If Proust ate Poutine

We all have our Madeleines. If you grew up in Quebec in the '70s, home is evoked by the taste and smell of particular brand of cheap corn dogs - known as "Pogos" served in a wax paper sleeve and topped with a plastic packet of mustard. Being able to introduce such dime-store delicacies to people for whom all of this is new and maybe strange is liking falling down a trap-door into your childhood. There's also the version of hot dogs famous in Montreal known as "steamies" a steamed version that locals swear by with religious fervour for no other reason than it's been drummed into them their whole lives.  Same goes for bagels or poutine, which served anywhere south of the border is treated like a heresy before the first bite. In other cities it's a certain kind of dumplings or potatoes or pizza slices, donuts or corn that is roasted, fried, boiled or broiled in a special way that you cannot possibly understand if you didn't grow up there. 

The late great recently departed Ken Dryden - the hockey goalie/philosopher described the concept of a golden age in his book The Game. Essentially the best time for anything was when you were 10 years old,  when the world made its most indelible impression on you. The famous steamed hot dogs we rave about were the ones we first tasted at the Montreal Forum watching the Canadiens play hockey. That taste is just about the only thing we can still experience unchanged from that memory. Everything else has been left behind, including the old arena, which became a shopping mall.

These little snack bars or 'casse-croutes' also have deeper significance for French Canadians and represent a sort of working class heritage that's both embraced and a little bit shunned. While they still exist in certain sections of the the province, these greasy spoons have been surpassed by a newer more refined version. Poutine has its upscale counterpart, even as the original soldiers on. The term "mangeur de hot dog" ("hot dog eater") remains a slur of the working class. (One Quebec politician was famously called "un mangeur de hot dog" by blue-blood Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, as a way of saying he was basic.) 

When the hockey team moved to its new building it made a point of bringing a few artifacts to the new multi-million dollar complex. One was their hot dog steamers, Last time I went to a game with my brother the first thing we got were a couple of steamies. They tasted like home.