This text is part of the special Plaisirs booklet
The Cuisine, Cinéma et Confidences festival, which takes place this weekend in Baie-Saint-Paul, took the form of a great declaration of love for Quebec gastronomy and the cultural dimension that it fully embraces. since Expo 67. Small overview of the event.
Since Friday, the small Charlevoix town of Baie-Saint-Paul has turned into a gourmet hotspot. Lucie Tremblay, founder and director of the Cuisine, Cinéma et Confidences (CCC) festival, her team, several local establishments and some forty guests will host a series of activities until Sunday, combining tableware and the seventh art.
This 4e The central theme of the festival, which is expected to attract 2,000 participants, is the love story. Why ? “Because we want to make a declaration of love to our chefs, restaurateurs and producers, who suffered a lot during the pandemic,” explains Lucie Tremblay. A message that reached Christine Plante, co-founder of Lauriers de la gastronomie québécoise and conductor this year of two activities of the event. “The main idea is pleasure,” she says. To please yourself and to please the people you love. “
A delicious program
The festival menu is faithful to the approach it has adopted since 2018. We therefore find in a few strategic places – the Hotel & Spa Le Germain Charlevoix, the Mother House and the Museum of Contemporary Art, mainly – a series screenings with a directly or indirectly gourmet theme, such as films The perfumes, ABE and CRAZY, as well as documentaries SAQ: 100 years of history and Chiliheads, crazy about hot peppers.
Several screenings are pretexts for meals, workshops and conferences. Francis Reddy, for example, was interested on Friday in the relationship that Quebeckers have with their century-old state-owned company, while the screening of The Lady and the Tramp will be followed by a pasta workshop on Sunday. Note also that the film The nose, which explores the world of smells, will give rise to a discussion on Saturday and then to a tasting led by three sommeliers.
At the same time, a gourmet pedestrian route through the restaurants of Baie-Saint-Paul, a panel on women entrepreneurs in the agri-food sector led by Liza Frulla, or a musical brunch prepared by the student brigade of the ITHQ in the company of by Christian Bégin, Christine Plante and Éléonore Lagacé are offered to visitors.
All eyes converge on the theme of Expo 67, at the heart of a screening of the documentary. Expo 67. Mission Impossible, a conference and a gala dinner provided by several chefs and sommeliers crowned by Lauriers de la gastronomie québécoise.
Founder Expo 67
In 2022, Expo 67 will have taken place 55 years ago. A pivotal event in the history of Quebec, it opened up to the world a society that is still folded in on itself and sowed the seeds of numerous economic, cultural, societal… and gastronomic changes!
As historian Roger La Roche, who was 13 at the time and worked there, reminds us, “Before Expo 67, the notion of gastronomy did not exist in Quebec. There were only four international restaurants in the province, and sophistication boiled down to a meal at Da Giovanni or at a Chinese buffet. As for wines and beers, the former were foul and the latter tasted of colored water. “
M. La Roche, who is among others the author of Man and his stomach, a bible of almost 300 pages on the gastronomic aspect of Expo 67, considers that it was fundamental from several points of view. “In particular, it allowed us to discover our curiosity and to open up to the Other. Exotic cultures like those of the Maghreb, Japan, or even that of the Canadian Far North have been revealed to us through specialties such as couscous, sushi and beaver tail soup. This paved the way for welcoming these traditions and their representatives afterwards, and for exploring our own cuisine, ”he recalls.
Before Expo 67, the notion of gastronomy did not exist in Quebec. There were only four international restaurants in the province, and sophistication boiled down to a meal at Da Giovanni or at a Chinese buffet. As for wines and beers, the former were foul and the latter tasted of colored water.
It will therefore be a question of tribute to these founding elements during the gala dinner, chaired by the guest of honor Jean-Paul Grappe and in which the chefs Dyan Solomon (FOXY), Vanessa Laberge (Olive + gourmando), Simon Mathys will participate. (Mastard), Julien Masia (Arvi), Émile Tremblay (Faux Bergers), Cathy Méra and Jean-Philippe Monette (ITHQ). Sommeliers Véronique Dalle, Jade Labonté Harvey and Joris Garcia will complete this skewer with exclusive Quebec wines, which will accompany dishes whose ingredients were discovered during Expo 67, such as foie gras, feta, fish eggs, oysters and poblano pepper. No doubt that at its scale, this evening will also be remembered.