The White House will serve gourmet poutine at tonight's state dinner

Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his wife, Sophie Grégoire-Trudeau, are joining the Obamas tonight for their first state dinner. He's definitely a closet party animal, so it looks like the First Couple figured why not serve guests Canada's go-to drunk food. White House executive chef Cristeta Comerford has a clever riff on poutine, the fry–gravy–cheese curd grease bomb, in store for the two. State dinners are extremely fussy affairs, so this poutine had to be "spiffed up and scaled back," Washington Post restaurant critic Tom Sietsma explains, by morphing it into a tiny canapé. This grown-up version involves a little nest of wafer fries, shavings of smoked Hudson River duck, and a fancy red-wine gravy.

Most of Comerford's menu actually pays her neighbor to the north homage. Lots of ingredients are from the Pacific Northwest, and she's drizzling Yukon Gold potatoes with Yukon Jack Canadian whiskey. On the dessert end, there are even sweets inspired by Nanaimo bars. Still, it's the poutine Canadians are freaking out about, both because they're psyched and because they're pretty sure America is going to screw up their national dish:

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