Poutine Feast brings creative versions of Canadian staple to Kingston

Fries smothered in cheese curds and gravy — a combination that Canada is proud to call its own.

Kingston’s City Park was the place to be this weekend for what some call the “Canadian salad.”

Poutine Feast was in town, showcasing a group of creative, travelling poutineries that have been all over Ontario this summer sharing their takes on the Canadian classic.

What do the experts say makes a truly delicious poutine?

“You need fries that are blanched and crispy on the outside, then you have to have real curd and then you need a good gravy. Can’t really go too wrong with it, as long as it has the right thickness. Whatever you want to put on it, really — the combinations are endless,” says Danielle Cummings, co-owner of the BBQ Babes food truck.

This is the first year that these trucks have banded together to launch Poutine Feast, the first travelling festival of its kind in the province.

“We all kind of thought we want to go more places so we came together and figured out how to get started, and now we are all over Ontario doing it,” says Cummings.

Poutine Feast may be in its first year but it’s already very popular. On Saturday, some of the trucks almost ran out of food. Luckily, they were able to restock and get ready for another set of patrons.

Les Winters, owner of Fat Les’s Chip Stand, says: “We came very close to running out of a couple of our items but we do stock quite a bit back home, which is only an hour and a half from here, so we brought a truck up in the middle of the afternoon to make sure we had enough for Sunday.”

Cummings adds that Friday was a lot busier than they were expecting, leading to the inventory issues for some of the trucks.

This weekend was the ninth and final stop of the summer for the tour.

The main convoy of trucks says they hope to make the event bigger and better next summer.