A taste of Atlantic Canada’s French and Acadian culinary history
Imagine sitting down to supper in the fortified town of Louisbourg, the capital of the French colony Île Royale (today Cape Breton), circa 1738. Make yourself comfortable, and pull up a chair to a table that has been set to show how early settlers in the region lived.
“In recreating past meals we try to understand and experience the everyday lives of people in the past,” write the authors of a new, bilingual book called French Taste in Atlantic Canada—1604-1758: A Gastronomic History.
“How we value and prepare food is part of our identity.”
Co-authored by Parks Canada historian Anne Marie Lane Jonah and chef Chantal Véchambre, the book is based on Louisbourg’s “trade records, personal accounts, recipe books and archaeology.”
Next year marks Louisbourg’s 300th anniversary—the French first went there in 1713. Six years later, they began to build a fortified town, which was completed in 1745 and immediately attacked by troops from New England. The fortress was captured, but was restored to the French just three years later by the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle. In 1758, Louisbourg was again attacked by the British, who destroyed the fortress walls.
In the early 1960s, the Canadian government began reconstructing roughly a quarter of the original town and its fortifications, recreating the buildings and streets as they had been during the 1740s. Now a National Historic Site operated by Parks Canada, the Fortress of Louisbourg is said to be North America’s largest historical reconstruction.
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Back in the 18th century, the holidays were a festive time in Louisbourg, says Jonah. “The streets would have been filled with people carrying lanterns as they made their way to the chapel in the King’s bastion for Midnight Mass. The priest and the governor’s servants would gather evergreen branches and berries, and also use coloured ribbons and silk flowers to make the chapel beautiful.”
The following recipes are from the book. I was honoured to participate in the testing and styling of its recipes, and Saltscapes photographer, Perry Jackson, did much of the photography.
The recipe ingredients and methods have been updated to make the dishes easy for today’s home cooks to prepare, but the foods stay true to their historical roots.
French Taste in Atlantic Canada—1604-1758: A Gastronomic History, by Anne Marie Lane Jonah and Chantal Véchambre is published by Cape Breton University Press; cbup.ca.