La friteuse à voyager dans le temps : un documentaire sur la poutine

What does “terroir” mean in French?

English borrowed terroir for wine, but in French it is broader and far more ordinary. A terroir is a stretch of land plus its soil, weather and inherited know-how, and les produits du terroir are the cheeses, sausages and breads that could only have come from one place. It is the idea behind appellation d’origine labels: the place is treated as part of the recipe.

The word goes back to Latin territorium, and French speakers hear terre, “earth, land,” inside it. That is why asking what a region’s terroir de la friture might be — as the poutine documentary in this clip does — is a joke with a real question inside it: which fried food belongs to this ground and these people, the way a cheese belongs to its valley.