UQAM will soon stop offering the only university education focused on gastronomy in the country, has learned The duty. However, this program laid the foundations of Quebec’s gastronomic identity, deplore students and ex-students.
Curious Begin, Three times a day, the Lauriers de gastronomy awards, does that mean anything to you? These thinkers of contemporary Quebec food all have in their team a graduate of the “certificate in management and socio-cultural practices of gastronomy”, given by the School of Management Sciences (ESG) of the University of Quebec in Montreal (UQAM ).
However, several courses for this certificate were not offered this semester. Registrations (about thirty students per year) were closed this winter. Eventually, the direction of the ESG of UQAM will draw a line under this program, according to several sources well aware of the matter. The equivalent to 2e cycle of “food studies” is also threatened, according to what the To have to.
In the certificate of ten courses, exit knives, cooking techniques or calculations of nutritional values. Thinking about distribution channels, finding solutions to “feed the city” or even a course on “tastes and sensory analyses” are more on the menu. Teachers of anthropology, history or sociology share their knowledge.
Dany Goyette, sommelier trained in horticulture, is currently trying to complete this certificate. The premature end of the program will prevent him from being able to finish his course. “I’m not doing it for my degree, I already have a career,” he says. But, as a waiter sommelier, what interests me is telling stories to customers. What people want is the story behind the dish, the story behind the wine. Sometimes people wanted to come back because I promised them more stories the next time they came back. The program allows that. »
Thinking about Quebec gastronomy
Founded fifteen years ago, this training was originally inspired by the “Slow Food” movement. It has not been updated for ten years.
“It was relevant 15 years ago. It has never been so topical today,” says Dany Goyette, who has 18 years of restaurant experience. “For example, for precarious cultures, and you can look at the Cajuns in the United States, their two cultural drivers are language and cuisine. It is the marker of the identity of a people. [Dans le certificat], we think about gastronomy as a cultural engine, as a social phenomenon. It’s sad to know that the only program where we can think about it is going to disappear. »
The drop in the number of registrations and the lack of financing would have weighed in the balance of the decision-makers.
“It’s sad,” says a source who is immersed in the ESG pot, but who does not wish to be named. “Food is not taken very seriously. It’s only considered a technical issue, or a nutrition issue. The University must also form the reflection, and not only in the immediate future on very precise trades. »
Isabelle Deslandes obtained this certificate and uses what she learned there “every day”. The organization La Table Ronde for which she works sits down with restaurant chefs in order to link local menus to local terroir. If sea urchins, stimpson’s surf clams or rock crabs make their way from the St. Lawrence River to Montreal’s plates rather than flying off to Asian markets, it’s thanks to her, among other things. “I got there, and I’m making things happen with all the knowledge I have,” she says.
“We are at the beginning of all the changes that we have to make in terms of food. Are we going to eat insects? Eating more legumes? Will we be able to feed 10 billion people in 2050? […] We are told that this certificate is a niche program, but food is not a niche! »
The pandemic and the war in Ukraine have also put the question of food sovereignty on everyone’s lips, she underlines.
The butcher Pascal Hudon claims to have had a revelation in one of these courses at UQAM. A meat specialist like his father, he was thinking of changing careers and abandoning this artisanal practice. “In one of those classes, I understood that eating has many layers of deep meaning: tourism, culture, food sovereignty, environment, etc. Several pieces existed, and that put them together. »
The communications services of UQAM and ESG did not respond to our interview requests on Sunday.