A simple recipe of fries, curds, and gravy is Quebec's most famous dish.
But as you scroll through the thousands of emojis on your phone, poutine is one you won’t find.
“We realized during our conversation there was a way to express hamburger and fries and hot dogs but not one of the things which is closest to our hearts which is poutine,” explained digital strategist Catherine Dorion.
Quebec fast food chain ‘Valentine’ wants to change that.
It's taken the easily recognized dish, and has created its own highly-pixelated poutine icon as part of its application to have poutine officially recognized in emoji form.
“In Canada poutine yields more search results online than hamburgers so we figured, there's something there,” Dorion added.
Getting a new emoji approved is complicated.
A non-profit group called the ‘Unicode Consortium’ sets the global standard, overseeing which emojis will make the cut.
Valentine's application has to meet strict criteria and prove the emoji will get a lot of use.
As a result, the chain launched a petition which garned close to 5,000 signatures in a week.
But it's all a matter of taste: some food emojis have stirred up controversy.
There was the great bagel debate, which forced Apple to change its prototype version by adding cream cheese.
“People got really emotional about it because food is already a very emotional matter it is a cultural expression and emojis are a way to express yourself,” Dorion said.
New emojis are selected only once a year. after that, it's up to operating systems and platforms to come up with their own versions.
Valentine admits this is a marketing move, but says a poutine emoji wouldn't be branded, and would be added to keyboards all over the world.
“It is the fastest growing language in the world and we have a chance to add a letter to that alphabet,” Dorion said. “It's just one more thing to express ourselves and to love and to share.”
A final decision could take a year or more.
