Arriving in Quebec as part of a political science exchange student in the early 2000s, Gwenaëlle Reyt wanted to discover the local food culture. “I asked people around me what Quebec specialties were and where we could taste them. People told me that we mainly ate culinary specialties at Christmas, like tourtière, but that Quebec cuisine was not interesting enough for restaurants, she recalls. They told me about poutine, of course, and the sugar shack, but that was about it.”
After returning to Switzerland to complete her studies, she began a career as a journalist there. Initially specializing in politics, she turned to food once she returned to Quebec in 2009, working for the daily newspaper The Duty and as head of the gastronomic section of the cultural weekly See. At the same time, she enrolled in the certificate in management and sociocultural practices of gastronomy, where she met professor Julia Csergo. Now retired, this gastronomy historian had just been hired at ESG UQAM at the time. “She convinced me to explore the question of Quebec food identities for my doctorate,” explains the graduate, who was a lecturer at ESG UQAM and the ITHQ, and who holds the position of advisor in cultural approaches to the supply for the Council of Reserved Appellations and Valuing Terms.
Newspapers and tourist guides
At the confluence of urban studies, tourism and food studies, Gwenaëlle Reyt offers in her thesis an analysis of the representations of Quebec food identities through the Montreal restaurant of the period between 1960 and 2017. “I carried out a documentary analysis of articles from the French- and English-speaking Montreal daily press – Duty, The Press, The Gazette and the Montreal Star –, printed American and French travel guides and restaurant guides, she explains. The objective was to analyze how the Quebec restaurant has been presented in Montreal since 1960.”
History and traditions
His research shed light on the evolution of a so-called “French-Canadian” cuisine, which gradually became “Quebec” from the 1980s. With its local accents, this identity cuisine refers to history and a tradition whose origins go back to New France, observes the researcher. “It consists of typical dishes with, among others, tourtière, cipaille, paw stew and sugar tart, all of these dishes being present in my corpus from 1960 until 2017,” she notes.
His research shed light on the evolution of so-called “French-Canadian” cuisine, which gradually became “Quebec” from the 1980s.
This register has evolved over time, enriched by other dishes from popular culture such as baked beans, shepherd’s pie and pudding chômeur, or the tradition of snacks and fast cooking.
Iconic restaurants
The most emblematic restaurants of Quebecois identity cuisine belong to different categories. This ranges from small neighborhood restaurants – La Binerie Mont-Royal, L’Anecdote, Chez Claudette, Ma-aam Bolduc, which have mostly closed their doors since the pandemic – to establishments banking on a New France atmosphere such as Les Filles du Roy or Le Festin du Gouverneur, also disappeared, passing through more sophisticated addresses, like the Auberge Saint-Gabriel and the Pied de Cochon.
Quebec’s culinary identity is little embodied in regional specialties such as tourtière from Lac-Saint-Jean, Gaspésie cipaille made from cod, pot-au-feu from Bas-du-Fleuve, or pot-en- seafood pot from the Magdalen Islands, notes the researcher. “In Montreal, a regional specificity is mainly built around the smoked meat and bagels, from the 1980s. But, for many, these specialties remain identified with Eastern Europe.”
Another dish associated with Montreal is “BBQ chicken,” a specialty that has made the reputation of several restaurants, including Laurier Barbecue, Chalet Barbecue and the St-Hubert BBQ chain. “The guide Ulysses of 1991 specifies that this chain is well known to Quebecers and that its success, which is reflected in the presence of several branches in the city, confirms its “Quebecness”,” underlines Gwenaëlle Reyt.
Poutine appeared on the media radar in the 1990s. “At first, poutine was a curiosity in the register of fast foodbut, quite quickly, it becomes an identity dish, she emphasizes. Chef Martin Picard, with his foie gras poutine, has brought the dish to gastronomy.”
The rise of local products
Starting in the mid-1990s, new Quebec cuisine, creative and contemporary, marked a break with notions of tradition and history. “Its identity dimension is based on the use of local products rather than emblematic dishes,” she emphasizes. We think in particular of Brome Lake duck or Charlevoix lamb. Among the brands associated with this trend, we find the ITHQ restaurant and La Fabrique, very close on Saint-Denis Street, Aix cuisine du terroir and Le Club Chasse et Pêche, in Old Montreal, and Laurie Raphaël, from Quebec, who had a Montreal branch between 2008 and 2018.
-From the mid-1990s, new Quebec cuisine, creative and contemporary, marked a break with notions of tradition and history.
Thierry Debeur, author of Guides Debeurwrote in his 2002 guide that “cuisine is not defined only by the use of regional products nor by the nationality of the people who make it. It is above all the way in which we work with the products and the way in which we eat them (…) Quebec cuisine must draw its sources from the recipes of our grandmothers, recipes that we no longer find today. only in families and sugar shacks. Only great chefs are capable of elevating this culinary tradition that is currently still rustic, even folkloric, according to some, to the level of great and fine Quebec cuisine, while respecting the taste and way of doing things in Quebec. .”
“The posture defended by Debeur has only been adopted by a few restaurants which maintain the reference to tradition while gastronomizing it,” analyzes Gwenaëlle Reyt. These are the Castillon, now closed, and the restaurant Le Pied de Cochon.”
Decor and location
The different culinary registers are echoed in the decor of the establishments where they are served, notes Gwenaëlle Reyt. “In restaurants identified with French-Canadian cuisine, for example, the decor refers to the history of New France,” she explains. In Old Montreal, where gray stone and wood were in the spotlight, certain addresses even offered a staging with costumed waiters and dinner shows on the theme of New France. These restaurants that were popular in the 1960s and 1970s, like Les Filles du Roy, have disappeared today.
Other restaurants with nostalgic 1950s decor evoke the diners North Americans. “The particularity of this decor is that it includes few elements: a long counter, stools and a few tables. It is the lack of decor that becomes attractive, because it is considered authentic, explains Gwenaëlle Reyt. The most emblematic restaurant of this type of place is La Binerie Mont-Royal.”
In parallel with her analysis of the different settings, the researcher noted a geographic movement of Quebec cuisine restaurants, first established in the city center and in Old Montreal. “From the 1980s, we noted the opening of restaurants on the Plateau-Mont-Royal, then, from the 2000s, in other French-speaking sectors of the city, including Rosemont–La-Petite-Patrie, Hochelaga, the Centre-Sud, Verdun and Saint-Henri.”
A question of national affirmation
With the evolution of an increasingly diverse society, the question of collective identity and its cultural expressions is at the heart of numerous debates both in Quebec and in its relations with the rest of Canada, analyzes Gwenaëlle Reyt. “Affirming a food identity or questioning it is not without consequences. Although they are the result, itself in evolution, of multiple influences, national cuisines are constructions linked to national affirmation,” she underlines.
Without claiming to be exhaustive, his research laid the foundations for thinking about Quebec food identity. And since her work is part of the doctorate in urban studies, she makes a link with tourism. “We have observed in recent years the growth of gourmet tourism and the desire of cities to position themselves in this attractive and profitable niche,” she analyzes.
Food identities, continues the researcher, constitute a tourism and economic and territorial development issue for Quebec and Montreal. “As many visitors and newcomers continue to ask the question underlying my thesis – what is Quebec cuisine and where can we taste it? – and as long as the answers are lacking, the exploration of the expressions of Quebec food identities will remain relevant,” she concludes.
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