Wednesday, August 26, 2009
It Was Sticky
I shook Martin Picard's hand today. It wasn't really sticky, but he seems about 8 feet tall and must weigh over 500 pounds. The man's a living legend, a monster of decadent cuisine, like some kind of backwoods Québecois ogre. I was humbled. Of course I spoke only French to him.
Sunday, August 23, 2009
There Is No Good Poutine West of Ottawa
Before I left, I had some crazy notions in my head. The biggest and craziest of them all was that I would not only land a job in my first week, but that it would be a dream job. For anyone who knows me, it will come as no surprise that I have a long and deep interest in food, and an obsession with the professional kitchen. So, of course, I had settled in my mind that I would go to the most famous and one of the best restaurants in all of Canada, Au Pied de Cochon, and sweet talk my anglo ass into a gig as a dishwasher, where little French would be required and I could work around the kitchen staff.
Needless to say, that did not happen.
Still, just look at how important a part in my life food has played. The biggest dream I had before coming to Québec was to slave in a hot, cramped restaurant kitchen exactly when everyone else was going out on the town and having fun. A part of me (an unhealthily addicted part) craves the toil of making really great food for other people. Some of my happiest days were spent running sandwiches at the Prairie Croissant, and not just because I had a wonderful group of people to work with.
And, beyond that, I appreciate good food, and I like to savor it slowly. I like complicated, antiquated preparations. I really, really like maple syrup. I could not have come to a better province. The Québecois have much in common with their French ancestors in this arena, as well as basically owning the world’s maple sap harvest.
There is a fast food dish popular throughout Canada called poutine. I knew that it had originated in Montréal, but all the Canadians I knew until very recently were anglophones from Ontario and farther west. Here in Québec, though, poutine is a symbol of semi-national pride. I had been in country a week before I had a proper plate of poutine, and people were shocked it took me so long whenever poutine came up in conversation. And it came up a lot.
As with so much of Québecois culture, poutine has spread and been adopted by the rest of the country. I think this appropriation has led to the fierce desire for independence - at least cultural, if not political and economic - from the greater Canadian nation-state. There are many other examples of this: the ever-present maple syrup, the Canadiens hockey team, the proud flying of the fleur-de-lis. I have gotten to know a girl here who has a tattoo between her shoulder blades. At first, I thought it was like any other tattoo a young woman would have, some sort of a colorful, stylized pattern. But, the other night, I was surprised to see that it was actually a word: Liberté.
There is also the same duality here between the cutting edge of the moment (à la mode) and the protections afforded tradition in every day life as I have observed many times in France and Belgium. It seems to be a peculiarly francophone paradox: How does the same culture have both the Paris Fashion Week and 56 types of regionally-protected cheeses? How does the same nation produce most of its electricity from nuclear power and yet very few homes air conditioning? How can the same country hold the high speed train record and yet be France?
Montréal is the cultural capital of Canada, as well, yet Québecois I have met seem perfectly at ease. That is really the heart of the matter, it seems to me. There is no striving after more wealth, because the francophones here realize that the cultural wealth they have is more than enough to stand up against all the rest of Canada. Au Pied de Cochon is a perfect example of this paradox: It is among the hottest dining spots in all of Canada, but the food is rustic fare, the sort of food les habitants might have eaten 400 years ago.
By the way, I may not be a dishwasher at Au Pied de Cochon, because I’m cooking there. And it sucks. A lot.
Needless to say, that did not happen.
Still, just look at how important a part in my life food has played. The biggest dream I had before coming to Québec was to slave in a hot, cramped restaurant kitchen exactly when everyone else was going out on the town and having fun. A part of me (an unhealthily addicted part) craves the toil of making really great food for other people. Some of my happiest days were spent running sandwiches at the Prairie Croissant, and not just because I had a wonderful group of people to work with.
And, beyond that, I appreciate good food, and I like to savor it slowly. I like complicated, antiquated preparations. I really, really like maple syrup. I could not have come to a better province. The Québecois have much in common with their French ancestors in this arena, as well as basically owning the world’s maple sap harvest.
There is a fast food dish popular throughout Canada called poutine. I knew that it had originated in Montréal, but all the Canadians I knew until very recently were anglophones from Ontario and farther west. Here in Québec, though, poutine is a symbol of semi-national pride. I had been in country a week before I had a proper plate of poutine, and people were shocked it took me so long whenever poutine came up in conversation. And it came up a lot.
As with so much of Québecois culture, poutine has spread and been adopted by the rest of the country. I think this appropriation has led to the fierce desire for independence - at least cultural, if not political and economic - from the greater Canadian nation-state. There are many other examples of this: the ever-present maple syrup, the Canadiens hockey team, the proud flying of the fleur-de-lis. I have gotten to know a girl here who has a tattoo between her shoulder blades. At first, I thought it was like any other tattoo a young woman would have, some sort of a colorful, stylized pattern. But, the other night, I was surprised to see that it was actually a word: Liberté.
There is also the same duality here between the cutting edge of the moment (à la mode) and the protections afforded tradition in every day life as I have observed many times in France and Belgium. It seems to be a peculiarly francophone paradox: How does the same culture have both the Paris Fashion Week and 56 types of regionally-protected cheeses? How does the same nation produce most of its electricity from nuclear power and yet very few homes air conditioning? How can the same country hold the high speed train record and yet be France?
Montréal is the cultural capital of Canada, as well, yet Québecois I have met seem perfectly at ease. That is really the heart of the matter, it seems to me. There is no striving after more wealth, because the francophones here realize that the cultural wealth they have is more than enough to stand up against all the rest of Canada. Au Pied de Cochon is a perfect example of this paradox: It is among the hottest dining spots in all of Canada, but the food is rustic fare, the sort of food les habitants might have eaten 400 years ago.
By the way, I may not be a dishwasher at Au Pied de Cochon, because I’m cooking there. And it sucks. A lot.
Crème Glacée in the Rain
I really like this city. It's beautiful, maybe more beautiful than Chicago, and more walkable. This has to be one of the nicest cities I've had the pleasure to visit. If only there weren't so many people from Ontario.
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