I order small plates of bison tongue, rabbit sausage (forgive me Watership Down), garlic flower gnocchi and a glass of red wine. The wine glass is generic but clever. This goblet of petrified fire and sand has Légende carved into it to act as a pour line (which saves restaurants a lot of money on by the glass sales). But I then notice the table next to me ordered a bottle of wine. Their much nicer glasses have no pour line since they’ve paid for the bottle and can overfill each glass as much as they want. I now have wine glass envy.
The meal is excellent. But I’m tired so I grab a taxi back to the hotel. Just when I’m starting to feel like my French can handle Quebecois, I get a taxi driver who doesn’t speak anything but. I can’t understand half of what he says between local slang and his novel pronunciation. I suddenly appreciate why in France, Quebec French movies are sub-titled in French.
…people in Quebec City gripe about Montreal getting most of the Province’s support. Quebec City is the capital of the state of Quebec. It would be like Washington D.C. complaining that Baltimore is gobbling up all of America’s resources
But you can still see the strong echoes of European French culture. Hand gestures still accompany authoritative conversational statements like “Non, c’est obligatoire” (No, that’s obligatory – overheard a wife say this to her husband at Légende while they were talking about sex.)
The following morning, I meet with Yves, the sales manager of La Maison du Gibier. They manufacture French-style terrines and pates. Yves meets me in front of my hotel and we leave downtown Quebec.
Once we hit the suburbs, I notice that most of the houses have white, Center for Disease Control-hazard-containment style tents in their driveways. It turns out that rather than shoveling your driveway all the time, people just park inside temporary tents. A few snow flurries are still blowing. I still haven’t seen either the sun or a blue sky.
As we head north, I ask Yves why people in Quebec City gripe about Montreal getting most of the Province’s support. Quebec City is the capital of the state of Quebec. It would be like Washington D.C. complaining that Baltimore is gobbling up all of America’s resources. I learn that the reality is that three-quarters of the population of the State of Quebec live in the city of Montreal. ‘Nuff said
When we arrive at La Maison du Gibier, I meet the owners Judy and her brother Jean. As Yves introduces me in his office, I notice that he changes out of his sturdy boots into business shoes! This explains a lot but not soon enough for me to have saved my fancy leather shoes.
La Maison du Gibier (the house of Gibier) is a mix of a pure, artisanal facility and a small batch, semi-industrial producer. There is small room after small room where strong, textured animal muscle is transformed into a pink sludge. Blankets of white lard that are used to line some terrine dishes are folded in one corner (. I walk through their facility past piles of rabbit legs skinned raw and dangling ceiling hooks. The transformation from sinew and muscle into a carnivore’s slurpy unfolds before me.
Pates are self-explanatory, but what is a terrine and why is it special? Think of a terrine as a French take on quiche. But instead of eggs you use meat; and instead of a piecrust you use luscious sheets of fat! While a pate is a smooth puree, terrines have a refreshing chunkiness that fills your mouth with contrasting textures. A good terrine can etch flavors into your tongue like the needle of a record player. (To learn more about texture in food, read anything by Chef Paul Prudhomme. When he talks about layering in dishes it is like a tutorial from Mozart on music).
Being borderline artisanal, La Maison du Gibier is very dedicated to quality. For most manufacturers, pork is a cheap filler for terrine and pate recipes. If you’re having a La Maison du Gibier Wild Boar pate, boar will be first on the ingredient list. But while their product quality is excellent their pricing is much higher than their lower quality competitors. Even retail buyers and chefs who will pay more for quality have their limits…The US market is brutally competitive and what attracts me to La Maison du Gibier is their high level of quality. Time will tell.
After my visit, Yves kindly gives me a ride to the Quebec airport where everyone is friendly and polite. The brusqueness of Quebecois culture is refreshing compared to the B.C.B.G. (bon chic bon genre – fancy pants upper crust) mentality of Paris that I experienced during my chef training there.
Another Snowstorm, Another City
While boarding my plane to Montreal, I realize that the entire time I’ve been in Quebec I haven’t seen the sun or Canadian blue sky. The people here are so charming that I barely noticed. Or I was struggling so hard to understand what they were saying that I barely noticed. Eh, could go either way.
When Air Canada drops me off in Montreal, it is still snowing. Passengers exit the plane directly onto the tarmac. We walk through sub-zero artic air to the airport entrance. People are packed in front of the automatic door, which is not living up to fifty percent of its name. It is stuck shut. After five very cold minutes, a husky stewardess muscles her way to the front of the crowd. With her bare hands she slowly pries the metal door open despite the “automated” resistance. Wow. Her French ancestors must’ve bred generations of women who beat the crap out of anyone who got in their way. I suddenly see the earlier Québecoise wife’s “C’est obligatoire” in a new light.