Daniel Pinard, cook and storyteller

This confession from Daniel Pinard, who died at the age of 82 on Wednesday afternoon, surprised me. Pinard, poet of casseroles, who hates recipes?

It was because the scholar had somehow created a monster with his Pinardises and his TV shows, which we quoted everywhere, all the time.

I remember when Télé-Québec entrusted him with Sky! my Pinarda meeting that would become unmissable on Friday evening.

After Janette, who had reigned in this time slot for a long time, it was Pinard’s turn to kick off the weekend in a brilliant and fun way.

You don’t even have to like cooking, you watch him for him, for his way of telling stories about cooking.

A very discreet Josée di Stasio served as her foil, before becoming the one we know.

To say that Daniel Pinard reinvented the way of making culinary TV is no exaggeration. Everything seemed so simple, everything was done with pleasure.

And then, one day: “I’ve had enough quiche recipes!”

Became along the way Feet in the dishesthe show ended in full glory in 2002.

Pinard, who was much more interested in the impact of globalization on our food than in aligning ingredients, had had enough of “recipes”.

Daniel Pinard was a man of principle and conviction. The bosses everywhere he worked had to take him as he was.

When Flowers and gardens on TVA became a plogue show a little too much for his taste, he took the exit door.

Long before cafes offered us soy, oat or almond options before preparing us a latte, Pinard repeated everywhere that we should no longer drink milk, intended for newborns according to him.

Then, he went to war against the Ministry of Agriculture in the raw milk cheese affair.

His virulent exit to Francs-tireurs against homophobic jokes Hot pepper had left its mark. It was even said that this was what sounded the death knell for the TVA show.

“How can a society accept that we say on the air Hot pepper profanities like: the cursed dyke of Acadia? The dyke of Acadia will shut up, but Brathwaite, I won’t shut up!”

No, Pinard, it’s not just about cooking and eating.

At Radio-Canada, he worked in so-called serious journalism, notably in the beginnings of the show The point in the early 1980s, alongside Lépine, Courtemanche and Désautels.

Afterwards, the cultural sector briefly gave him a place on the show The big visitbefore it passes to Consumption at Radio-Québec, where he was already doing “recipes”.

It was indeed the cuisine that made him famous. I remember hearing him tell his recipes to Suzanne Lévesque at CKAC. Telling recipes on the radio had to be done.

And even if he had promised not to make any more revenues, he will resume his apron in 2007 to From the heart to the stomachhis last regular foray into television.

His book, Pinardisesremains a reference in cooking. We bet that several will be sold in the coming days.

In addition to rare interventions on social networks and an interview with my colleague from The Press Yves Boisvert, he had disappeared from TV screens for almost 10 years. His last most notable appearance dates back to Everyone is talking about it in 2015, then in a documentary entitled I salute you Pinardwhich should be rebroadcast.

Even though he adopted controversial positions, often to provoke and make people think, his outspokenness and his indignation were already missing from the public sphere.

And, whatever he thinks, so do his “recipes”.

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