This text is part of the special Pleasures notebook
Quebec companies are enriching the offering of ready-to-eat, ready-to-cook meals and condiments by taking example from world cuisines, focusing on local ingredients, while setting themselves rather extraordinary objectives. Here are some who set an example.
The Fattoush Girls
Co-founded by Adelle Tarzibachi — whose second cookbook, At Adelle’s table. Smemories and recipes of a Syrian immigrant has just been published by KO Éditions -, Les Filles Fattoush, has already been offering spices and key ingredients of Syrian cuisine for several years, such as pomegranate molasses, zaatar – a mixture of thyme, sesame seeds and sumac – and pita chips. “Initially, we wanted to develop everyday consumer products, in order to enter into the daily lives of people here,” says Cynthia Chackal, project manager at the company. We all have spaghetti sauce at home, soy sauce, and now zaatar too! Cuisine unites people, and it is by discovering cuisine that we discover our people. » More recently, they have added prepared meals to their product offerings, including falafel, mujadarah — a dish of rice, lentils and fried onions — and muhammara, a dip made with roasted red peppers, walnuts, hot pepper and pomegranate molasses. These dishes also very well illustrate the richness of Syrian cuisine, while making a valuable contribution to the community. Indeed, Les Filles Fattoush is above all a social enterprise, whose mission is to offer Syrian refugee women an employment opportunity that highlights their culinary skills and to facilitate their integration into the community.
North
The Montreal company Dunord wants to reduce food waste systemically. “Seeing the race against time that farmers, distributors and consumers are undergoing to avoid wasting fresh produce as much as possible, I became interested in dehydration to considerably extend the life of food,” explains the founder. of the company, Jonathan Dumas. From there was born the idea of developing a range of ready-to-cook vegan meals made from surplus from local farms. In addition, each product includes at least one wild ingredient from Quebec, such as sea lettuce or dune pepper, allowing you to discover the treasures of the province while helping to reduce food waste at the source. Three tasty products are currently offered: Gaspésie ramen, forest risotto and daal boréal — a lentil soup typical of Indian cuisine.
Morel Quebec
Known for its varieties of dried mushrooms (shiitake, boletus, chanterelles, morels and oyster mushrooms), Morille Québec has been offering ready-to-cook vegetarian dishes since 2020. “Inspiration came to me when I met Karyne Gagné, founder of Empreinte, an organization helping women take back control of their lives,” says Simon-Pierre Murdock, president of the Chicoutimi company. She was already using our mushrooms for recipes to raise funds for the organization. » Impressed by her commitment, he suggested that she collaborate and create Empreinte sauvage products, part of the profits of which are donated to the cause. Made from ingredients picked locally, such as small Nordic fruits, boreal spices, and wild mushrooms of course, mushroom risotto, forest couscous, creamy rotini and forest soup are a great way to combine the useful with the delectable.
Asian Sauce
It is not ready-to-eat, but the range of Asia sauce condiments from the Saguenay company Canada Sauce allows you to cook all kinds of dishes with the flavors of various Asian cuisines. “The condiment market is very competitive and the majority of players are essentially American,” explains Simon-Pierre Murdock, also president of this company. With Canada Sauce, the objective is to offer Quebec options to consumers’ favorite condiments. » Indeed, their sauces are partly made from local and fresh products, without adding coloring or preservatives. In addition to the classics, such as ketchup, relish and mustard from Canada Sauce, Asia Sauce includes condiments such as sambal oelek, a chili sauce widely used in Malaysian and Indonesian cuisine, a teriyaki sauce with mushrooms from Japanese inspiration, and a banana ketchup known to the culinary culture of the Philippines.
This content was produced by the Special Publications team at Duty, relating to marketing. The writing of the Duty did not take part.