When the word went out across Quebec that some of its finest cheeses might be subject to a health safety ban, I heard about it first from chefs worrying that they might be prevented from serving the delectable soft-ripened raw-milk cheeses in their restaurants. For several weeks, I couldn't go into a cheese shop without being asked to sign a petition protesting federal interference with Quebec's right to enjoy fine food. I was invited to carry a placard at a public demonstration and watched as the frenzy even halted debate in Quebec's National Assembly.
In my reporting duties as food editor of The Gazette of Montreal, I found that the government microbiologists agreed that such cheese could, if incorrectly aged, cause illness. Food lovers weren't interested. Gastronomic peace was restored only after scientists were persuaded to re-examine the topic. Some cheese makers calmed concerns by labeling their raw-milk cheese - and Quebec's explosion of prize winning cheeses continued.
Such obsession with good food is a regular part of life everywhere in Quebec. On an island in the St. Lawrence River, I've watched lambs pastured on salt marshes, their shepherds determined to duplicate the pré-salé meat of northern France. Sheltered against a hillside at Saint-Andre-de-Kamouraska, I've walked in an orchard of heirloom plum trees planted by a family to replicate varieties brought by Récollets priests to New France in the 1600s, and enjoyed the delectable preserves from this fruit. I've jumped out of the way as hundreds of geese rushed out of their barn to feed on the grasses of Baie-du-Febvre farmland, and then feasted on their richly flavoured meat in recipes created by top chefs. In a cellar on Île d'Orléans, I've sipped prize winning crème de cassis, listening as the wine maker explained how he was working at intensifying the flavour of his black current liqueur. And, on my favourite of all food quests, I've tracked down an ever-expanding group of bakers from Montréal to the Gaspé and from Quebec City to Charlevoix, breaking apart their crusty, chewy loaves to enjoy their succulent bread plain, no butter required.
Food has always been more than sustenance in Quebec, and the rest of Canada knows it. I'm never surprised to hear that chefs and specialty merchants from coast to coast buy our duck foie gras, farm-raised game meats, maple syrup and - of course - cheese. This food obsession dates back to colonial times, when the first French settlers arrived with their cast iron pots and pans and began adapting French country cooking to the ingredients of the wilderness.
When I set out to investigate Quebec's culinary past and present, region by region, I had just returned from a food writers' tour of northern France. There I'd seen familiar dishes on menus or in shops - Normandy's spiced pâté called "rillettes" and cider-flavoured chicken, Brittany's fish stews, big paper thin pancakes and "galettes," and the Champagne region's Flamiche aux poireaux (leek tart) and Tarte au sucre (sugar pie.) It was like running into old friends, these original dishes of the earliest settled areas along Quebec's St. Lawrence River. "That's ours," I can remember exclaiming as I stared at a sugar pie in a French village bakery - and immediately realizing that it was theirs first.
Early Quebec cuisine was defined by shortages and by long, cold winters. The time-honoured recipes in this book are economical and simple, calling for few ingredients and long, slow cooking. As the recipes show, the original French dishes - the "tourtières," "ragoûts," and "tartes" - changed as settlers, moving from the original seigneurial lands along the St. Lawrence to new regions, used the local foods that they found. The Saguenay, for instance, has a deep dish tourtière like no other, and the Gaspé is alone in pot-roasting a whole cod to make a "cambuse." Today's progressive chefs are observing the same procedure, basing their creations on the finest, freshest ingredients in their regions.
More than any other part of Canada, Quebec has worked to record its earliest food history, Beginning in 1978, some 30,000 regional dishes were collected from elderly cooks all over the province by the Montreal chef's training school, the Institut de tourisme et d'hôtellerie du Québec. Many of the cooks were women who had never written down their recipes. Each dish was catalogued, regional differences identified, and a collection published called Cuisine traditionelle des régions du Québec; the book has been my bible. Along with a load of maps, producer's directories, and a large cooler for the specialties I invariably find, it accompanies me on all of my travels.
For decades the Quebec government has recognized that good food is good for business. Both the agriculture and tourism departments provide funds and award prizes to chefs, and specialty food producers who work to develop a food style in each region of the province. The best chefs don't need such incentives. They're continuously encouraging small, specialty food producers and pressing government officials to reduce the red tape with which food handling and inspection systems in this province are rife. Alain Pignard, the French-born executive chef Montreal's Queen Elizabeth Hotel, is passionate about "cutting the habit of using big producers. It's like going back to the way it was in Europe, when the little guy would come to my door with his six geese," he told me as he gestured at a delivery of Quebec's latest specialty meat - free range geese. "Here everyone wanted to get big," he went on. " In France, the fine food producers don't look to get big, they look to get better. Now, here in Quebec, are producers are learning to stay small." This is not without its challenges. Lamb from the hillsides of the Saguenay region can't be served at Marcel Bouchard's inn at La Baie until it has been trekked to Quebec City, a distance of some 200 kilometers, for slaughter and inspection, and back to the north. Fresh lamb, flown from New Zealand, can be fresher - and cheaper. And at Métis-sur-Mer on the edge of the Gaspé, the St. Lawrence River is so wide, locals refer to it as "the sea," yet Chef Claude Cyr must cope with the frustration of waiting as fish caught right outside his door must be taken upriver to Rimouski for inspection, the travel back to Cyr's restaurant, losing a day or more of freshness. Marcel described the culinary battle: "We chefs are part of a chain around Quebec. We've been fighting for the last 10 years to give the local producers a chance to commercialize their foods." As he spoke, he held up a basket of beautiful wild mushrooms, filled to overflowing, just delivered by a supplier down the road.
This book tells of my explorations down many roads as a food journalist in the province I have called home for more than 40 years. I urge you to visit this beautiful land, discover its fascinating history, and enjoy its distinctive regional cuisine. Be assured that, even if your French is limited, you will be welcome at Quebec tables from your first "Bonjour." After all, hospitality is the way we are.
A Taste of Quebec is available from the following publishers:
Hippocrene Books, Inc. (USA)