This text is part of the special Pleasures notebook
It feels like you’re walking on clouds. Isle-aux-Coudres has disappeared under a thick white padded layer. The structure of the ski lift at the Le Massif ski resort plunges into the void. The smell of wood fire perfumes the summit of the mountain. This is the kitchen at Camp Boule, a mountain refreshment bar, which is operating at full capacity. Here, the experience of cooking on wood begins before you even walk through the door. What about the oldest form of cooking, brought up to date?
Designing a menu prepared over a wood fire would create a unique link between the mountain and the restaurant run by David Forbes, who has notably distinguished himself at Leméac, Le Cercle and Le Ciel! : “We cooked for years over a wood fire at our Sunday dinners, with the gang restaurants and our friends from Quebec. We spent 15 years cooking in the courtyard, even making barbecues, right in the Saint-Sauveur district of Quebec, he says, leaning on the bar counter of his high-rise restaurant. So when the Camp Boule project arrived, after cheese and charcuterie, the wood fire was essential to properly define mountain cuisine. »
In an atmosphere that transports us halfway between the ski chalet and the nature bar, we offer a comforting menu where local products, fruits, vegetables and grilled meats, are at the forefront. “When people arrive here by ski lift, it’s cold, the wind is blowing very hard, we want to offer them something hot, steaming and delicious rather than gourmet,” describes David Forbes.
Based year-round in Charlevoix, the chef makes multiple visits to local suppliers every week to stock up on what is fresh and available to grill over the fire. “Local producers are important players in Charlevoix,” says David Forbes. They have to make a living from it, and so do I. We evolve together, the producers give me possibilities, I do the same thing by cooking their products on the fire. I have created friendships that are more important than anything else in this symbiosis. »
The spark of Shop Angus
A nod to his childhood in the countryside, to days fishing or at the sugar shack, where fire is omnipresent, Marc-André Jetté for his part wanted to democratize high-end cuisine and make it accessible by opening the Hoogan and Beaufort, a place where you don’t pay for the decor, but rather for what’s on the plate. Open since December 2015 in Shop Angus in Montreal, the restaurant has made cooking over a wood fire its signature. “When you come here, away from the tourist area, you know what you’re getting yourself into. We come to seek the flavor of the wood fire. We know we’re going to smell the smoke when we get home,” says the friendly chef with a laugh.
Cooking with wood is not simple: as it requires more than a cord of wood per week – maple wood provided by a friend in the countryside – it requires complex space management and travel. backbreaking raw material that must be planned. It is a perilous, dusty and capricious source of heat which literally siphons the cook’s energy, he admits: “The first thing you learn with cooking with wood is to drink water . It’s very difficult for cooks to do a full service in front of the fire. But it is also very complex because, unlike the oven or the hob, we are always reducing the temperature. » To control the temperature, the cook has no other choice than to make the grills, the bricks, the wood and its embers dance.
Every day, Hoogan and Beaufort cooks its bread on the fire. The raw dough, placed on the grill, is transformed into focaccia, a souvenir of Maine by the sea where Marc-André Jetté multiplied the trials and errors to create the perfect bread that he could cook over a wood fire.
Each food reacts differently to the fiery heat of the embers and the flame that seizes it without warning. But how has the oldest form of cooking, almost artistic and steeped in history, resisted the passage of time? “We are so absorbed by technology in everything we do… Cooking over a wood fire is cooking in its simplest form: it’s where all the aromas, all the flavors develop. We find a depth in the caramelized juices and the lightly smoked fat that no other cooking can recreate. It’s the human, their food and the fire,” summarizes chef-owner Marc-André Jetté.
Montreal wants to regulate?
The only downside is that wood fires, through the emissions of fine particles into the air, are of concern to the City of Montreal. In 2018, it also banned the use of residential wood heating appliances that did not meet strict fine particle emissions standards. Montreal has also looked into the issue of restaurants that distinguish themselves by cooking with wood. For the moment, “the Montreal boroughs of Plateau-Mont-Royal and Ahuntsic-Cartierville have adopted urban planning regulations prohibiting the opening of any new business that uses wood or charcoal for cooking food. », we respond, adding that the City, supported by the Metropolitan Community of Montreal, is working on a regulatory approach to better regulate the food cooking sector.
Marc-André Jetté hopes that restaurateurs will be consulted about the emissions of contaminants from cooking over a wood fire before measures are taken by the City: “If I remove my wood fire, the flavors will no longer be the same. same. The wood fire, for our bagels, our pizzas, our cuisine, is one of the flavors of Montreal. It must be preserved. And if we are looking for solutions, I would be the first to want to test them in my restaurant. »
Three continents, three tables
This content was produced by the Special Publications team at Duty, relating to marketing. The writing of the Duty did not take part.