The Uppers and Downers of a Québecois Winter
Vivian Prambell
I’ve acquired a pair of above the ankle insulated boots in anticipation of the inclement weather. I bought down mittens in olive green. I have an ice queen aesthetic hat from the Ukraine, a knee length down coat with hood, maple leaf earmuffs, cashmere scarf, and fleece lined sweats. I’m done-up; fully kitted out save for a pair of snow pants. I didn’t think I’d need them – I don’t ski; I don’t snowboard.
We crossed the border and drove into the city – schlepped from the parking spot to our apartment through the slush. Upon arrival, I discovered that all the while my boots had been throwing muck from its treads onto my lower legs, like tires do to mud flaps. You need snow pants up here just to negotiate the city sidewalks.
I won’t get into why I migrated north for the winter, just know it wasn’t for my career, nor a relationship, and it certainly wasn’t for the weather. It wasn’t for the poutine, which I hold an unpopular opinion of, in that I find it unworthy of the hype. I’m aware it doesn’t quite make sense when the birds, the butterflies, the boomers all go south for the winter, and I find some reason to go north. But why make sense? Hasn’t Covid revealed none of this makes sense?
Anyway, we’re up here, coming to you from la Ville de Québec, Québec City and we're looking at a high of -6ºF on Tuesday. We’re in lockdown again, there’s a province wide, police enforced 10 p.m. curfew. While most of the rest of the Western World seems to have decided they’re over it, whether the virus is or not, Québec is appropriately considering it an ongoing threat. But with all indoor-dining closed for the foreseeable future, once again, I’m writing a little, “Thinking of you…” card to the Québécois eatery that not so long ago, so warmly welcomed me in from the cold, despite my elementary French.
Coffee and liquor, caffeine in the daytime, alcohol at night, this one wakes you up, this one brings you down. It confuses your brain and it hurts your heart. The merch for the coffee shop Maelstrøm in the Saint Roch neighborhood of Québec City has an illustration of a queen in the style of a playing card. She’s right side up with a cup of coffee in hand and upside down with a cocktail, across it reads “uppers & downers”. It’s the only restaurant merch I’ve ever bought.
Maelstrøm, as the merch suggests, converts from pulling espresso shots in the day to pouring cocktails in the evening. They further converted when Covid restrictions came down by offering brunch and dinner as a means to stay open. At about the same time that a restaurant back in my hometown started selling $1 “Cuomo Chips” to skirt around the requirement of selling food with alcohol, Maelstrøm added chips to their menu as well. Instead of the basic b*** chips they were offering back home, Maelstrøm was serving tahini eggplant chips, between shingled slices of tataki (meaning “pounded” in Japanese) de boeuf marinated beef with chipotle lime mayo and lime greenery. The sauce was the kind you want to take home and put on everything in your refrigerator. The texture (texture is a big thing for me) and the crispness of the chip before tenderness of the tataki appeals to me in the same way soft-shell crabs and breads with a hard crust and a chewy inside does.
They also had pétoncle coco on the menu, a dish which I was willing to order by name alone, translation or not. It was a coconut scallop dish with corn and coconut mousse, charred brussels sprouts and coconut dust. Conceptually, I would never conceive of these ingredients working so well together, but at first taste I realized it must have been my lack of imagination. And as a former pastry chef retired from a French style boulangerie and patisserie, I’ve whipped and consumed more mousse than anyone reading likely will in their lifetime, yet this mousse was complex and satisfying in a way I’ve never known before.
I have celebrated a birthday since our arrival in the fall. I know no one else in the province other than my husband. But I have spent enough quality time with the staff at Maelstrøm, who were helping me with my French, that they were the closest thing I had to friends in the country. By showing up there on my birthday I was able to have them at my party whether they were consenting and willing participants or not.
There’s an island, Île d'Orléans, in the St Lawrence river and only a few miles from downtown Québec City. It’s 90% farmland, raising and growing a breadth of fresh ingredients. Restaurateurs and purveyors take advantage of access to the fresh local vegetables and animal products, much more so than they seem to back home in the foothills of the Adirondacks. The Québecois seem to have more of an inclination to make the most of things than the community I came out of. The main park in the city, the Plains of Abraham, is as crowded on a warm, sunny day as it is in the dead of winter. It’s dotted with cross country skiers, skaters and sledders dashing through the snow celebrating the weather rather than moaning on and speculating when it will end. Québec City holds the largest winter carnival in the western world. The Québécois have grit, they adapt, they survive, they thrive, come winter, come Covid, come what may.
I want to give thanks/special mention to the places in the province I didn’t write a love-letter to, but I still think on fondly:
Honō Izakaya (Also in St. Roch) - Canadian-Japanese fusion.
Soft shell crab: So nice we ordered it thrice in one night. King eryngii candied mushrooms: Came to us as small mushrooms on a stick, it was minimal in presentation, but doing the absolute most in flavor.
Chez Rioux & Pettigrew (Lower Town Québec City) - A 160 year old general store, turned restaurant.
Forest Mushroom Spaetzle: Housemade buckwheat spaetzle with wild mushrooms, poached egg, fresh herbs, fresh parm and whole grain bread.
Bloom Sushi (Old Montreal) - Plant based sushi™, sustainable and trademarked, it sounds ridiculous and like sucking out all the fun from a near ideal cuisine, and like taking the gluten out of a bakery, but if you can get over all that sounds wrong about it, there’s so much that’s so right.
Sumo: Crispy shimeji mushroom, inari tofu, avocado, shiba zuke and tartar sauce.
Le 409 (Old Montreal) - Contemporary Indian food served in a space that is some part mid-century modern, some part Havana with Bollywood posters.
Agneau Roganjosh: Cubes of lamb in a curry sauce, yogurt, mint and spices.
Tommy’s Café (Old Montreal) - Serving up some damn good avocado toast.
Avotoast Grecque: Avocado, cherry tomatoes, cucumber ribbons, pickled red onions, feta cheese on thick cut crusty sourdough bread.
Sung to the tune of “The Way” by Fastball
They made up their minds,
and they started packing,
oh Canada was calling them away,
and searching for eternal winter snacking,
they knew they were going where nobody called out their names.
And when they arrived,
they knew they had found it,
a place to watch the grass cover with snow,
in European vibes they were surrounded, but where they were going to eat, oh they just didn’t know
VIVIAN PRAMBELL IS A RETIRED PASTRY CHEF. SHE TRIES A LOT OF THINGS, BUT DOESN’T STICK TO ANY ONE OF THEM, SHE GOES TO DIFFERENT PLACES, BUT DOESN’T STAY ANYWHERE TOO LONG. ALWAYS ON THE LOOK OUT FOR A PLACE TO BECOME A REGULAR, THAT’S WHEN SHE’LL KNOW SHE’S HOME.
