Agro-touristique, Québec-style

During the last decade, the local food movement has hit Québec hard. With encouragement (including monetary support) from the provincial government, local products ("produits du terroir") ranging at the bottom end from fruit and veg, lamb and duck, cidre and wine to, at the top end, restaurants and b&b's that present these products. Last Saturday, Debbie and I accompanied our good friends Nicole and Jean on a day trip out of Montréal to visit several places we'd heard about, sample their wares, and bring goodies back in the two iced-down coolers we'd taken.

Our first stop was at a farmstand outside l'Assomption, a beautiful village 40 minutes or so northeast of the city.



The stand was loaded with gorgeous stuff, but mostly we were looking for Québec strawberries, the best berries I've ever had in my life! We weren't disappointed:



Next on the docket was the brand-new Trappist monastery at Val-Notre-Dame:




The view from the chapel shows the quiet beauty of the valley:




Our visit necessarily included some shopping at the monastery store, where the Trappists' justly famous Oka cheeses
are sold:




Several of those went into the cooler, plus a few varieties of the monks' newest venture: chocolates! As their numbers have diminished over the years, the monks were forced to move from their centuries-old farm and monastery at Oka to the new place, and change their work from cheese to chocolates. Today, the cheese is made commercially under the monks' supervision at the old place, and they make the chocolates at their new place. Nicely enough, the cheese is still of the same high quality, and is sold all over Canada.

We left the monastery, and wended our way along beautiful roads in the Laurentides—the Laurentian mountains—until we reached our next destination at St-Jean-de-Matha:




The sign says: Ducks Maurel-Coulombe, foie gras and related products, artisanally produced. The red sign says "Country roads". Most of the artisans of the Québec terroir get the signs from their association; they also are allowed to put up a 'tourist attraction' sign on the main road(s) nearest them. The canarderie/duckerie is owned by proprietors




Yvanne Maurel and Martin Coulombe, who are incredibly dedicated (not to mention hard-working). Martin apprenticed for a year in the Perigord to learn his art. The first stage of the process begins when the order (7 times a year) of 180 ducklings arrive. Here you can see the newest arrivals peeking out at us.




Here is the earlier class, a little shy with us, but curious none the less:




The farm is set up for self-guided tours, with a set of seven large signboards that explain all the main steps of the process.





This sign talks about the ducks themselves and what the ducklings do once they've arrived. You can see by the sign that the ducklings are a cross between a South American barbarie duck and the Peking duck. They're sterile 'mules', and all on the farm are males.

Once the ducks reach a certain age, they are allowed to come into the yard and feed at will. By regulating their access to water, the ducks' pre-migratory behavior is entrained, and they eat as if their life depended upon it. This "pre-gavage" —pre-fattening—enlarges the bird's crop enormously, and toughens its throat.





Here's Martin explaining the process to Jean, with ducks chowing down in the background.

Artisanal foie gras production is different from industrial production, and production for individual use, as shown in this sign:




Industrial production involves large numbers of confined animals, fattened pneumatically. Artisanal production involves smaller numbers (80-100) free-ranging birds, fed by hand using a small electric funnel. The birds obviously didn't have the slightest fear of Martin and Yvanne, who worked right in amongst them.

The place has its own beauty: this is the view up the hill from the feeding pen to the pot garden and house:



Right behind the house here can be barely seen the little store. We bought lots of things, including duck fat, duck terrine farcie with huge chunks of foie gras, and, of course, magret de canard! Oh boy! Beautiful stuff.

Jumping in the car, we raced down the mountain road to hit the Chèvrerie Barrousse, where some really great chèvre is made by hand, in small lots:



Lynda Barrousse and her husband raise the goats right there on the farm, and she makes the cheese.

We finished off our agro-tourist day with a stop at our friends Anthony and Sarah's winery, Vignoble Carone,



where we had a bottle of their just-released, simply gorgeous Bin 33 red blend.






And then it was time for home: 45 minutes back to Montréal and the big city, refreshed by a fine day sampling Québec's great produits de terroir, out in the beautiful landscape.


Geo


Ferme André Cormier [farmstand]
Rang l'Achigan
L'Assomption (Québec)
J5W 3M7•450-589-5019

MAGASIN DE L'ABBAYE INC.
220 Cheminde la Montagne-Coupée
St-Jean-de-Matha, Qc, Canada
J0K 2S0

Canards Maurel-Coulombe
1061, rang Sacré-Coeur,
Saint-Jean-de-Matha (Québec)
JOK 2S0 • 450.886.2544

Vignoble Carone
75 rue Roy
Lanoraie (QC)
J0K 1E0•450-887-2728

Chèvrerie Barrousse
3182, Rg. St-André,
St-Cuthbert (Québec)
J0K 2C0•450-836-1865

As if Quebec didn't already have enough to recommend it! Thanks for sharing (I think )