By Deborah Pankey, Daily Herald Food Editor
Who could have guessed that such gourmet dishes as caribou medallions with cranberry relish or warm Arctic char and smoked salmon with wild mushrooms could come from our Northeasterly neighbors who seem more comfortable with ear muffs and hockey sticks than chef toques and whisks?
In an effort to raise the profile of Quebec cuisine, two of the province’s top chefs visited Chicago recently, cooking up a storm with students in Kendall College’s culinary arts programs and dazzling diners at a benefit at the Drake Hotel.
‘Fifteen years ago in Quebec, we had to buy everything from Europe and the U.S. Ten years ago, we began to make good cheese. Now we have real fine cuisine,’ said Marie-Chantal LePage, executive chef at Manoir Montmorency east of Quebec City. LePage and other chefs from Quebec’s urban centers of Montreal and Quebec City are working indigenous ingredients into dishes while still employing classic French techniques.
It was the French, after all, who first settled in the region three centuries ago, bringing their pots and pans with them and adapting recipes for stews and tarts to the fit the plentiful fish and game. Scots and Irish settlers arrived on the scene later, adding potatoes, oats, dried fruits and nuts to the repertoire.
In recent history, Quebec cooking has been influenced by the rest of North America, thanks to the availability of commercial food products and advertising. But in 1978, with the opening of the chefs training school, l'Institut de tourism et d’hôtellerie du Québec, that started to change. Chefs coming out of school today are learning to highlight native Quebec products in their modem preparations.
Maple syrup, for example, might accent a red wine reduction sauce for seared caribou or venison medallions, while pickled milkweed pods - the taste resembles capers - can be found garnishing a whole roasted chicken. Lamb might he paired with blueberry wine and scallops poached in cider.
‘When tourists come to Quebec, they are surprised to see the quality of the food,’ LePage says. Visitors aren’t the only ones surprised. Culinary students at Kendall College got their eyes opened and their tastebuds exposed to Quebec cooking. ‘I hadn’t thought about (Quebec food) until the other day,’ Kathy Streichen of Lake Villa admitted. Tm surprised they use so much dried fruit; and the cattails, those were a little different.’
LePage and Richard Desjardins, chef professor at the culinary school who visited Chicago with LePage, don’t just want you to consider Quebec cuisine, they want you to buy the province’s products. Maple syrups, dried fruits, goat cheese, cattail hearts, foie gras, smoked duck and liqueurs, all are making their way into American markets. Like the tortillas and salsa that seemed foreign to us 20 years ago, products from Quebec may someday become common in our daily cooking, they hope. ‘Even in Europe, more and more, they are using our products,’ Desjardins said.
From lamb to veal to cheese, and yes, even pork and beer.