GastronautQuebec Report

[VivreManger]

We just came back from a ten-day family trip to Quebec, a thousand miles from western Massachusetts into the Eastern Townships (due north of US I-91), through the Île d'Orleans, Quebec City, and Montreal. Over the next few days I will be posting brief day by day accounts. Separate detailed excursus will address specific sites of interest. Some of the high points include Auberge Hatley, Les Chevres, au Pied de Cochon, smoked meat tasting in Montreal, wonderful cheeses and breads, ice ciders, and artisanal preserves and syrups acquired during a bit of gastrotourism.

By way of thanks to all whose advice made this trip so delightful, I hope these reports will be a small token of useful gratitude.

Day one, Thursday:

Lunch at Lou's Restaurant, 30 South Main St., Hanover, NH, 03755, 603-643-3321

Good corned beef hash, though home fried potatoes a bit dry. Good muffins. Pies looked good as well, but by then too full to try. A more detailed discussion is best for the New England Forum.

Arrival at Lake Massawippi late Thursday afternoon. Quick trip to local metropolis, Magog, to pick up phone card for the official eGullet cell-phone, provided courtesy of FatGuy.

Magog has prospered from summer visitors. Many well-appointed and neatly painted wooden signs for shops and restaurants dot its Main St. The particular flavor of the month seems to be sushi which has spread like kudzu all over the small towns of the Eastern Townships. Who goes to the Eastern Townships to eat sushi?

Made the required visit to the local supermarket, in this case Metro Plouffe. Decades ago Quebec used to be dominated by two major supermarket chains, but they have disappeared to be replaced by independently owned and operated stores. The two biggest are IGA -- the American based buying cooperative -- and Metro. Each Metro store bears the name of the local owner-operator. Thus here it is Metro Plouffe, no relation to the famous Quebec soap opera.

What distinguishes Quebec supermarkets from stores in the US is the abundance of charcuterie and cheeses. Terrines, rilletes, and pates proliferate. The variety of cheeses is also great. Apple ciders -- from sweet to hard -- are much more common. For the kids we found a nectar des pommes from Isle d'Orleans, a sweet sparkling very rich apple-tasting concoction The market for hard cider is much greater and the taxes on this product must be lower than in the States so the sweet stuff is often more expensive or about the same price as the alcoholic.

Another feature of Quebec markets is the variety of canned salmons. While US markets typically stock Rubenstein and one or two other brands and types, Canadian markets sell several types under three or four brand names I have never seen in the States. I picked up some fish curiously all canned in the US: one can of Sockeye sold under the Vancouver-based Clover Leaf label, Pacific Keta Salmon, sold under the Red Rose label, a division of Clover Leaf, based in Ontario, Ocean's Wild Pink Salmon packed for Ocean's Fisheries in Richmond BC, and Gold Seal pink sold by Vancouver-based Canadian Fishing Company. The last was the only non-Alaska salmon in the bunch. Clover Leaf Sockeye is the only one I have tasted before. Since I have yet to open any of them, a tasting report will have to wait.

Edited July 13, 2003 by VivreManger (log)

[docsconz]

Nice reportI I am looking forward to your continuing saga as I too have a strong interest in visiting this part of the world with an emphasis on gastrotourism.

Lou's in Hanover brings back a lot of memories. I haven't been there in years, but in my day it was a popular place for breakfast and well prepared, but fairly basic meals for the college crowd.

Canned salmon has never really done it for me, although I can't say I've tried too many different kinds or brands. In fact, I really haven't tried it very much at all Do you have a particular use for it over say fresh or smoked salmon? We don't really see much canned salmon in the US. Tuna seems to be much more prevalent here. To be honest, I don't really eat much of that either, although I like the Italian style canned in olive oil for a nice salad nicoise.

[Fat Guy]

Wonderful. Looking forward very much to the rest of the series.

[identifiler]

Me too Vivre, I am leaving for jardin de Metis next week, then over to tadoussac, then back. But before, I must face the reality of Washington DC and it's lobbyist.

Especially looking forward to stops made in specialty shops/growers/producers.

[VivreManger]

Thanks for the responses.

For those who have not yet looked it over, the discussion initiated by identiflier, Market offering and analysis for grower, also addresses the question of food marketing in Quebec and expands and corrects what I said about supermarket networks, http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?act=ST...=0entry330415

He does confirm that the Metro Plouffe in Magog is particularly good about carrying local suppliers.

As for canned salmon, the advantage over the fresh stuff is one that it is convenient and two that unlike most of what we get year-round, ??I THINK??, it is more likely to be wild.

On a hot summer day when one wants a quick healthy meal, drop the contents of a chilled can of salmon on a plate -- skin, juice, bones and all -- sprinkle on some lemon juice and pepper, and eat with farmer's market lettuce and tomato and hearty bread, spread or not spread with a bit of butter. I prefer to eat the whole contents neat, unadulterated by mayonaisse. The salmon bones have been softened through the heating and can be crunched down as well, a good source of calcium.

I did have a college roommate who spent some time working in an Alaska salmon canning factory, not the best of his memories, though he did make some money, shades of Cannery Row. However his stories were not so Sinclair Updikean as to make me swear off tinned salmon.

As for the wild versus farmed question, I leave that to others to sort out, but I suspect that this salmon is caught in the sea, not harvested from a farm.

Edited July 14, 2003 by VivreManger (log)

[gracelee]

Dear Vivremanger:

Thanks so much for doing this - esp. looking forward to your Massawippi writeups and learning what's transpired since I was there last year.

Grace

[identifiler]

If farmed salmon as literaly taken over as the offering in markets and even specialised markets, my gut feeling is that the can market was there years ago...

Anyone knows where 95% of the Atlantic Salmon comes from ? Fish farms in Chili, they fly them in Miami every 24 hours, from there all the way to Montreal.

Anyone knows where most of the Canadian Atlantic salmon comes from ? BC, that's right, Atlantic Salmon grown in the inlets.

I would have to say that salmon is probably one of the product that has gone down in quality with years of commercialisation. The fish feed is very questionnable (if you ever wondered about those carne flower fed cows...), the infection rates due to overpopulation is constant and a sunbject of intense research, vaccin injections... The feed must contain a naturally or non naturally red dye pigment because the harvested salmon do not have access to it's regular diet of krill, shrimp or larvea, so they add the coloring for looks.

Last time I got a salmon filet, it was a special order at Atwater to get wild salmon, it came from Alaska. Alaska is one of the largest producer of wild salmon, the price was pretty obscene, the difference was obvious.

Here are some info on the practice in general:

http://www.organicconsumers.org/Toxic/fish...farm_salmon.cfm

Here is the report of last year's disaster. Unfortunately, the pictures of a large blender boat pumping up 1,000,000 small salmon and chopping it up in fine particules to go dump it away from the coast have been removed. It smelled pretty bad in the inlets last year.

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/stor...80651_20308180/

[VivreManger]

Since most of the cans are stamped Alaska, at the very least it was probably packed there. As for where the salmon actually came from and whether it is wild or farmed, I can't say.

To begin to answer that question, we would have to know whether or not they farm salmon in Alaska. If they do, then farmed salmon probably ends up in the can, but if they don't farm it there, the chances that the canned is wild, increase. For what it is worth only one of the cans specificied that the salmon was wild. The others avoided the issue.

In the States, around 4 July the local Massachusetts markets stock Alaska King salmon, which I have always assume is wild. At other times, it -- and other northwest varieties -- is only available at Whole Food Markets and then only occasionally. The difference between the two is significant and certainly worth the price. The wild not only has more flavor, it also reveals much more variation from fish to fish.

Edited July 14, 2003 by VivreManger (log)