In late August my sister and I took a road trip to Les Éboulements, in the Charlevoix region of Quebec, where our father’s family spent their summer holidays in the ’30s and ’40s. As kids, “Lazy Boom-ah” was known to us in stories and photos, a mythical place, much loved, much remembered when my dad and his sisters got together.
In recent years, in groups of two and three, we’ve been making our way back there, tracing our dad’s footsteps. It’s a beautiful part of the world—forested hills tumbling down to the briny St. Lawrence, wide and muscular and tidal, L’Isle-aux-Coudres a long blue blur in the middle.
Dad’s family rented a little house on the beach in Saint-Joseph-de-la-Rive, a former shipbuilding centre for the schooners and sloops that plied the St. Lawrence. A friend of my grandmother’s painted a watercolour of the little house, 80 or 90 years ago. Equipped with a photo of the painting, my sister and I went searching. We found the house!
Though changed, it was clearly the same house. Selfies were taken, much joy was had. Such joy that we shared our story with the proprietor of the little boutique nearby.
“Mais non,” he said, very apologetic. “I think that is not the right house. The house you are looking for is beside the ferry dock.” He was so certain, and so kind, that we went to look. He was right! The house by the ferry dock was clearly the house in the painting. The kind man was not in the store when we returned, but he had told his wife all about it.
“Ah, oui,” she said. “My husband was born here, and the house you first saw belongs to his nephew.” She paused. “Vous avez de la chance. My husband is never in the store.”
We felt we had been touched by magic.
We found more magic in the farm stores in the hills nearby—onion jam, charcuterie, and duck or pork cretons, the homely meat spread beloved in Quebec—and now, by us.
Back at my sister’s house in Ontario, still on holiday, I tried to recreate some of those treats, thinking of local, humanely raised pork in the Yukon, thinking of blueberry season. Hoping that there would still be blueberries when I got home to my own mythical place, where my sister came first in 1989, and I followed in 1994.
As I spread cretons and jam on a cracker, I wonder, Will our younger relatives make a similar pilgrimage one day, tracing their aunts’ steps through the Yukon? I bet they will.
Cretons
Ingredients
- 1 lb ground pork
- 2 cups bread crumbs soaked in 1 cup milk for 20 minutes
- 1/4 tsp each mace allspice and cloves
- 1/4 tsp pepper
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 medium onion finely diced
- 1/2 cup of milk
Instructions
- Combine all ingredients in a saucepan, except for the second half-cup of milk. Cook over very low heat for half an hour, stirring often.
- Add the half-cup of milk and cook for another 30 to 40 minutes, still stirring occasionally until the mixture is not at all soupy and all the liquid has been absorbed. (Don’t let the mixture brown—it should be a pale rosy gray in colour).
- Take off the heat, cool to room temperature and blend in a food processor until the texture is not quite smooth, but still slightly grainy.
- Pack into containers and chill. Serve with toasted baguette or crackers and onion-blueberry jam. Store in the fridge for up to 5 days or freeze for up to 3 months. (Cretons freezes well.)
Onion-Blueberry Jam
Ingredients
- 4 medium onions diced (about 5 cups)
- 4 shallots diced (about 1 cup)
- 1/4 cup olive oil
- 4 cloves garlic minced
- 4 Tbsp balsamic vinegar
- 2 Tbsp brown sugar
- 1 tsp ground allspice
- 1 cup blueberries
- 1/2 tsp kosher salt
Instructions
- In a medium pot, over very low heat, cook the onions and shallots in the olive oil until amber in colour, about 35 minutes. Stir often.
- Stir garlic into the pan, followed by remaining ingredients. Cook until the blueberries have popped and released all their juices, and the mixture is thick and jammy.
- Taste for seasoning and add more salt or a splash more vinegar as necessary. Serve with cretons, with sharp cheeses, on burgers or on a charcuterie board. Will keep, refrigerated, for several weeks.
