Quebec: Food and Drink - The Traveller

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Sunday, March 11, 2012

Quebec: Food and Drink

Kitchen

Quebec gastronomy traditional, calorie and hearty, has virtually disappeared from restaurant menus, except for a few dishes that are now part of folklore. They stand on the tables at family holidays. In everyday life, we eat mostly American-style: hot dogs, hamburgers, pizza and fried chicken, subs (submarines the U.S.), huge sandwiches filled with all sorts of things. Pubs and breweries specialize in nice big steaks, hearty salads with American, fish and chips with salad of cabbage. Near the coast, seafood are present, usually fried ... A mess!


There is also, in cities, sometimes a surprising choice of ethnic cuisine. A lot of immigrants are opening restaurants, and Montreal, for example, one may enjoy as well as Mexican fajitas Greek souvlaki, the Japanese yakitori, or even Ethiopian wat (spicy)! The choice is much more limited elsewhere or nonexistent in the villages.


There are also other Canadian kitchens, most sought after. There is a classical version, French-inspired, mixed of local touches. And then there was the vanguard. This kitchen more creative, more light, showcases the best local produce: fish and seafood, lobster, snow crab, lamb, game, vegetables, goat cheese, seasonal berries, maple syrup ... The trend is organic, and the influence of fusion cuisine, appeared on the U.S. West Coast in the 1990s, is growing.


Despite a few everyday gourmet, Quebec and some parts of the Maritimes have a fabulous meal. One way of flowering inns and gourmet restaurants gourmet ...


Specialties

Quebecers are proud of some of their specialties such as pie, originally made on the basis of several games, to furry and feathered. This "pie" is now usually made from pork and veal mixed.
They are also found at base of caribou or moose meat. During family celebrations and some restaurants, there are still baked beans or stews of pigs' feet. More often, you can taste a duck with maple syrup or turkey with cranberries (cranberries). Otherwise, the soups are very popular, and are found to map all restaurants. Try the greaves (the equivalent of our rillettes), or cretonnade (made of veal or chicken), served at breakfast.


- The fish also appears high on the list of traditional cuisine. Salmon fresh tartare, smoked with maple wood, but unfortunately almost always farmed now (and fatter).


- The seafood is no shortage of either, even if they are too often fried.


- The pâté chinois, a sort of shepherd's pie to which is added corn. This is the dish that gave the most energy in many Asian workers who built the famous line of railway "Trans"! We find a lot of popular restaurants in Montreal, next to the meatball stew ...


- Those who have the rare opportunity to attend a corn of India should not miss it: typical Quebec family reunion, she punctuates the collection of Indian corn and sometimes ends with a party. We buy big bags, boil the ears and are then eaten with salted butter ... and beer.


- One of the specialties of Quebec's poutine. It is fried on which we add "droppings" of cream cheese, all topped with gravy. Poutine has become a symbol of a low-end culinary culture.


- Not to be confused with the Acadian poutine: the raw potato is shredded, then cooked and put to disgorge. The resulting paste is added with crushed potato, shaped into balls the size of a tennis ball stuffed with bacon or pork.


Desserts

Rate sugar pie, not to be confused with the maple sugar pie. Also excellent: pécanes pie (pecan) and blueberry pie (blueberry) in season. Anglophones are also excellent pies and crisps: fruit sprinkled with a mixture of rolled oats and brown sugar baked. Enjoy it as: French toast (French toast) with maple syrup, other classic breakfast.


In Montreal, a taste of the pudding unemployed, a dessert of poor dating from the 1929 crisis, flour, water and brown sugar (now replaced by maple syrup ...).


Treats the radius, we must dare at least once a beaver tail, a kind of waffle without holes, topped with your choice of sugar, chocolate or maple butter. It is found all year in tourist areas, although it is eaten in winter rather ...


Drinks

Be wary of differences between Canadian and French vocabulary.


- Beverage means any beverage hot or cold non-alcoholic.
- Drink only means liquor.
- Liqueur applies to soft drinks.


The wines

The foreign wines are expensive (especially French). At the restaurant, a bottle of wine costs average between 25 and $ 35. The "house wine" in a carafe are 'correct' no more. We will therefore often be content with a glass 6 or $ 7. Some restaurants, however, have no license to sell alcohol and accept that you bring your own bottle of wine (or beer), especially in Montreal! The words "Bring your own wine" is then affixed to the window.


The Quebec wines are sympathetic curiosity. Few restaurants use it, but it can be found in the Quebec Liquor Corporation. Prefer white wine to red, although the reds are on the increase (the Cabernet Franc grape is the most developed).


Beer

Quebec is a major producer of beer, and this is by far the cheapest liquor in the country. Molson Canadian is one of the most popular. Another safe bet: the Labatt Blue. These two giant breweries share the largest market share.


Served by the bottle or the pressure in bars, these industrial beers alcohol content at 5-6 °. The draft beer is a bit cheaper than bottled in bars, restaurants ... Increasingly common, too, many microbreweries produced locally. These semi-artisanal beers are a bit more expensive.
The Quebec beers tend to look like Belgian beers.


Coffee

If the traditional American coffee is still very present in the provinces, most good restaurants and coffee shops are now equipped with coffee machines. Coffee shops, often equipped with a terrace, is the North American version of our coffees. We stopped there for an espresso, cappuccino or caffe latte.


Curiosities

Among the few curiosities: Clamato (tomato juice clam juice statement ...) which falls mainly in the composition of Caesar, Bloody Mary's Canadian cousin, the blueberry wine (our cousin of blueberry), which has very vaguely taste of port, Canadian whiskey (Canadian Club ...) Caribou (dazzling mixture of spirits and wine, sometimes elongated maple syrup), etc.. Quebec also produces honey wine, ice cider, aperitifs cloudberry, etc. ..


Legality

The bars are prohibited at least 18 years, therefore it can not take your children have a drink with you. In general, you will still leave you sit outside if there is a terrace (not guaranteed).



5 comments:

  1. hey thats cool...didnt know...went to Quebec 2 years back but was there for 2 days only and had very conservative in food taste dad and kiddos with us ..so actually cdnt try anything authentic...but just loved those lil cafes dotting the streets.

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  2. Never personally went there but food is the most loved thing on the planet

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  3. Have not been there, only place I did get to go was Missisaga and the Falls, but reading this, almost feels like being there.

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  4. Pies!!! I miss the pies so much...Enjoyed noting why maple syrup was used instead of pies! And the beaver's tail...yummm. Thanks for making me hungry this morn.

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