You know it’s officially springtime in the Ottawa Valley when the chip stands open up their serving windows. And thankfully, mercifully, we’re almost there. There is a chance that you’re actually reading this near the end of March on a warm spring day, and if so, I hope the air smells like clean linen — or better yet perhaps — vinegar and hand-cut French fries sizzling in hot oil. And if that’s the case, I hope you’ve got some coins in your pocket and a chip truck nearby.
If there is a perfect book for every season, then The Chip Stand by Westport authors and illustrators Chantal Bennett and Joel Kimmel might just be the one for spring. Aptly, its publication date is March 21 — one day after the official start of the season.
The book is a beautifully illustrated ode to that quintessentially Canadian landmark. For more than a decade, Bennet and Kimmel travelled across Canada in search of the country’s best chip stands, interviewing owners and capturing their charm in drawings and paintings. The illustrations in The Chip Stand are colourful, charming and vibrant, and they gorgeously bring to life the “eclectic aesthetics” of 130 of the best-looking and beloved chip stands in the country — from Vancouver, British Columbia, to Perth, Ontario, to St. John’s, Newfoundland.
Bennet and Kimmel both have impressive resumes; between the two, their work has appeared in the Globe and Mail, Maclean’s, the Los Angeles Times, Chatelaine, the National Post, and Canadian Geographic. It’s little wonder the illustrations in The Chip Stand are fantastic.
Still, a decade on the road, criss-crossing the country? you might be thinking — that’s some dedicated research. It’s clear the book’s authors believe that the time and travel was well worth it.
“Like the bistros of Paris, the classic diners of the United States or the traditional pubs of the United Kingdom,” they write in the introduction, “we believe the chip stand deserves to be appreciated as an essential part of Canadian culture. It is a place where people come together to enjoy simple, delicious food from a roadside kiosk. The chip stand, in all its varieties, is uniquely Canadian.”
And sadly, as the authors point out, this iconic symbol of Canada is disappearing. “The charming, dilapidated, charismatic and traditional chip stand is being replaced with upgraded food trucks,” they write, “and with that change the history of the chip stand, as well as the chip stands themselves, is in peril.”
Alongside the exceptionally wonderful illustrations, their book features vignettes exploring the history of poutine, pogos, casse-croûtes, and the chip wagon — and it even dares to share the secrets to making the perfect fry. There is a certain homey charm to these vignettes, likely because the chip stand itself is such a simple yet pure thing — one almost every one of us enjoys, or has fond childhood memories of — and these passages neatly reflect that.
This snippet is a good example: “It’s a treat to go to a chip stand on a trip to the cottage or on your lunch break. A visit to an eclectic-looking chip stand is like visiting the fair; they serve fun food and it seems as though they’ve been plucked from the carnival and put down on a country road.”
We want the fun food, and a taste of the carnival too. To me, that’s the appeal — along with the stories of the people who run them. And part of the easy appeal of The Chip Stand is the nostalgia. It’s likely to get you remembering; it’s almost sure to conjure happy memories.
It’s also neatly informative. As a good for-instance, this interesting bit from the short “History of the Chip Stand” chapter states: “The chip stand as we know it was born from the chip wagon, which was an actual horse-drawn wagon on wheels selling French fries… Our research indicates that the earliest Ontario chip wagon was in Carleton Place, Ontario. It was carted by a horse into town during summer evenings throughout the 1930s and into the 1940s.”
The wagon’s owner was Pat Moldowan.
The Chip Stand is a truly charming, uniquely Canadian book, and the beautiful artwork is easily worth the book’s sticker price. It’s easy to imagine this book as a mainstay on coffee tables across the country. It would also make a wonderful gift for anyone who wants to know more about the history and evolution of the chip stand in Canada — from its humble beginnings in the 1930s, when horse-drawn wagons sold “French fried potatoes,” to the modern-day versions; the shacks and sheds, the buses, vans, and trucks so many of us have come to love.
But it’s the food we love the most. The no-nonsense, quintessential road-trip fare they serve up is the biggest treat of all, really, and Bennet and Kimmel are in full agreement.
“Chip stand food is simple,” they note. (Generally: fries, pogos, hamburgers and hot dogs.) But “part of the fun of eating at a chip stand is the simplicity of their menu. They consistently serve the best fries and the best poutine you’ll find in this country.”
They’ll get no argument from me on that.
One of the things I liked best about living in Westport, in fact, was heading over to Scotty’s Food Wagon for a box of mouthwatering golden French fries. It’s possible that Scotty’s has closed up shop, but in the greasy cardboard box of my happy memories it’s a cool spring day and I am joyfully eating salted fries on one of their picnic tables.
The Chip Stand contains many people’s similarly fond memories, in fact. And one of those comes from Claude, the owner of Claude’s Chip Wagon in Ottawa. “Prime Minister Trudeau visited us in 2017,” he recollects, “with his guest the Prime Minister of Belgium. We received a score of 5 out of 5.”
You can’t beat that.
Chantal Bennet and Joel Kimmel live in Westport, with their two beagles, Pistache and Spudd. The Chip Stand is their first book. Look for it on the shelves of a bookshop near you.