A Mixed Christmas | The Press

Turkey with cranberries has never tasted so good! After two Christmases like no other, we should experience a kind of “normalcy” this year. Long live the return of traditions! At least that’s what Lysanne O’Bomsawin and her daughter Sogali hope, for whom holiday celebrations rhyme with both family rituals and interbreeding.

When we arrive at the pretty stone house of the O’Bomsawin-Pilon family, in Bécancour, there are two free birds flying between the dining room and the kitchen, a lazy ginger cat and a very impatient young girl. to decorate cookies.

Sogali, 9 and a half years old (she would insist!), loves Christmas, thanks to the rituals that have been in place since birth. No sooner have the Halloween decorations been put away than she’s already taking out the crafts and sprucing up. Her name meaning “sweet moon”, it should come as no surprise that the little one loves baking.

We do not realize it enough, but traditions, when they are not binding, can be a source of great happiness. It is this soft and diffuse feeling of comfort that rises in us when we smell familiar perfumes, when we taste the cuisine of our childhood or when we sit down at the table for a game of Uno or a Monopoly. with family.

“Olfactory and taste memories, above all, are underestimated. However, they have the power to awaken many memories. I did the test with my aunt who suffers from alzheimer, a few years ago, by serving her one of our traditional meals, says Lysanne. She then had the reflex to wish ‟happy birthday” to my father, whose birthday it is Boxing Day, something she had not done for some time. »

The turkey with cranberry cherry sauce she made for our visit is the taste of her youth. “I want to pass it on to my children, along with all the other recipes they have known,” insists the one who is also the mother of a 15-year-old boy, Mika.

Double culinary heritage

In Lysanne O’Bomsawin’s kitchen, there are two handwritten recipe books. The first, very thick, resembles the one that every good “Quebec housewife” cherished, with its macaroni salads, its “Mexican pâtés” and other somewhat retro classics. The second, thinner, contains the secrets of bannock, pemmikan and sagamity. This double culinary heritage, which comes to her from her great-aunt, is found a little at the table during the holiday season.

“Me, I mix everything,” proudly says the chef and owner of the Québénakis catering service, who is the daughter of an Abenaki from Odanak and a Quebecer of Irish origin. For a people to evolve, the baggage must be mixed, with respect, of course.

“On my mother’s side, we have always respected the French-Canadian tradition of celebrating December 24 with midnight mass and New Year’s Eve,” she continues. We played cards and ate canapes and smoked mussels. »

Among the Abenakis, we have been celebrating Christmas for a long time like the French Canadians. In the 19th^e century, interbreeding was well advanced and the holidays more festive, thanks in particular to the influence of Victorian Christmas under the English regime.

Even today, at the church in Odanak, the characters in the nativity scene wear traditional Aboriginal clothes. Christmas carols are sung in the Abenaki language, whose Wegondamodaa popular hymn.

December 25 is the time to get out a tourtière, turkey and cranberry sauce, Yule log or chocolate, orange and cranberry bannock. Word cranberry is a borrowing of Iroquoian origin. Lysanne reminds us that the marriage of meat and berries is typically Aboriginal.

“Turkey, which in our case was wild turkey, was traditionally eaten during the real Indian summer. It was the thaw after the first snowfall, before winter really started. During this period, barter and the exchange of crops took place. It’s a bit like the native heritage of Thanksgiving celebrations here and in the United States. »

“It is certain that if we go back before colonization, the Aboriginal people did not celebrate Christmas. At least not like big safres, said Lysanne laughing. We had a winter solstice, but it was far from the abundance like today. »

In addition to gatherings around a table, the Fêtes de Lysanne and her family are filled with cross-country skiing, snowshoeing and sledding outings, followed by indoor games. “We stock up on New Year’s Day rather than Christmas, with an apple and vouchers that I write by hand, which offer outings, not trifles. It’s not bad that our vacation. »

The kitchen to open minds

In everyday life, the chef works to demystify the Abenaki culinary heritage and that of historically allied nations, through her company, Québénakis.

“When I started the caterer in 2011, people were not ready to eat traditional cuisine, says the one who studied cooking in Longueuil, then worked in the kitchen of the Hotel Le Baluchon, between others. What I was offering was much more fusion, like native flavored sushi! Then gradually, there was more and more curiosity for old recipes, such as sagamité, a boiled dish in which we find the three sisters (grain corn, squash and beans).

Lysanne talks to us about her appreciation of muskrat and how, in the past, this meat was a way of getting around the “lean Friday” rule, where the Church asked its faithful to eat fish instead. “The muskrat lives in the water”!

That said, it’s more of a menu of smoked fish, soups, duck, etc. served by Québénakis. “Everyone is eating. Food builds bridges. People want to know more and the context of the meal ensures that they are not afraid to ask questions. The image that many Quebecers have of Aboriginal communities is often based on more distant nations. But the Abenakis are domiciled and integrated. I like to break down prejudices. It allows us to move forward as a society. »