I've been serving fries with this
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  Speaker 1: sauce though since nineteen fifty eight. I called it patat sauce,
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  Speaker 1: and he's a customer started adding cheese curds. I was
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: selling those at the snack counter and they started dumping
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  Speaker 1: those in there. So he started doing that and added
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  Speaker 1: it to the regular menu and named it fromage patat
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  Speaker 1: sauce And kind of a fun little side note there,
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  Speaker 1: Apparently he couldn't find a container in his province like
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  Speaker 1: that could even hold this stuff.
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  Speaker 2: It was so heavy. So he had to go to Toronto
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  Speaker 2: to source a vendor who could provide these sturdy containers. Yeah,
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  Speaker 2: pretty fun.
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  Speaker 1: So poutine actually the name of it is it essentially
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  Speaker 1: means messy or mess at least in slang and Quebec
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  Speaker 1: for sure. But people say that it's probably your pop.
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  Speaker 1: Possibly one of the etymological theories is that it hails
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  Speaker 1: from the English word pudding and not putting like you
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  Speaker 1: and I think that has the jiggly skin off top
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  Speaker 1: that you have to peel off when you take it
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  Speaker 1: out of the refrigerator. This is putting as in like
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  Speaker 1: figgy pudding, which is essentially like a mixture of various foods,
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  Speaker 1: sometimes fig and that it can be kind of messy.
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  Speaker 1: It's not like it's just like a hodgepodge, just kind
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  Speaker 1: of mixed together that kind of messy. And so putine,
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  Speaker 1: possibly from poudine, is where this whole thing came from.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, or maybe one of the other like ten to
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  Speaker 2: fifteen explanations of root words like French words like pete
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  Speaker 2: or how would you say poutite, which is a potato regue,
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  Speaker 2: So that you know, no one agrees on that. Kind
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  Speaker 2: of like a lot of the stuff that we talk
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  Speaker 2: about with these origin stories of foods, a lot of
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  Speaker 2: people will they claim, and no one agrees on who
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  Speaker 2: the person is, although I'm sure there will people people
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  Speaker 2: write and say no, it's definitely for sure one of
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: these people, or maybe even someone else.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. So what we do know is that it showed
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  Speaker 1: up from the more rural area of Sentre du Quebec
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  Speaker 1: to Quebec City in nineteen sixty nine at a place
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  Speaker 1: called Ashton Snack Bar. It made it to Montreal in
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  Speaker 1: nineteen eighty three, and then it started to spread far
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  Speaker 1: and wide from there. They say, we take a break
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  Speaker 1: and we come back and we trace poutine spread like
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  Speaker 1: so much gravy flowing over a pile of fries.
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  Speaker 2: Great, all right, So where we left off, poutine was
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: spreading like brown gravy through the streets all over Canada.
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  Speaker 2: Different variations started to pop up, like Italian poutine with spaghetti,
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  Speaker 2: sauce or sausage instead of like the gravy veggie poutine.
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  Speaker 2: There are regional variations. Apparently Montreal style has smoke meat.
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: I've had it, you know, have you? Yeah, how do
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  Speaker 2: you like it.
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  Speaker 1: It was great. I mean, it's hard to mess up
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  Speaker 1: poutine in my opinion.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, but you know, as far as traditionalists go, it's
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: just the straight up kurds and gravy.
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  Speaker 1: There was also one more thing. I'm sorry. There's also
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: a restaurant in Toronto I can't remember, also totally name check,
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  Speaker 1: but they made like Korean poutine. Oh, I can't remember
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  Speaker 1: what made it Korean, but it was the bomb Okay.
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: I think it had some sort of smoked meat on
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: it as well.
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  Speaker 2: All right, I try that. By the seventies, poutine had
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  Speaker 2: spread to the United States and New York and New Jersey.
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: They called it disco fries and use shredded motts instead
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  Speaker 2: of those cheese curds because you know, one thing we
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: mentioned it was made where it was made, because you
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: get those cheese curds fresh, and they say, like, hey man,
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  Speaker 2: if you're keeping these curds for a couple of days,
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  Speaker 2: they don't squeak anymore, and it's not the same. So
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: this this disco fries thing is an abomination.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, but it's a great name.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, pretty good.
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  Speaker 1: So it first started to spread to national restaurant chains
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  Speaker 1: back in nineteen eighty five, there was a Quebec fast
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  Speaker 1: food franchise called Freetz Frits and they did not last
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  Speaker 1: very long, but they seemed to be on record as
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  Speaker 1: the first national chain or at least large regional chain
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  Speaker 1: to feature poutine. But the one that really kind of
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: kicked it off was Burger King. One of their franchisees,
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  Speaker 1: Jean Louis Roy, back in nineteen eighty seven, was like,
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  Speaker 1: I really want to offer poutine. Burger King, please let
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: me offer poutine, and the Burger King thought on it
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  Speaker 1: and said, wish granted, And so this first burger King
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: franchise started selling poutine, and I guess it sold well
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  Speaker 1: enough that Burger King was like, we're going to sell
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  Speaker 1: this in all of our Quebec restaurants.
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah. McDonald's followed suit afterward. They added it to the
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  Speaker 2: menu in nineteen ninety and then in Quebec only, and
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: then expanded to the rest of Canada and got a
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  Speaker 2: shout out Harvey's Canadian fast food joint. Harvey's started doing
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: so in nineteen ninety two, and then something happened in
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: the two thousands when sort of elevated comfort food became
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: a thing and people were like let's let's try and
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: charge you know, thirty five bucks for chicken pop pop.
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  Speaker 1: Yet Edison bulbs everywhere, Yeah.
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: Edison bulbs, you know, lighting up rooms all over the place,
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  Speaker 2: like barely. So they said, yeah, let's let's do that
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  Speaker 2: with poutine. And I think Martin Picard of what's that
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  Speaker 2: restaurant Jo, that's right. He the first, supposedly, or at
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  Speaker 2: least first to become known for serving elevated poutine when
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  Speaker 2: he invented his Foi gras poutine.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, and so other people are like, oh, foi gras,
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: how about lobster? How about braised beef? And yeah, As
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  Speaker 1: you as more and more like professional chefs kind of
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  Speaker 1: did their own spin on it, it got further and
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  Speaker 1: further away from what it was originally. And I don't
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: know who spoke to a chef, Hugh Atchison from Montreal,
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  Speaker 1: I believe right, he grew up in Ottawa, Okay, so
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  Speaker 1: but he grew up on poutine. He said there was
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: a poutine truck parked down the street from his high school,
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  Speaker 1: which I would have been in big trouble every day
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: if they're if I had grown up like that. But
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: he's basically saying like the people who were coming up
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: with these spins on it probably had never even been
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: to Quebec, had never had actual poutine, and that it's
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: not supposed to be gussied up. It's like a very simple,
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  Speaker 1: basic street dude. And he was really angry. I think
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: in the interview they said that he kept pounding his
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: fist and eventually took off his shoe and was pounding
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  Speaker 1: his shoe on the table while he.
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  Speaker 2: Was shouting about Oh, I don't believe that when Hugh
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  Speaker 2: attis in great person. He has restaurants here in Atlanta
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  Speaker 2: and Athens, Georgia, so he's a he's a top chef
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  Speaker 2: guy too, so I love volt.
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  Speaker 1: What's he? What's he?
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: What? What?
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: In Atlanta?
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean he you remember the coffee shop at
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: Pont City Market that was his Oh okay, yeah, great
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  Speaker 2: downstairs and his Empire State South in Atlanta Edison Bulbs
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: and yeah, Edison Bulbs. And then five and ten in
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  Speaker 2: Athens is his restaurant because Athens has got some like
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: legit good restaurants.
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  Speaker 1: Now, Yeah, five and ten was great that that went
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: in where what was the like super threadbare restaurant that
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: had been there for a million years? Before five and ten,
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: it was like an Athenon institution.
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: Oh, I don't know, I was just there. I tried
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: to go to five and ten, but they were booked
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: up because I went to those RAM shows again this
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: year and the Athens is just still one of my
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: favorite places to do great. Yeah, but this is about
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: Quebec and Canada, and he actually and closes out his
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: quote by saying, it's just really comforting garbage food.
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: That's awesome, which I love. So I guess that's it, right.
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I got nothing else. You know, go visit Canada,
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: go to Quebec and order some poutine.
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but even just maybe also if you can't make
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: it to Quebec, like look up how to make as
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: close an approximation as you can and enjoy it that way.
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that they're I think General Mirror here
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: in Atlanta serves poutine, so you know, I might give
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: that a shot.
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: Sure, sure, since Chuck said he's going to give it
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: a shot, everybody, that'd mean short Stuff is out.
• 12:52
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• 12:55
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• 13:00
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