Montréal's Curious Culinary Custom: The Dep

Almost every block in Montréal has a "dep", depanneur, a curious blend of convenience store, mom 'n pop, neighborhood meeting place. Every one is its own unique thing, reflecting its neighborhood. The Montréal Gazette ran a nice piece on the phenomenon Saturday morning. Here's a bit of unknown French Canada for you all!

Geo

My son went to McGill for a year, so I remember shopping at deps when we visited him. They bring to mind the Chicago institution of "corner stores" -- mom and pop convenience selection tailored to the local population, neighborhood gathering spot (always a couple of very harmless old men sitting on milk crates out front drinking the day away), the place that you knew would be open late at night so you felt safer walking home from the bus. The place where they knew you and told you that you did not really want to buy that gallon of milk, because your husband had just bought one.

A dying institution in more affluent areas of Chicago due to 7-11 and White Hens, I think, but still alive in lower income neighborhoods.

Geo wrote:Almost every block in Montréal has a "dep", depanneur, a curious blend of convenience store, mom 'n pop, neighborhood meeting place. Every one is its own unique thing, reflecting its neighborhood. The Montréal Gazette ran a nice piece on the phenomenon Saturday morning.

Thank you for sharing this article. I try to keep up with the Gazette, but I would have missed this had you not posted. I have very fond memories of "my" dépanneur in the neighborhood in which I grew up, not far from the Université de Montréal. Mainly, I remember stopping there for candy on the way home from schooI. The dépanneur is still there but with different owners.

Two years ago, I had the idea for a project to map all of the deps in Montréal because I wanted to capture the ways a lot of the stores are tucked away in neighborhoods. This task, unfortunately, would require more time than I have in Montréal now, but I'm nonetheless fascinated by the phenomenon of these stores.

Geo,

Do you think you could take a few pictures? I'd like to include them in the slide show for the Canada program.

Regards,

Sure C2, I'll just get a few in the neighborhood, a variety. When's your deadline??

Geo

Cathy2 wrote:Geo,

Do you think you could take a few pictures? I'd like to include them in the slide show for the Canada program.

Cathy, I'm sure Geo can get you some good shots, but in case you need more, there's a also a pretty neat Dépanneurs du Québec Flickr pool.

Some of those are *really* nice, h_s, tnx for the cite/site§. C2, you *should* be able to use those, they're on the public flickr. If not, I'll take some for you.

Geo

PS. I hope all of you would be suitably jealous to know that I've just made a quick run to Marché Jean-Talon for chile, rosemary, terragon and dill plants, a large miche de compagne from Boulangerie Premiere-Moison, and a livre de fettucini frais from the pastry maker. Ah, Montréal!!

§ Or is site-cite even better?

Geo wrote:PS. I hope all of you would be suitably jealous to know that I've just made a quick run to Marché Jean-Talon for chile, rosemary, terragon and dill plants, a large miche de compagne from Boulangerie Premiere-Moison, and a livre de fettucini frais from the pastry maker.

Extremely jealous.

Geo wrote:PS. I hope all of you would be suitably jealous to know that I've just made a quick run to Marché Jean-Talon for chile, rosemary, terragon and dill plants, a large miche de compagne from Boulangerie Premiere-Moison, and a livre de fettucini frais from the pastry maker. Ah, Montréal!!

The other day, my wife ran over to Jewel for a box of elbow macaroni, but they were out. Seriously.

In other words, screw you & your awesome deps