Erudite and popularizer, sensitive and opinionated, Daniel Pinard has left his mark on the plates and hearts of many Quebecers. Tributes to the journalist and gastronome poured in on Wednesday evening, after the announcement of his death at the age of 82.
“I’m stunned, I don’t have the words,” Josée di Stasio, a friend of Daniel Pinard for more than 20 years, said in an Instagram post. “The shock is commensurate with your importance in my life. The sorrow is at the height of your presence. […] I will always keep a part of you alive and well within me,” wrote the one who became known to the public alongside the host on the show Sky ! my Pinard.
“He was a great man, who completely changed the culinary culture in Quebec with his erudition, his culture, his popularization,” underlined chef Josée Robitaille, on the telephone with The Press. The one who became friends with Daniel Pinard 35 years earlier, when she was making her debut in the world of gastronomy, considers the television host to be a true mentor. “We are losing someone immense,” she added.
The biggest lesson he left her? “Cooking with simplicity,” asserts Josée Robitaille without hesitation. “He didn’t cook the most complex dishes with the most unusual foods, but everything he did, he did with heart. I think there was poetry in his cooking,” she recalls.
PHOTO FRANÇOIS ROY, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
Chef Josée Robitaille
Jocelyne Brousseau, producer of the show From heart to stomach, which Daniel Pinard hosted from 2007 to 2009, remembers the sociologist as a proud man with contagious humor. “I can still hear his laughter,” she told The Press.
We gained his trust by making him laugh, and when we succeeded, we discovered someone very sensitive.
Jocelyne Brousseau, producer and friend of Daniel Pinard
The gastronome notably bequeathed to Jocelyne Brousseau his fascination for the author Marcel Proust, whose books he devoured on several occasions. “Right now, my eyes are resting on the records ofIn search of lost time that he gave me, she says. He loved Proust’s humor, and the fact that he spared no one. »
Bereaved employees
Journalist Josée Blanchette, a long-time friend of Daniel Pinard, highlighted “the long years of friendship and complicity” that she shared with the sociologist in a Facebook publication. “What great food and crazy conversations, from Montreal to Playa del Carmen,” she wrote. We were enamored with a sensitivity, humor, irreverence and intelligence that resonated for each other, through each other. » Long years of friendship and complicity. This is the image I want to keep of him.
PHOTO SARAH MONGEAU-BIRKETT, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
Journalist Josée Blanchette
Marie-Claude Goodwin, who was Daniel Pinard’s agent for many years, expressed her sadness at the news of the host’s death. “I am extremely saddened, he is someone I loved very much,” she confided to The Press.
Télé-Québec, broadcaster of the show Sky ! my Pinard from 1998 to 2000, expressed his “sadness” at the announcement of the death of Daniel Pinard. “At each meeting, Daniel’s goal was to reach as wide an audience as possible and to bring people together around the art of the table, no matter where they were. And to gather, he gathered! »
A huge legacy
Several public figures paid tribute to Daniel Pinard on social networks on Wednesday, including the co-spokesperson for Québec solidaire Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois. “I will never forget the meal I had the privilege of sharing with him a few years ago. He had aged a little, but lost none of his sense of indignation, his love of justice and youth… and his absolutely decadent humor,” he wrote.
Chef Chuck Hughes also highlighted the gastronome’s contribution to Quebec culinary culture. “Like many people my age, one of the first people who made me love cooking was Daniel Pinard. An OG who knew how to take the complexity out of cooking and who made us love our ingredients,” he wrote.
Patrick Desmarais, director of Fondation Émergence, highlighted the role that Daniel Pinard played in the fight for LGBTQ+ rights. The host, who served as governor of the Foundation for 20 years, “will have marked several generations with his brilliant mind, his outspokenness and his commitment to diversity and social justice,” according to him.
The Minister of Canadian Heritage, Pascale St-Onge, offered her condolences to those close to Daniel Pinard on X. “Great communicator, host, columnist, author and cook. He marked Quebec television for decades with his shows,” she wrote.
PHOTO MARCO CAMPANOZZI, THE PRESS
For the Background Section. Large portrait of Daniel Pinard. For the front page of Contexte Yves Boisvert paints a large portrait of Daniel Pinard.