Host Daniel Pinard died at the age of 82, the Goodwin agency, which represents him, announced on Wednesday. The announcement of the death was first made public by Radio-Canada early in the evening. Mr. Pinard participated in several television and radio shows starting in the 1970s, becoming a key figure in the Quebec culinary community.
Among his many feats of arms are Sky !my Pinard And Feet in the dishesbroadcast on Télé-Québec at the end of the 1990s and the beginning of the 2000s. He also published the books with Boréal Pinardises. Recipes and culinary comments in 1994 and More Pinardises in 2000. On the radio, he contributed to the show Since you have to get upat 98.5.
“We will miss his intelligence,” said the columnist of the Duty Josée Blanchette, who collaborated with Mr. Pinard more than two decades ago. Although they had since moved away, she has very good memories of her former colleague, with whom she had “mutual admiration”. “We had this love for cooking, a form of hedonism […] we could talk about everything. »
He did a lot to get people interested in cooking, she says. “It opened the eyes of Quebecers” to the importance of small producers and the origin of food, adds Mme Blanchette. She also recalled his involvement in social battles: “He had to fight for gay rights, it was not easy at the time. »
“A generous rebel”, this is how Marie-France Bazzo describes him, who collaborated with Daniel Pinard on Pierre Bourgault’s show Pleasuresbroadcast on Radio-Canada in the early 1990s. Mme Bazzo remembers Mr. Pinard as “someone kind and generous, but deeply rebellious”.
The host and columnist’s training as a sociologist shone through in his work, according to her. “He had major food crusades on different subjects,” she says, particularly in relation to the origin of the products consumed and the link between food and social classes.
She also praises his authenticity: “There was no difference between the public persona and the person in private. » He wanted to make cooking accessible to everyone and… “he hated recipes! » says Mme Bazzo.
The news immediately sparked a reaction on social networks, which were flooded with messages of love for the deceased.
“He made us love cooking, made us love culture. Daniel Pinard was enthusiastic, passionate, a cultured and irreverent man to whom we owe a lot,” wrote columnist Michel Coulombe on Facebook.
“Great communicator, host, columnist, author and cook. He left his mark on Quebec television for decades,” declared the Minister of Canadian Heritage, Pascale St-Onge.
“Daniel Pinard will have given millions of Quebecers the taste for eating well. He was also a man of great culture, a humanist generous with his time and his knowledge, an exceptional communicator […] Quebec is losing a great progressive,” said the co-spokesperson for Québec solidaire, Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, on X.
“Epicurean par excellence”, a man “with colorful words”, “deeply sensitive and brilliant”: the comments were full of praise for the man who left his mark on the screen, on paper, but above all on the plate of many Quebecers.