I took the dogs out after a late afternoon shower, and there was a quite spectacular rainbow, contrasted against the retreating storm clouds. I let the critters romp in the wet grass and clover while soaking in the symphonie fantastique of smells the rain had brought out.
So when I returned to the house, I felt I deserved a feast. The proper ingredients were at hand. I put on some Haydn, and dined on steamed beets and cauliflower, and a freshly made tourtière. Tourtière is a meat pie, usually game or beef or pork, served by French Canadian families throughout throughout the country, and occasionally making an appearance in New England or Minnesota. There are hundreds of variants (that of the Saguenay region being particularly bizarre). In some places it is made “à l’écossaise”, with oatmeal added, and sometimes “à l’irlandaise”, with potatoes added, where Scottish and Irish influence made their mark. It is widely said to have been devised to cook passenger pigeons — which flew across North America in great black clouds of millions before they became extinct. However, I suspect that this was merely one convenient filling for an all-purpose pie brought by Canada’s earliest Norman and Breton settlers. In Canada, meat and game were staples for the independent habitants, though back in France, such dishes would have been only for the rich. In France, today, the word tourtière means a shallow pan for making pies, though I don’t think anything much like the Canadian dish exists there now. It doubtless descends from the Middle Ages, since the meat is slowly simmered with onions, sage, rosemary, savory, nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves, allspice and plenty of black pepper before it is enclosed in a thick, flaky pie crust… a very medieval style of cooking. True to this archaic pattern, it should be served with something sweet on the side: pickled beets, a sweet relish, or even a chutney. In this case, I had some beets handy. At a Christmas réveillon, it would be served as a desert course, competing with the apple and blueberry pies. A documented recipe from the year 1611 is virtually identical to the one used in my family.
Do not, under any circumstances, imagine that a frozen tourtière purchased in a supermarket gives even a hint of this delicacy. Those are fraudulant abominations, no matter how folksy-looking the package.
0 Comments.