Canadian food

Ben has been a man of a certain age for a couple of years, and with that comes all kinds of health worries - in particular, prostate cancer and all the health effects of high cholesterol.  After some cajoling, he finally went to the doctor a week ago to get the appropriate tests.  The results were amazing. Best of all, no signs of prostate cancer.  But the cholesterol test was the zinger:  For a guy who eats eggs, bacon, butter, cheese and steak, and thinks that those are the five food groups, his cholesterol was low.  Not just low, amazingly low.

Therefore, when we ordered lunch at the clubhouse the other day and he ordered poutine and pogos, who was I to say it was bad for him?  His massive intake of fatty foods apparently does him no harm.

I think one of Ben's favorite things so far about Canada is poutine.  Pogos is probably second.  Poutine is that uniquely Canadian combination of French fries and cheese curds covered with brown gravy.  I have no idea where the dish originated, and no one I have asked seems to have the answer.  It's like asking a citizen of the USA where meat and potatoes came from.  They just are.  I personally can't imagine eating poutine, but then, I don't have to.  

Pogos are a Canadian brand of little corn dogs.  Ben got six of them in his order.  Pleasantly brown and greasy, they seemed all puffed up and happy sitting in a little family-like circle on his plate next to a dish of poutine.  A happy meal for a guy who doesn't need to worry about his cholesterol.

All I can imagine is that Ben is much happier with Canadian food than he would be with, say, Russian food.  I can't imagine him quite so happy about borscht and cabbage.

Today, as we were relaxing after our round of golf, he looked out over the wide Thompson River valley and proclaimed, "I like Canada."  I think poutine has something to do with that.