When newcomers to Canada, the Italian couple had discovered along Quebec’s country roads the joys of the casse-croûtes, the food shacks that lie dormant in the frozen landscape during winter and then burst to life during the all-too-short warm months.

And so on a recent afternoon, the couple, Marta Grasso and Andrea La Monaca, sat side by side at a picnic table at one of these shacks, La Mollière, a lobster roll before him and a shrimp roll for her. A large blue sky spread out behind the casse-croûte, built on a promontory over the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

“You can taste the sea,” Ms. Grasso said. “We are from Sicily, so we are used to good, fresh seafood.”

The most famous menu item of Quebec’s casse-croûtes — the dish of French fries layered with cheese curds and gravy known as poutine — has become known far beyond this French-speaking province’s borders, with restaurants as far afield as Seoul specializing in the dish.

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But what about the funny-sounding pogo? Or a pinceau, sometimes spelled pinso? And the guédille, whose etymology remains obscure, even though it’s a staple of casse-croûtes?

Clockwise, from top left; chicken poutine from Chez Cathy; a "guédille," or lobster roll, from La Mollière; a shrimp "guédille," or shrimp roll, from Chez Cathy, and a club sandwich with fries, a typical menu item from La Mollière.

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