by
Something new, sloppy and filling is on the menu at Comerica Park this season, and Bill Shea breaks the news as Crain's specialist in sports business and ballpark cuisine.
Poutine hot dogs smothered in french fries, cheese curds and beef gravy are being introduced this season. (Twitter photo via ESPN)
Poutine hot dogs smothered in french fries, cheese curds and beef gravy are being introduced at concourse stands. That's way too complex and messy for walk-around vendors, who also might need pronunciation help. (It's poo-TEEN.)
This melding of iconic American and Canadian culinary fare is the brainchild of Sportservice, the concessionaire at the ballpark. . . .
"Currently, poutine seems to be growing, and my operations manager and chef are big fans of it, so we developed it from there,” said Robert Thormeier, Sportservice’s general manager at Comerica Park.
Growing in local popularity, indeed, as the man says. Poutine (without a hot dog) is served at Mercury Burger Bar, Green Dot, Woodbridge Pub (spring only), Brooklyn Street Local, Michigan Avenue Diner, Vinsetta Garage in Berkley, Sardine Room in Plymouth, Joe's Hamburger in Wyandotte and elsewhere. Some versions have bacon and carmelized onions (Brooklyn Street Local) or pork and pickled chiles (Sardine Room).
"It's now clear we're in the midst of a full-blown poutine outbreak," Free Press food critic Sylvia Rector wrote in a July 2012 roundup.
The word . . . may sound a little like a contagious illness, but the addictive dish is a beloved Canadian comfort food.
Think of it as our northern neighbor's more subtle version of chili-cheese fries.
Shea's report on exotic foreign fare invading the ballpark leads a Detroit baseball purist to serve up a mocking verse. Dan Austin, an assistant editor at the Free Press, posts on Facebook:
Take me out to the ball game,
Take me out with the crowd.
Buy me some wasabi peas and pepper jack-infused organic soy nuts . . .
Earlier at Deadline Detroit: Poutine Contagion Spreads as Two Canadians Open Michigan Avenue Diner
