Transcript (Full episode)

Kelly Hughes 00:01
Welcome to episode 13 of Milestones of Canadian Cooking. I'm Kelly Hughes, a fourth year History and Culture & Technology study student at the University of Guelph where this interview is being recorded.

Kelly Hughes 00:15
Today I have the pleasure of speaking with Micheline Mongrain Dotigny. I hope I pronounced that well enough. She is a Quebec food writer, cookbook author, and in 2022 she received the Taste Canada Hall Fame Award for her contributions to Canadian food culture.

Kelly Hughes 00:32
Micheline is joining us today from her home in Shawinigan. Thank you so much Micheline and welcome.

Micheline M-D 00:38
Oh, thank you very much. It's my pleasure to be with you today.

Kelly Hughes 00:42
So, Micheline, you've had, it's a bit of an understatement, but you've had a very productive career. You've written 14 books, numerous periodical articles, you've run your own cooking school, and you've been blogging at your blog, Cooking with Micheline, since the late 1990s.

Kelly Hughes 00:58
And as I mentioned in the introduction, in 2022, you were awarded the Taste Canada Hall of Fame Award. How did you feel when you heard the news that you'd been selected for that award?

Micheline M-D 01:09
Oh, I was very much excited. It was crowning my career. So to be annouled by my peers was my greatest pleasure. Well, for me, it's the most important things I've received in my life for my career.

Kelly Hughes 01:32
you talked to us a little bit about the community you grew up in and what it was like growing up in post -World War II Quebec.

Micheline M-D 01:41
Well, I was born in the city I'm living now. I should say it's a small town compared to Montreal and Quebec City. And most of the families were having like four, five, six children, lots of friends, and because the family were bigger than nowadays.

Micheline M-D 02:02
In my family, my mother didn't cook that much, not as much as my grandmothers did, because that was the area that you would see more canned foods and ready -made foods, but she prepared a simple dish, my mother prepared simple dishes, and she always bought like the fresh local products like when it was time for apples, she would buy a big box of apples.

Micheline M-D 02:34
So I was, those things I was, I relished in.

Kelly Hughes 02:39
Yes, I remember reading a story about when you were living in Hawksbury, I believe, and you used to go to the apple farm and pick apples and take them back and cook them. So I guess apples was, I mean, that's a pretty Canadian ingredient too.

Micheline M-D 02:53
Yeah, that's it. Well, I've always done that as even before I started, even before I followed my course as a chef, I was going all around and picking up the fresh produce like the mushroom and the apples and everything.

Micheline M-D 03:10
I've always been very excited to go out to markets. That's the main thing when you cook. Well, more than 50% of the success of your dish is the ingredients. So you can be a good cook, but if you don't have good ingredients, it's not that you won't have the same success.

Kelly Hughes 03:33
Growing up, do you remember having cookbooks at home?

Micheline M-D 03:36
Not much. My mother had her own book. She wrote recipes from neighbors, friends and a few for mothers. But, and I recall, she didn't like to cook very much, but at times she feel liked it. So, when I was a teenager, she bought a Betty Crocker cookbook.

Micheline M-D 04:04
And there she began to succeed in making pies and things like that. Because before that, I think she was less interested than her sisters. Because I recall her sisters were a very good cook. My mom was not a bad cook, but she was not as like me, very much interested in cooking.

Micheline M-D 04:28
But she liked to try new recipes. So, she enjoyed very much that cookbook. And actually, when I got married, I didn't have money to buy a cookbook. So, I asked her if I can have a cookbook for a few weeks to see what I can try myself.

Micheline M-D 04:55
And well, I recall she had a very small book, while I'm talking to you. She had the Jean Benoît book. She had that. And when I got married, she was not using it anymore. I've never seen her using that book very often, but she gave it to me.

Micheline M-D 05:17
And I started and I learned how to cook a few recipes with that. I think it's the very first cookbook Jean Benoît wrote that she had.

Kelly Hughes 05:31
And do you still have those books of your mother’s?

Micheline M-D 05:34
no actually probably I got I don't know how probably I got rid of it before I started before I went maybe it was a it was an old book the cover was not on the top was not there anymore and since the very first cookbook I think I bought was my own Betty Crocker cookbook and because it was a new one with a nice cover and everything I don't know how I did that probably I got rid of it I'm so sorry I did that

Kelly Hughes 06:12
Did your parents or your mother influence your decision to get into cooking yourself and to go to cooking school?

Micheline M-D 06:19
No because I had a I had a passion very early when I was playing with my cousin at my grandmother's place and she would start getting their stuff out to bake a cake I would stop playing with them and run to see what she was doing I enjoyed that very much I have very fond souvenir of that so and but when I was a teenager I would I would I proud I practiced sports I like very much sports like tennis and Alponsky and basketball and I didn't know exactly what I wanted to do in my life I didn't know as much at that time that I liked so much to cook I recall when there was a culinary course at high school I was very I was in the front and over the weekend I would ask my mom to buy the food to prepare the dish we had learned preparing during the week and I would do and I would succeed all the time and my mom was very happy about that when I got married there I I found that I like to go very very much so I began to try lots of recipes

Kelly Hughes 07:38
Do you remember the first recipe that you created yourself or that you wrote down?

Micheline M-D 07:43
Oh, that I created myself. No, I don't recall that. Actually, I recall one recipe I created. It was before I followed. No, it was after I followed my course as a chef. It was a recipe with partridge that you bake with cream.

Micheline M-D 08:12
And well, I had a recipe that was partridge of bake with cream. But this recipe I created was flambé. It was similar to that recipe, but it was flambé with cognac and I won a second prize in the Canadian Living Magazine.

Micheline M-D 08:31
So, but I was not actually a real professional at that time. I had work in the restaurant a bit and I gave course. We create dish, but most of the time it's adapted from other dish we've seen. I don't like to say that we create all the recipe we write down.

Micheline M-D 08:56
Probably I created one recipe. Sometimes, like I recall, I was preparing chocolate icing for a cake. It was a recipe I saw in a book. And in the middle, before adding the icing, the icing sugar, I tasted the chocolate mixture and it tasted so good it became my chocolate sauce.

Micheline M-D 09:23
But it's not really creating. It's more adapting.

Kelly Hughes 09:28
And I think I remember reading in one of your books that the Partridge in Cream is one of your favorite recipes. Is Partridge, is that a common ingredient in Quebec? Cause it certainly isn't in Ontario.

Micheline M-D 09:39
No, no it's not. Well if you hunt and can have partridge you can cook that dish. It's very good. Everyone I serve that dish, they love it. They like it very much and I wouldn't be shy to serve that partridge at some of the best chefs.

Kelly Hughes 10:01
So we talked a little bit about your mom had a recipe book where she would write things down, and I know that a large part of your methodology in writing your books was, or the origins of writing your books came from that desire to document recipes that maybe have only been passed down orally.

Kelly Hughes 10:21
Why do you think that's so important to write it down and to document those?

Micheline M-D 10:26
Well, it's very important because beginning around my age, the girls were learning with their mom how to prepare a dish. When I write those recipes, I try to write down the more explanation I can so that even anyone who haven't had that dish before can succeed.

Micheline M-D 10:48
Very often people would say, well, my mom used to prepare that dish and I didn't have the recipe, I didn't know how to prepare it. And when I follow your recipe, I succeed and it's as good as my mom.

Micheline M-D 11:03
You see, because I do that, then the people can make the recipe. And you know, those recipes since 300 years in Quebec, we're still preparing dishes, even dishes originated from France or England. I call it the food of the heart.

Micheline M-D 11:22
Even when I will be dead, people will still eat those dishes.

Kelly Hughes 11:30
And also I want to talk to you about your digital presence because you're active on social media and you've got your food blog, which you've been, I mean, you were a bit of a pioneer there. You were one of the earliest adopters of that technology.

Kelly Hughes 11:42
How do you think digital platforms service the sharing of Quebec food?

Micheline M-D 11:49
Well, I see that people are very much interested and I see more and more every year my audience is growing. Some recipes are rare on the internet. Well, they know me by my website and everything and you know it's important because the new generation who are about 30 and 40 years old, they don't cook very much with a cookbook.

Micheline M-D 12:13
They cook more with their pad or their phone and it's the new way. Even myself, I confess that the recipes I know are on my blog. I don't even open my cookbook. I just go on my blog and I put my iPad in my kitchen and it's so handy.

Micheline M-D 12:35
I like it. I have a big collection of cookbooks for sure and I always try to buy the best author. You just grab the book and you know the recipe will be good at the end. It's the same with the internet.

Micheline M-D 12:50
It's another way to pass on the traditional recipes of Quebec or anywhere else in the world.

Kelly Hughes 12:58
a little bit and talk about the relationship between religious events and religious feasts and Quebec food. In your writing, especially, you talk a lot about the various religious celebrations that are tied to the recipes that you make.

Kelly Hughes 13:13
Why is it that you think that food is so closely tied to these religious celebrations?

Micheline M-D 13:19
Mostly in Quebec we are Catholic and on the Friday we were not allowed to eat meat so that influenced some dishes like they were serving fish or buckwheat galette on the Friday or things like that.

Kelly Hughes 13:43
There was one article that you wrote about Reveillon. So the feast that is the Christmas Eve celebration of Reveillon.

Micheline M-D 13:53
But you see, nowadays, Quebecers do not practice any more religion, and they're still having their Rivayant with the same dishes as before. I would say those dishes, that celebration, is even more important than their religion, because nowadays, we still prepare the same dish and serve the same dish and are expecting to have them and are very happy.

Micheline M-D 14:23
Even myself, sometimes I decide I won't have the meatball and ragout or the tortillier. For a change, if my children come for three, four days, for a change, sometimes I would serve them more modern dishes.

Micheline M-D 14:41
But with the years, I find that they are expecting to have the meatball, ragout or the tortillier. As an example, for this year, my husband and I will be going at my daughters for the Rivayant and the Christmas dinner.

Micheline M-D 14:58
And I know if I prepare a meatball, a pig's feet and meatball, ragout, they will be very happy, even happier than if I buy a big, nice piece of roast beef.

Kelly Hughes 15:09
So it starts to, they expect it, it's part of the yearly tradition and if it's not, yeah that's it.

Micheline M-D 15:16
And the Réveillon, like the Réveillon, it's the same tradition that it does in France. So it's a very old tradition.

Kelly Hughes 15:28
So if you were describing Quebecois food to somebody who had never tasted it before, how would you describe it?

Micheline M-D 15:40
It's a little bit difficult to summarize, but well, we have a lot of traditional dish prepared with pork, like the tortillier and pig's feet and meat bar à go. And like in the summer, there's the bouillie de légumes with all the vegetables.

Micheline M-D 16:06
And Quebecois are very fond of desserts, especially desserts with a caramel taste, like the pudding choumur, the tartaroussuk and the galette. We get very excited that in the spring with the maple products coming in and maple taffy going to the Cabane Acer.

Micheline M-D 16:31
And now, since maybe 20 years, Quebecois are very fond of the pudding for sure, with the fresh curd cheese. And even if we don't have the fresh, the pudding, we like to have fresh curd cheese to eat. We buy that regularly in the counter of the dipender.

Kelly Hughes 16:54
So kind of a rustic cuisine for being outside and moving around a little bit and keeping warm.

Micheline M-D 17:03
Yeah, cold weather. But nowadays it's a mixture. Quebec cuisine, people prepare ethnic dishes. They are more open to taste new dishes, but they still love the traditional dishes and the potash.

Kelly Hughes 17:23
So you wrote a book about the Eastern townships. That was one of your cookbooks. And thinking about wine regions of Canada, that's one of them. What do you think about the explosion of wine production in Canada?

Kelly Hughes 17:36
How has that influenced Canadian cuisine, do you think?

Micheline M-D 17:39
One thing I know is that before the producer, wine producer in Eastern Township became popular and the Quebecers liked to drink wine with their dinner. So I think it started like that because we were very fond of having a glass of wine with our dish.

Micheline M-D 18:02
Then the producer decided to experiment and produce more wine and there are more producers nowadays than even 20 -25 years ago. So I think it went like that. It's not like the wine producer decided to become wine producers and influenced us to drink wine with their dinner.

Micheline M-D 18:31
I think it's reversed and that's the way I see it. Quebecers like very much to drink wine. Even during the week they drink wine with their meat.

Kelly Hughes 18:43
That's been a bit of part of Quebec food culture even before producers in Canada started making wine. You were always drinking wine with your meals.

Micheline M-D 18:51
So I recall François Scayler said that when Expo 67 came in Montreal, it influenced the way it made Quebecers discover many other dishes and people became to have more better salary and they could afford, like my father, having a business meeting with a meal and he had wine and then after he would buy one wine.

Micheline M-D 19:19
Because of my father, I got the taste. When I as a teenager, he would give me just a small amount of wine with like a steak and I enjoyed it. So when I got married, I said to my husband, I'll go and buy a bottle of wine and he would say, yeah, I said, yes, you should try that.

Micheline M-D 19:42
And it began like that. It really began around the year 1970 about, I would say.

Kelly Hughes 19:54
What's your favorite Quebecois dish to make and why?

Micheline M-D 19:58
Oh, well I like big feet and meat ball ragout. I don't prepare it very often in a year, two or three times. I like also the deep dish de tortière. If we are lucky at hunting, partridge is one of my favorite, but there are also desert I like, like the sugar pie and the pudding chômeur.

Micheline M-D 20:32
I'm cooking since over 40 years, so there are so many dishes we like. But I am very fond of casserole. I'm fond of favorite ethnic food of different countries like Italy and Greece and all that. I think it's the best food in the world.

Micheline M-D 20:56
All the favorite dishes of the different countries, it's always good.

Kelly Hughes 21:02
Well, I was going to ask you if you were living abroad for a long time, what Canadian, French Canadian food you would miss, but it sounds to me like you would embrace whatever food that you came across wherever you were, wouldn't you?

Micheline M-D 21:17
Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're right because when I travel that's that's the thing I do I like to go at the grocery and check what people like very much and it's so interesting to discover other food other good food other good dishes well if you if you live abroad for sure you will miss some dishes you will want to prepare them

Kelly Hughes 21:41
Well, and as you mentioned, it's food of the heart. So I guess it will pull at your heart a little bit and you would think about making it wherever you were.

Micheline M-D 21:50
Yeah, that's it. And it's the same with the new dishes like the Italian, like the spaghetti and if you bake pizza at home or other Chinese dish that you're preparing since 20 years, well, you still feel you want to have it at times.

Kelly Hughes 22:11
We're asking everybody the same question. What's your favorite flavor of ice cream? You said you liked sweets. Do you enjoy eating ice cream?

Micheline M-D 22:19
No, not very much. I like, I eat ice cream only when it's very hot in the summer, but I like a good homemade ice cream for sure. But my favorite is, I would say it's vanilla because it's so versatile.

Kelly Hughes 22:37
Thank you so much, Micheline. It has been delightful to talk to you. I would also like to thank the University of Guelph, Department of History, and McLaughlin Library for making this interview possible.

Kelly Hughes 22:50
In addition, we're grateful for the support of Kyle Richie, our media studio technician, and Curtis Sasser, head of archival and special collections at the University of Guelph. And thanks to all of you for listening to this episode of Milestones of Canadian Cooking.

Kelly Hughes 23:04
We hope to see you again.