Highlighted Products:
–La Vache Canadienne: Pied-de-Vent & Laiterie Charlevoix
–Moulin de la Rémy
–La Milanaise
–Érablière Escuminac
–Gaspésie Sauvage
–Les Jardins Sauvages
–Les Herbes Salées du Bas-du-Fleuve
–Emporium Safran
–Cassis Monna et Filles
–La Maison de la Prune
–Les Trois Acres
–Fermes Gaspor Farms
–Canards du Lac Brome

To find out where to purchase these products, click here.

Talk on Quebec products on Zoom given by Julian Armstrong on May 10, 2021 for the Art Libraries Society of North America.

Get into a conversation with a French-Canadian and you realize food is important. The cuisine, adapted ever since the 17^th century from the cooking of north-western France, is a vital part of life and Quebecers spend time and money to eat well.

Quebec food is regularly rated as Canada’s first and most distinctive cuisine. As I hope to show you, Quebec’s obsession with food means that it gets better and better. Fresher, healthier, more interesting products are being developed, year after year.

However, despite the popularity of the foods of the world, as a chef once said to me, “The mother cuisine is French—the favourite ingredients, the sauces, the techniques.”

Quebec’s earliest dishes continue in fashion, improved from pioneer times. In homes and some restaurants, especially around the holidays, you’ll find the old favourites – the meat pie tourtière and ragoût, pea soup and pâté, maple pie and cider.

Speculation is that, because we are so aware we are a region of French on an English continent, we are concerned about preserving our traditions – our language, political systems, and heritage cuisine. So we keep it alive, talk about it, improve it, and cook it.

I will now take you on a quick tour of Quebec, presented by some of today’s energetic, dedicated producers. Their foods show their sense of history. Some of these producers have harked back centuries for inspiration. Others are on the cutting edge of today.

One of our top chefs explained what these new special products are doing to the traditional cuisine. Anne Desjardins, longtime chef at L’Eau a la Bouche in Ste. Adèle north of Montreal, called it northern gastronomy. “We are discovering boreal cuisine. This is right, because we live in the north. We are Nordic,” she said.

Most of these products I will show you are available online.

I will begin with my favourite cow. It’s a story about her milk and the cheeses made from it.

La Vache Canadienne

She came from France to Quebec in 1608 with the French explorer Samuel de Champlain when he established his first colony. She is smaller than other breeds we know. Either black or brown, she is hardy and friendly. She also eats less than other breeds. And she tolerates hot or cold weather.

Her milk is perfect for making cheese because it is extra-rich, and contains more butterfat and protein than other milks. That means a cheese-maker needs less milk to make the same amount of cheese, and it coagulates faster, so it gives cheese-makers less work.

Unfortunately, she produces only about half the amount of milk as the better-known breeds. The first settlers expanded the herd and, in the mid 17^th century there were 300,000 of these cows in Canada. But the big milk-producing cows gradually took over and now, we have only about 1,000 of these cows in Canada, three herds, all in Quebec. One is on the Îles de la Madeleine in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, another is in the Charlevoix region of north-eastern Quebec, and a third is in the Saguenay region of northern Quebec.

Happily, two Quebec cheese-makers have herds of these cows and make semi-soft cheeses from the milk of the Canadian cow.

Pied-de-Vent

This cheese-maker can be found on the islands in the Gulf of St. Lawrence called Ȋles de la Madeleine, using the milk of their herd of 130 “Canadian” cows.

Laiterie Charlevoix

Located in the Baie St. Paul in the Charlevoix region, this cheese-maker makes two cheeses from the “Canadian” cow’s milk. The best-seller is Le 1608, honouring the date the French settlers and the cows arrived in Quebec. The second cheese is L’origine de Charlevoix.

Moulin de la Rémy

A small number of dedicated Quebecers is back of a movement to increase organic grain farming, mill the grain with stones, and sell it to bakers and the public. One of the mills is a beautiful stone building on a hillside high above the St. Lawrence River. It was built in 1825 by the religious order Séminaire de Québec, and  restored in 1992.

The man in front of the mill is a dynamo in this new grain and milling industry, called Rudy Laixhay. He has worked with Jean Labbé of Laiterie Charlevoix, a big cheese-maker, to persuade about 10 young farmers to take over abandoned land, drain it, level it, and grow about six varieties of organic grains.

Rudy has their grains milled, using millstones he imported from France. He then sells the flour to organic bakers all over Quebec.

La Milanaise

This is another organic grain milling company, located at St. Jean sur Richelieu and led by Robert Beauchemin, an organic producer.

M. Beauchemin began stone-milling in 1982 and has supplied bakers and stores with his flour called Milanaise all over Québec for nearly 40 years. He runs a large, commercial business handling all sorts of grains, lentils, pulses, seeds, etc., including Red Fife wheat, a Scottish variety imported into Canada over 170 years ago and believed to be originally from Ukraine.

Érablière Escuminac

The Malenfant family maple farm on the Gaspé coast has added yellow birch syrup to its products. It is a semi-sweet syrup compared to a cross between balsamic vinegar and molasses. Like maple syrup, it comes in amber or dark grades.

Use it to glaze meat or fish, in barbecue sauce, marinades, salad dressings and even in wild rice pudding. Think of it as a more exotic vanilla extract. Wild mushrooms may be fried in it.

Gaspésie Sauvage

Wild mushrooms are the specialty from this company, run by a Belgian-born forager named Gérard Mathar, who is based at Douglastown on the Gaspé coast. He and his partner Catherine Jacob supply restaurants with fresh wild foods, and dry these products to sell to the public.

Exotic products such as dried lobster mushroom powder can be used as a coating on scallops. Gérard’s wild mix of porcini mushroom powder adds flavour to meats. Algae, wild aquatic plants that include seaweed, is another dried product.

Les Jardins Sauvages

A wild food foraging company north-east of Montreal at St. Roch de l’Achigan runs a wild food restaurant. Chef Nancy Hinton, a top chef who ran away to the wilds, cooks an exotic, wild cuisine. Her partner François Brouillard harvests her ingredients in the forest, providing the restaurant a variety of wild foods from fiddleheads to herbs.

 The couple sell their products at a tiny store in Jean Talon Market in Montreal. Fresh fiddleheads in season, dried and preserved products year-round, especially mushrooms are offered.

Les Herbes Salées du Bas-du-Fleuve

Salted herbs are a traditional Quebec condiment, made each summer by home cooks getting ready for winter. They would store the mixture in the root cellar and use it to liven up meat pies, ragout, pea soup, mashed root vegetables, and rice.

Jean-Yves Roy has a farm and production centre at Ste. Flavie in the Gaspé. A plant scientist by training, he uses his grandmother’s recipe for this herb and vegetable mixture. Instead of the knife his grandmother would have used, he has machines to chop the ingredients, then adds coarse salt and stores the mixture in barrels kept at about 60 degrees F (15 C). He bottles his product to sell in food stores all over Quebec and beyond. His latest invention is a dehydrated version he sells in packages.

Every family had a recipe, but the basics are parsley, chervil, savory and chives, plus such vegetables as spinach, celery, onions, carrots, parsnips, and leeks, leaves included. The Roy farm at Ste. Flavie produces all the ingredients.

Modern uses include hamburgers, seafood casserole, pasta sauce, salad dressings and even a tomato sandwich. Add the herbs to any hot dish just before serving, says Roy. If you want to cut the salt, rinse the mixture before adding it to a dish.

Emporium Safran

Micheline Sylvestre was a location manager for filmmakers before she made agricultural history in Quebec by growing and selling saffron. She is producing this seasoning of the Mediterranean, Middle and Far East in the rigorous climate of Québec on her small farm (2-1/2 acres/one hectare) at St. Damien, north-east of Montreal. What’s more, she has inspired a small group of other Quebec saffron producers.

The tiny saffron bulbs – she says she currently has more than 100,000 – are members of the crocus family and have a reverse production life. They flower in autumn with pretty lilac coloured blossoms. Each flower produces three red stigmas which, when dried, make saffron threads. Micheline must harvest those stigmas immediately, drying the flowers in a 120-degree F (50 C) oven.

Red saffron is the best, she says. Fakes on the market are made from safflowers and are yellow, dyed red. To tell if your saffron is real, touch it. Your finger should turn yellow. If it turns red, it is a fake dye job. The real thing is expensive; it takes over 150 flowers to make one gram of saffron.

She makes saffron into a variety of products, selling the pure product in small red velvet bags because the product has been known as red gold. She also makes saffron syrup and jelly, saffron salt and vinegar. Her latest project is to make saffron ice cream.

Cassis Monna et Filles

A father and his two daughters grow black currants on the Île d’Orléans and make prize-winning liqueurs and other products from the fruit. Called Cassis Monna & Filles, the company is run by Bernard Monna and his daughters Catherine and Anne.

The crème de cassis liqueur, perfect for making Kir, is the big seller. More than 50,000 bottles a year are sold of all their products.

Three wines, a syrup, vinaigrette and a series of bottled terrines, mustard, jam, jelly, ketchup, honey and an onion confit all attract visitors to the boutique, wine cellar, and restaurant.

The liqueur and wines are only a few of Québec’s local wines. One, called Chicoutai is made from the Nordic cloudberry the chicoutai. Another from blueberries is called Minaki. Amour en Cage comes from ground cherries. These drinks compete with imported liqueurs in Québec liquor stores.

La Maison de la Prune

Plums have a historical background at a beautiful orchard in the lower St. Lawrence River valley at St. André de Kamouraska. Proprietor Paul-Louis Martin, a cultural historian, discovered its history, when, in 1972, he acquired the 1840 manor house he was restoring, and researched its seigneurial property. The red and yellow Damson plums growing behind the elegant old building were from trees originally imported from France in the 1620s by Récollet priests.

He and his partner Marie de Blois added to the 100 old trees to make a profitable plum orchard of 400 trees and began selling Marie’s jam and jelly, coulis, preserved plums, spiced sauce and vinegar, and the fresh fruit in season.

Aware that plum trees used to flourish all along the St. Lawrence, Martin has worked to restore this heritage fruit. He wrote a book, Les Fruits du Québec. It also explores Québec architecture and her gardens.

If you visit the shop in the old manor house when it is open each August and September, you may get lucky and meet the historian and even have a tour of the beautiful old orchard.

Les Trois Acres

Read the honey labels carefully when you shop at this small honey farm near Dunham in the Eastern Townships of Québec. The pure, unpasteurized honey comes in eight different flavours, depending on where the beekeeper has deposited his hives.

Beekeeper is biologist Stephen Crawford who, with wife Lilian, runs the farm. He credits a TV show called The Nature of Things, hosted by environmentalist David Suzuki, with giving him the idea of beekeeping. In 1990 he bought two hives. Now, 30 years later, he has 150 hives and runs both a honey business and, thanks to Liliane, a cosmetics sideline using the leftover beeswax available when the honey has been extracted.

Varieties of honey are geared to the seasons. In spring, the bees go for dandelions, wild raspberry blossoms and apple blossoms, resulting in very sweet and floral-tasting honey. In summer, they use sweet clover, centaurea and basswood blossoms and make mild-tasting honey. In fall, the honey comes from goldenrod and asters, giving a spicier taste.

Customers who find their honey crystallizes in the jar need only need stand the jar in hot water, either from the tap or a saucepan of water just beginning to simmer. The honey will liquify in about 15 minutes. Honey lasts forever and never goes bad, says Liliane.

Fermes Gaspor Farms

Roast suckling pig is a celebration dish but uneconomic for a chef to offer regularly. It’s too small to be profitable, restaurateurs maintain. That was before a family pork farm north of Montreal decided to experiment with growing their piglets bigger, to about 30 kilograms (65 pounds).

In 2004, the Aubin brothers started feeding piglets on a specially enhanced milk formula, giving them eight times the amount of food as with grain-fed baby pigs. The piglets receive mother’s milk for four weeks, and then seven to 10 weeks on milk enriched with coconut fat. The brothers have the animals slaughtered at three months of age, producing a meat that is marbled and flavourful. The public in top restaurants has accept to pay as much for it as for filet mignon.

Gaspor (the name from gastronomic pork) meat comes from animals large enough to allow a chef to cook a variety of dishes. Labour-intensive to produce, the supply of what’s called Porcelet de Lait is limited to about 5,000 animals a year. Chefs across Canada, and restaurants in New York and California, as well as a few in Japan, buy the meat.

Canards du Lac Brome

American businessmen started Canada’s best-known duck farm in 1914 to cater to the Chinese immigrant market. Peking ducks were installed and enjoyed swimming in Brome Lake in the Eastern Townships of Quebec.

Then Canadian Senator George Foster and friends who summered in Knowlton heard that a commercial development might be created on the shores of their beautiful lake. They decided to buy the business in 1939 and it remained in family hands until the mid 1990s when a Quebec businessman and an American veterinarian bought it. The ducks no longer appear. Ever since the threat of bird flu, they are raised in barns. But the farm flourishes and has an elegant new shop in Knowlton.

The ducks, numbering 23,000 annually at the outset, now number two million. Their fatty meat, easy to grill on the barbecue, has been slimmed down.

The variety of ways the ducks are marketed is endless, from whole and cut up versions to confit, shredded, smoked, rillettes, pates and cooked frozen meals. Eighty per cent of sales are in Quebec.

Where to purchase:

Quebec specialty food producers contact list

Some producers have distribution systems in both Canada and the U.S.A. Some ship only to Canada. A few small producers sell only from their shops. Check web sites for information.

For assistance, feel free to contact Julian Armstrong.

Fromagerie du Pied-De-Vent cheese
149 chemin de la Pointe-Basse, Havre-aux-Maisons, Îles de la Madeleine, Québec, G4T 5H7;
Tel: 418-969-9292;
info@fromageriedupieddevent.com
www.fromageriedupieddevent.com 

Laiterie Charlevoix
1167 Boulevard Mgr de Laval, Baie-Saint-Paul, QC G3Z 2W7
Tel: 1 418 435.2184
info@laiteriecharlevoix.com
http://laiteriecharlevoix.com/fr

Moulin de la Rémy
652 Chemin Saint Laurent, Baie St. Paul, Québec, G3Z 2L7, and Pierre du Moulin.
Tel: 418-633-7691
Rudy Laixhay, president : rudy@pierredumoulin.com  
Celine Derue, 418-760-8665; admin@pierredumoulin.com

La Milanaise
820 rue Lucien-Beaudin, St. Jean-sur-Richelieu, Québec, J2X 5V5.
Tel: 450-349-1747; 1-877-657-4646.
Robert Beauchemin, president.
www.lamilanaise.com

Erablière Escuminac Inc
240 Chemin d’Escuminac Ne, Escuminac, Québec G0C 1N0.
Tel: 418-788-3636 or 418-963-2490; cell Jason Malenfant 418-714-4199;
jason@escuminac.com or contact@escuminac.com or info@escuminac.com
www.escuminac.com;

Gaspésie Sauvage Produits Forestiers Inc.,
34 Rooney Ave., Gaspé, Québec, G4X 2Z2.
Tel: 418-368-2296
Gérard Mathar and Catherine Jacob.
www.gaspesiesauvage.com or www.gaspesiesauvage-shop.com;

À la table des Jardins Sauvages
17 Martin Rd., St. Roch de l’Achigan, Québec,
tel.: 450-588-5125. 
www.jardinssauvages.com; info@jardinssauvages.com;
Boutique at Marché Jean Talon.
Nancy Hinton and François Brouillard

Les Herbes salées du Bas-du-Fleuve
182 Chemin Perreault, Ste. Flavie, Québec, G0T 2L0.
Tel: Jean-Yves Roy: 418-775-4922

herbes@herbessalees.com.
Dehydrated herbs: info@atelierspleinsoleil.com

Emporium Safran Québec
2584 Chemin des Cascades, St. Damien, Québec, J0K 2E0.
Tel: 514-804-5549;
Micheline Sylvestre, president.
www.emporium-safran.com; micheline.sylvestre@emporium-safran.com; info@emporium-safran.com

Monna et Filles
St. Pierre, Île d’Orléans, Québec, G0A 4E0.
www.cassismonna.com; info@cassismonna.com
Catherine and Anne Monna.

La Maison de la Prune
129, route 132 Est Saint-André-de-Kamouraska, QC, Canada G0L 3G0
Tel: (418) 493-2616
marie.deblois@bell.net

Les Trois Acres
1107 Dymond Rd., Dunham, Québec, J0E 1M0.
Tel.: 450-295-2540 
Liliane and Stephen Morel 
3acres.ca@gmail.com;
web site: www.3acres.ca

Gaspor pork:
15 Boul. Maisonneuve, St. Jérôme, Québec, J5L 0A1.
Tel.: 438-334-2125, 450-504-8448;
www.gaspor.com
info@gaspor.com
Alexandre Aubin, co-owner, 450-712-0475; alex@gaspor.com ;
Joey Benoit, sales director, joey@gaspor.com
Products are sold frozen.

Canards du Lac Brome
40 Chemin du Centre, C.P. 3430, Knowlton, Québec J0E 1V0.
Tel: 450-242-3825
canardsdulacbrome.com;  info@canardsdulacbrome.com  
Brigitte St. Julien, marketing manager, bstjulien@cdlb.ca

The post Quebec products, and where to buy them appeared first on Julian Armstrong.

The exotic barbecue dinner was lit by a combination of lanterns and the fires roasting the warthog and other meats suspended over the flames. After learning that elephants and other less friendly wild animals were probably lurking just down a slope below the inn, located a half-hour from Victoria Falls, we warded off our unease with superb South African wine.

That dinner was the start of three weeks of exotic food and wine experiences. Warthog aside, my prevailing memory of the food around the Cape of Good Hope is of many spices, delicately flavouring every course.

Through the centuries, South Africa has been fertile. Think of the superb fruit we enjoy from that country many months of the year – citrus fruit (red grapefruit in particular), apples (the best Granny Smiths), and grapes (succulent black Barlinkas).

About 1651 the Dutch, always gifted gardeners, began to farm on the cape, initially to supply their ships, later deciding to settle and build permanent communities. Travellers can still spot Dutch architecture in various communities. Boer, as the people of the region came to be known, is Dutch for farmer.

To work the land, they imported slaves from the Orient, in particular Java, Sumatra and other East Indies. The descendants of these peoples came to be called Cape Malays.
Then came French Huguenots, Protestants stripped of their rights by Louis XIV. These French fled persecution in France, beginning in 1685. They started vineyards, initiating production of the exceptional South African wines we enjoy today.

Other culinary influences can be traced to the French, British and Germans, all as a result of interest in colonizing and profiting from this fertile, resource-rich land. One of our more surprising lunch menus was in an oasis in the desert of Namibia – devilled eggs and fresh fruit.
When the British came and set up sugar plantations in the 19th century, they imported thousands of Indian workers, with the result that curries became popular. Oriental fruit began to appear in chutneys, pickles and fruit salads. Vegetables such as eggplant, pumpkin, cabbage, beans and corn became familiar.

The best meal we had in South Africa was a Cape Malay dinner in a small and elegant hotel called Ellerman House in the Bantry Bay suburb of Cape Town. Spices such as curry powder and turmeric were gently used to flavour many of the dishes, including a big meat pie called bobotie (see recipe). We learned this pie is a basic in every South African household, comparable in our families to shepherd’s pie but with a more delicate flavour. It’s a casserole of meat and fruit with a curry flavour, enriched with a custard topping. The gentle combination of spices in the bobotie and the setting at the Ellerman House upgraded this dish into the gastronomic class as we dined in what felt like a private mansion, every wall displaying contemporary South African paintings.

Our hosts for this memorable dinner were former Montrealers Paul and Mary Lamontagne, who have lived in the beautiful coastal city of Cape Town for more than a decade. They also put us on to another fine meal, in the Signal restaurant in the elegant Cape Grace Hotel. There, in a glass-walled room overlooking dozens of moored yachts and smaller craft, I remember a brochette of grilled antelope, or springbok, a sweet and tender meat. One of my travel companions, Mark Russell, considered his corn soup, decorated with popcorn around the rim of the bowl, a work of art.

Cape Town was also the scene of one of our most appreciated meals, at Cape Town Fish Market on a terrace near the ferry dock. We had taken a ferry to Robben Island in Table Bay near Cape Town, then boarded a bus, and then walked dusty distances to visit the prison where Nelson Mandela had been incarcerated. We peered into the tiny cell occupied by the South African anti-apartheid revolutionary and learned about the leadership he displayed with fellow inmates from a guide who had once been a prisoner. Tired, but inspired by our island visit, I cannot remember grilled shrimp and white wine ever tasting so good.

Mary Lamontagne, who published a cookbook in 2013 that includes a number of African recipes, explained that our Ellerman House dinner represented Cape Malay cuisine at its best. Mary trained at the Ritz Escoffier Culinary School in Paris and worked as a food consultant in African hotels and bush camps before writing Eats: Enjoy All The Seconds (Advantage/Whitecap, 2013). Her 135 recipes, generous with vegetables and fruits, emphasize efficient use of ingredients so as to avoid waste. Mary’s eggplant curry from her cookbook (see recipe below) is a fine example.

She also shared her version of a popular South African dessert, the British-influenced Malva pudding (see recipe), which she serves with ice cream or orange-flavoured crème anglaise.

Dining in Durban, a large coastal city on the Indian Ocean, at the home of British expatriates Lionel and Sheila Astill, our international food experiences continued with Sheila’s spiced shrimp soup made with coconut milk and a British plum pie (see recipe). Lunch with the Astills at Durban’s Oyster Box Hotel turned out to be a challenge: how to choose from a lavish buffet made up of dozens of different curries.

Here are some of my favourite recipes from my African travels:

BOBOTIE
Serves 6 to 8

This minced meat pie has the status in South Africa that moussaka has in Greece, goulash in Hungary, and shish kabobs in Turkey. Made with beef or lamb, flavoured with garlic, curry powder and turmeric, it develops a deep brown crust thanks to the egg custard that is poured over top and then baked. This version comes from Ellerman House in Cape Town.

• 2 tablespoons (30 mL) vegetable oil
• 2 onions, chopped (2 cups/500 mL)
• 2 pounds (1 kg) lean ground beef
• 1 thick slice white bread
• 1 cup (250 mL) milk
• 1 tablespoon (15 mL) curry powder*
• 1 tablespoon (15 mL) granulated sugar
• 2 teaspoons (10 mL) salt
• ½ teaspoon (2 mL) freshly ground pepper
• ¾ teaspoon (4 mL) turmeric
• 1-1/2 tablespoons (22 mL) vinegar
• ½ cup (125 mL) seedless raisins
• 2 tablespoons (30 mL) chutney
• 2 bay leaves
• 2 medium eggs
• Flaked almonds (optional)
• Hot steamed rice
• Chutney

Heat oil in medium-sized heavy frying pan over medium heat and cook onions until transparent, about 10 minutes. Add ground beef, breaking it up as it cooks, until lightly browned, about 10 minutes.

Soak bread in ½ cup (125 mL) of the milk. Squeeze out excess milk and return it to the 1 cup (250 mL) measure. Mash soaked bread with a fork and stir it into the meat mixture.
Stir in curry powder, sugar, salt, pepper, turmeric, vinegar, raisins and chutney until blended. Transfer mixture to a greased baking dish (11 by 7 inches/2 L, or 9-inch square/2.5 L), gently patting mixture so it is evenly distributed. Arrange bay leaves and almonds on top.
Bake for 25-30 minutes in oven preheated to 350 degrees F (180 C).

Beat eggs with milk. Remove pan from oven and pour egg mixture over all. Return to oven to finish baking for another 25 minutes.

Serve hot with steamed rice and chutney. Or serve cold with a salad.

EGGPLANT CURRY

Serves 4

Mary Lamontagne created this vegetable curry after visiting Zanzibar and its spice markets. It’s one of a number of African recipes in her cookbook called Eats: 135 Colourful Recipes to Savour & Save (Advantage/Whitecap, 2013). She and her husband have travelled widely in Africa, enjoying the favourite dishes of its different lands. Her time spent working in game lodges in South Africa, where fresh food was often delivered only weekly, taught her careful use of all ingredients. Eggplants, she notes in her book, should have a shiny skin and green stem. The skin, when pressed gently, should spring back. The vegetable lasts a week in the refrigerator. It may be sliced, salted, seared briefly and then frozen in containers to use later in cooked dishes. Or, the slices may be breaded, fried, and frozen to reheat later.

• 2 medium or 4 small eggplants
• 1 tablespoon (15 mL) salt
• 4 tablespoons (60 mL) olive oil
• 1/2 medium onion, minced (1/2 cup/125 mL)
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 tablespoon (15 mL) minced, fresh gingerroot
• 1 teaspoon (5 mL) curry powder*
• 1 can (14 ounces/398 mL) whole tomatoes with juice, or 1-1/2 cups (375 mL) whole,
• cooked tomatoes**
• ¾ cup (175 mL) coconut milk
• Sea salt and freshly ground pepper
• ¼ cup (60 mL) shredded coconut, toasted
• 1 tablespoon (15 mL) chopped fresh coriander
• Hot basmati rice

*Mary recommends making your own curry power by combining 1 tablespoon (15 mL) each ground cumin and coriander with 1 teaspoon (5 mL) chili powder and ¼ teaspoon (1 mL) turmeric.
**Or use 2 cups (500 mL) cherry tomatoes, halved, coated with olive oil, sprinkled with chopped garlic and sea salt, and roasted at 400 degrees F (200 C) until softened, 15 to 20 minutes.

Slice eggplants in 1-inch (2.5 cm) thick slices and sprinkle with salt. Arrange on baking sheet and let stand for 30 minutes while liquid drains off.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 C). Use paper towels to absorb moisture from eggplant slices. Return eggplant to baking sheet, brush with 2 tablespoons (30 mL) of the oil and bake until cooked through and lightly browned, 15 to 20 minutes.

Heat remaining 2 tablespoons (30 mL) of the oil in a large, heavy frying pan and cook onions until soft, about 5 minutes. Add garlic and ginger and continue cooking for a few minutes. Add curry powder and cook until aromatic, 3 to 5 minutes.

Add eggplant and tomatoes and cook until well combined and heated through. Pour in coconut milk and cook a few more minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Just before serving, sprinkle with toasted coconut and coriander. Serve hot with basmati rice.

MALVA PUDDING

Serves 8

This traditional South African dessert has Cape Dutch origins. A spongy, caramelized pudding, it spells comfort food to South African families. Mary Lamontagne, a former Montrealer now living in Cape Town, likes to serve it with a cream sauce such as the classic crème anglaise, or vanilla ice cream.

• 4 teaspoons (20 mL) butter
• 3 teaspoons (15 mL) apricot jam
• 1 egg
• 1 cup (250 mL) light brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon (5 mL) white vinegar
• 1 cup (250 mL) all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon (5 mL) baking soda
• 1 cup (250 mL) milk

Sauce:

• ¾ cup (175 mL) cream
• ¼ cup (60 mL) butter
• 1 teaspoon (5 mL) vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon (5 mL) orange zest (grated peel)

Combine butter and jam in a microwavable cup and melt in the microwave. In a small bowl, use a hand mixer to beat the egg with the sugar until mixture is light in colour.
Beat in vinegar and then the butter-jam mixture, making sure ingredients are well combined.
In another bowl, combine flour and baking soda and mix into egg mixture with a fork. Then mix in milk.
Pour batter into a greased 8-inch (20 cm) square baking pan. Bake in oven preheated to 350 degrees F (180 C) for 45 minutes or until firm and lightly browned on top.

Sauce: Heat cream, butter, vanilla and orange zest in a saucepan until blended. Remove pudding from oven and use a skewer to make holes all over the top. While pudding is still hot, pour sauce over it, tilting it if necessary to make sure sauce sinks into the pudding.
Serve warm or at room temperature.

PLUM PIE

Serves 6

Sheila Astill served us this delectable dessert when we dined with her and her husband, British-born businessman Lionel Astill, at their house in a suburb of Durban, South Africa.

• 2 to 2-1/2 pounds (1 L to 1.2 L/ /about 10) plums (Victoria, Damson, etc.)
• 2/3 cup (175 mL) granulated sugar
• 1 to 2 tablespoons (15 to 30 mL) water
• Pastry for a 2-crust, 9-inch (23 cm) pie
• 1 egg, beaten
• Extra sugar

Cut plums in half and pit them. Put plums in a medium saucepan with the 2/3 cup (175 mL) sugar and a little water and cook over low heat, stirring often, until just al dente. Let cool.
Cut pastry into two pieces, one-third and two-thirds. Roll out the smaller piece between two pieces of plastic wrap to cover a 9-inch (23 cm) pie plate. Trim pastry; you may tuck the surplus underneath along the rim of the pan to give the pie a thicker edge. Surplus pieces of pastry may be cut into decorative trimmings for the pie.
Lift cooled plums with a slotted spoon into pastry-lined pan. Moisten edge of pastry so the top crust will stick.
Roll out the larger piece of dough between two pieces of plastic wrap and cover the pie, crimping edges to seal. Cut slits in top crust. Use any leftover dough trimmings to decorate the pie, moistening them so they will stick to the pastry.

Brush pie with beaten egg.

With oven rack in middle of oven, preheat oven to 350 degrees F (180 C). Bake pie in the preheated oven for about 45 minutes. Remove from oven and, when still warm, sprinkle pie with more sugar.

Serve hot or at room temperature. Juice from plums may be simmered to thicken it and served with the pie.

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Proprietor Myrna Alexander fuelled our conversation with wine and snacks made of recipes from my book, Made In Quebec: A Culinary Journey.

We munched on bruschetta with goat cheese, risotto with fiddleheads, and smoked salmon tartare, the latter two served in handy white China spoons.

The talk extended throughout Quebec. This well-travelled crowd knew their onions, more specifically the best foods to enjoy out and about in the province as well as close to home, where to buy the best French bread and fine cheeses, where best to dine in the region, and the history of some favourite Quebec dishes.

Peggy Regan, who had driven up from Montreal where she runs the NDG bakery called Gryphon d’Or, shared her experience with those working in food. Be they producers, chefs, restaurateurs, or food shopkeepers, they tend to know what’s going on in an area far beyond their own doorsteps. I agree. Get a chef or baker or gourmet food producer talking and you’ll shortly come up with others offering products that are worth a detour.

The food business is a highly competitive market, and some of the enterprises I praised in an October 2014 article in the Montreal Gazette, have closed. I was sorry to learn of the demise of two bakeries in Val David; Boulangerie La Chapdelaine and Boulangerie biologique La Vagabonde. Ask around and bread-lovers will cite their favourite bakeries.

 Julian with Myrna Alexander, proprietor of Les Mots Tremblant.

Couleur Café

Couleur Café, which is an excellent coffee vendor, appears to have expanded to a second Ste-Agathe location (2 Préfontaine St. E. has been added to 1040 Principale St., behind the Metro store on highway 117). It also has a Mont-Tremblant shop and an outlet in Mont-Laurier. Other places serve Couleur Café coffee, including Les Mots Tremblant.

The organic vegetable and fruit growers called Ferme biologique aux petits oignons continue to be a popular source for shoppers in the region of Mont-Tremblant (515 Brebeuf Rd./highway 323). More farms such as these would be welcome, according to Myrna Alexander. Several people at the gathering praised food retailer-wholesaler S. Bourassa, the big Ste-Agathe-Sud store, parent of branches in St-Sauveur, St-Jovite and Mirabel.

Foraged foods – wild mushrooms, herbs, greens, berries, etc. – are popular in the region, which, to my visitor’s eye, must offer some of the most accessible wilderness in Quebec.

The traditional Quebec layered meat pie known variously as cipaille, cipâte or six-pâtes was a topic of discussion. It has been traced to a sea pie, made of fish and enjoyed by 18^th century British sailors. Quebecers make it of a mixture of meats but the best versions are made with game, I was told by Claude St-Pierre, who was part of a discussion about this old favourite.

Festival Brassicole des Laurentides

The region will celebrate its own microbrewed beers when the first beer festival to be staged in the Laurentians took place June 19 to 21, 2015, in St-Faustin-Lac-Carré. Called the Festival Brassicole des Laurentides. Visiting beer specialist Philippe Wouters, editor of the beer magazine Bières et Plaisirs will be there. Information: festivalbrassicoledeslaurentides.com

Les Mots Tremblant

2053 chemin du Village, Mont-Trenblant, J8E 1K4; tel. 819-421-3496

lesmotstremblant.com

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March 29, 2015 – Julian Armstrong, known to Montrealers as the longtime food editor of the Montreal Gazette, was a finalist at the International Association of Culinary Professionals award finalists for her 2014 book Made in Quebec (HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.) She was nominated in the Culinary Travel category.

The award, announced March 29th, during the IACP’s 37th annual conference in Washington, went to Rita Henss for Cyprus: A Culinary Journey (CC Publishing).

The IACP Cookbook Awards are intended to broaden the public’s awareness of culinary writing. Authors whose books have received IACP awards include Rick Bayless, Mark Bittman, Julia Child, Dorie Greenspan, Barbara Kafka, Thomas Keller, Deborah Madison, Jacques Pépin and Patricia Wells.

The awards from IACP and the James Beard Foundation, announced April 24th, are considered the most prestigious awards in the industry.

Jennifer McLagan won a James Beard award in the single-subject category for her book Bitter: A Taste of the World’s Most Dangerous Flavor, with Recipes. Winner in that category was Cathy Barrow for Mrs. Wheelbarrow’s Practical Pantry (W. W. Norton Company).

In addition to the cookbook awards. The Bert Greene awards for journalism, the Digital Media Awards and the First Book/Julia Child Award were handed out at the event. There were more than 90 nominees in 18 categories.

Award for the best culinary website went to Amanda Hesser and Merrill Stubbs and the editorial team at Food52/Food52.com. Award for best first cookbook went to Charleston chef Sean Brock for Heritage (Artisan). A New Napa Cuisine by Christopher Kostow (Ten Speed Press) won Cookbook of the Year.

The IACP, founded in 1978, is a forum for culinary professionals to share experiences and expertise. It has members from more than two dozen countries.

International Gourmand Cookbook Awards

Julian Armstrong’s book, Made in Quebec, A Culinary Journey won in the Best Local Cuisine Book category  in the  Gourmand World Cookbook Awards competition for Best Cookbooks in Canada, English Language. The book has also been shortlisted for the “Best in the World” Award.

Established in 1995, Gourmand International’s Gourmand World Cookbook Awards honor those who ‘cook with words’ and aim to increase the knowledge of, and respect for, food and wine culture. The national winners now qualify for the “Best in the World” competition.

Winners will be announced in China in June.

Canada has its own cookbook awards, called the Taste Canada awards. They are presented each autumn to books published in Canada in both English and French.

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Asked to talk about my cookbook, Made In Quebec: A Culinary Journey, by the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec, I was in unusual company for a food journalist as one of 15 speakers at their annual ImagiNation writers’ festival.

Novelists, university writing teachers, a military doctor, an investigative reporter, a children’s author, a humourist, and a cartoonist were on the program along with two food writers – myself and U.S. barbecue specialist Steven Raichlen.

Contrasts at the 6-day event also included the food. While the audience of largely anglo Quebecers ate samples of my recipes in an upstairs drawing room/lecture hall, the cellar of the elegant pre-Victorian building had a table set for an imagined meal, sparsely served using pewter plates and mugs. The house was Quebec City’s jail from 1812 to 1867, and grim little cells may be toured if you visit the spacious house and English-language library, once a part of McGill University. For details on the building and society, visit morrin.org, tel. 418-694-9147.

Quebec City, located close to the verdant Île d’Orléans, has superb restaurants, as the Montreal Gazette’s dining critic Lesley Chesterman regularly reports. Asked how I decided where to go for my book’s 135 recipes and information about the many new food products throughout Quebec, I talked of the word-of-mouth methods journalists use when tracking down a story. One chef will lead to another, and these new, young, culinary professionals always know of a certain grower with a notable food product. It’s part detective work, part treasure hunt, part power of persuasion, since chefs detest having to spell out their recipes.

A vital question came from CBC arts reporter Jeanette Kelly, who asked about the big food stores and their appealing prices and how we can encourage the small producer with unique fresh foods to sell. My answer: Be aware that it’s our job to keep our small farmers in business. That means patronizing farmer’s markets, signing up with Equiterre for weekly organic food baskets, and shopping the supermarkets with a close eye out for local products even if the imports look beautiful. And those independent farms can be found in the city as well as the country. Example: the Lufa Farms greenhouse on the roof of a factory near Montreal’s Rockland shopping centre.

The audience was informed on a variety of Quebec foods. One man offered information on how to turn the salt cod made according to a 400-year-old tradition in the Gaspé, into delicious Portuguese fare; his grandmother was his source and he believes there are 365 versions of bacalau, the salt cod dish. Another knew that Gaspor pork, the delectable meat made of baby pigs near Mirabel, was invented using a special diet that includes milk. Another, when I suggested we should grow more parsnips, recalled a memorable parsnip purée she had enjoyed at the First Nations’ Restaurant La Traite at the Huron-Wendat Nation in Quebec City.

A mouth-watering menu was served after my interview, conducted by Quebec City food blogger Héloïse Leclerc. Served in miniature cups, we enjoyed trout gravlax flavoured with vodka and served with chopped lime and melon; tender strips of rare-cooked venison with asparagus, Parmesan cheese and sun-dried tomatoes, and a miniature profiterole iced with a maple icing, all prepared by caterer Chef Chez Soi. It was a fine sampling of the latest local food trends.

Julian Armstrong answers questions and signs her book at the Salon du Livre in Quebec City. (April 2015)

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She boils six cups (1.5 L) water with 2/3 cup (150 mL) to ¾ cup (175 mL) granulated sugar, adds four to five cups (1L to 1.2 L) diced rhubarb and simmers the mixture for about five minutes. Then she strains it for about 10 minutes without pressing on the rhubarb, adds lemon juice to taste and chills it.

Rhubarb grower Suzanne Bigras checks the crop as it’s washed and bundled for market. Photo: Gorden Beck

Suzanne Bigras and son Sébastien, unloads fresh-cut rhubarb at Les Fermes Serbi, Quebec’s biggest rhubarb farm at St-Eustache. Photo: Gordon Beck

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Made In Quebec: A Culinary Journey, by Julian Armstrong, published in October, 2014, by Harper Collins Canada, Toronto

The book, from a food journalist who has called Quebec home for more than 50 years, offers a taste of today’s cuisine in every part of Quebec, the 135 recipes divided into the four seasons, and the text describing Quebec’s love affair with food throughout history. The focus of the book is the fresh, new style of regional cuisine enjoyed in restaurants and homes from Montreal to Gaspé, Saguenay to the Eastern Townships, Abitibi to Charlevoix. Included are stories about the food producers and the newly developed foods, the traditional dishes such as pâté chinois, tourtière, soupe aux pois and tarte au sirop d’érable, and the development of Quebec wine and beer.

Julian has persuaded almost 100 chefs and cooks to part with their recipes for their specialties, and Montreal food specialist Michelle Gélinas has tested each recipe to make sure it will work in the home kitchen. Gordon Beck’s evocative photographs of his beloved Quebec and Ryan Szulc’s fine food photographs make the book beautiful. It’s a book to read and to savour, to cook from and to learn from.

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REVIEWS

“ Son jugement sur la gastronomie québécoise est juste et sans équivoque. Elle montre avec son ouvrage combine elle affectionne les artisans, les chefs et tous ceux qui ont contribué, comme elle, à faire grandir le Quebec gourmand. Une livre magnifique…”

-Philippe Mollé, Le Devoir

“an incredible authority on Quebec cooking…she explores all facets of the food-fixated province…Armstrong’s recipes, thoroughly tested, are spot-on and easy to make…This is your armchair travel guide to Quebec…”

– Lucy Waverman, The Globe and Mail 

“Long before we debated about ‘Canadian’ cuisine there was Quebec. No one knows this better than Julian Armstrong.”

– Bonnie Stern, National Post 

“The lavishly illustrated book brims with Armstrong’s abundant love for the ingredients and deeply rooted dishes from throughout her province. It includes scores of recipes from Quebec’s chefs and producers…from traditional favourites such as Saguenay tourtière and maple syrup pie to more contemporary fare such as scallops with miso ‘the Nobu way.’”

 – Peter Hum, Ottawa Citizen

“It’s clear Julian Armstrong simply adores writing about the culinary scene in her adopted province of Quebec. She has parlayed her enthusiasm into ‘Made in Quebec: A Culinary Journey,’ a book that is…the culmination of her own journey exploring the passions of farmers, purveyors, chefs and home cooks… she trailed after a fiddlehead forager, visited sugar shacks, cheesemakers, bakers, fish plants and all kinds of farms, observing the raising of luscious strawberries, frisky lambs, deer and asparagus. Quebec cooks believe in keeping their food traditions alive but aren’t afraid to tweak traditional recipes, she says.”

– Lois Abraham, Canadian Press (Huffington Post)

“Made In Quebec sera le cadeau parfait à apporter à votre cousine de Vancouver, votre oncle de New York ou n’importe quel cuisinier aimant la bonne bouffe généreuse et savoureuse.”

– Antoine Gélinas, Bouchées Doubles blog

“Long-time food writer for the Montreal Gazette, Julian Armstrong has learned how to make salt cod in traditional Gaspé style on the Bay of Chaleur, watched the spectacular cranberry harvest on the south shore of the St. Lawrence River, and tasted a revived fresh farm cheese called Le Paillasson on Île-d’Orléans…Made in Quebec: A Culinary Journey, showcases both traditional and new recipes from chefs and cooks. ‘The main thing about Quebec (cuisine) is that there is great respect for the traditions of the past. The love of the early recipes (is still present) in family cooking,’ Armstrong says.”

– Laura Brehaut, Postmedia News

“Ce livre-là…est une declaration d’amour au Québec…goûtant à tout et rapportant 135 recettes de chefs et cuisiniers, testées par Michelle Gélinas, proposes par saisons…Rien n’a été oublié…”

– Nicole Charest, Vin et gastronomie, Petit journal gourmand

“Avec son flair, elle a vite dépisté les chefs qui, depuis nombreuse années, s’attachent à préserver nos plats traditionnels ou à les moderniser par les techniques plus avancées et des saveurs au gout du jour…l’auteure observe la nouvelle passion de ces chefs pour les produits de proximité et pour leur fraîcheur…L’auteur y rattache des portraits de ces homes et de ces femmes chefs, de ces agricultures et producteurs qui ont façonné le visage culinaire de la province.”

– Rollande Desbois, La gastronomie avec Rollande Desbois, Réseau d’information des ainés du Québec

“Divided into seasonal chapters, each page of this book is to be savoured for its delicious content and outstanding photography. Armstrong weaves a colourful quilt of cheese makers, mushroom foragers, great chefs and farmers, salt cod fishermen, fruit scientists and growers to name but a few. Dozens more are highlighted, all playing an immeasurable role within Quebec’s culinary culture. With her extensive knowledge of Quebecois food, she delves into the history of some of the province’s most iconic eats like poutineand pâté chinois and goes beyond the obvious to unearth delicious tidbits and shed a new outlook on products and dishes that have become part of our everyday lives. I was mesmerized and couldn’t put the book down and I am sure you will be just as fascinated.

– Mayssam, Will Travel for Food Blog

“Her affection runs deep for such places in the province and for the people she has met and the food she has tasted at their tables, and her boundless enthusiasm for her work has endured in a career spanning more than half a century. Armstrong, 82, is a reporter’s reporter, thorough and curious and enterprising. She’s also lots of fun.”

-Susan Schwartz, the Montreal Gazette (With video interview)

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A Taste of Quebec, published by Macmillan Canada in 1990 and completely revised in 2001, includes six versions of tourtière along with the history and lore of the best of cuisine Quebecois.

As food editor of the Montreal Gazette, author Julian Armstrong has tasted her way around Quebec many times and this is her first recipe and Quebec food book. It offers 114 recipes that show the distinctive culinary customs of each region of Quebec.

Details: 200 pages. Colour and B & W photos.

Where to buy A Taste of Quebec:

Available at:

Appetite for Books
388 Victoria Ave., Westmount, Quebec, J4P 2H8
514-369-2002
www.appetitebooks.ca
info@appetitebooks.ca

Brome Lake Books
45 Chemin Lakeside, Knowlton, QC J0E 1V0
450-242-2242
www.bromelakebooks.ca

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