Tourtière

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A tourtière is a meat pie originating from Quebec, usually made with ground pork and/or veal, or beef. It is a traditional Christmas and/or Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve dish in Quebec, but is also enjoyed and sold in grocery stores all year long. This kind of pie is known as pâté à la viande (literally, meat pie) in the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean region.

Tourtière is not exclusive to the Canadian province of Québec. Tourtière is a traditional French-Canadian dish served by generations of French-Canadian families throughout Canada and the bordering areas of the United States. In the U.S. Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Minnesota, Rhode Island, and Vermont, citizens of Québécois ancestry have introduced the recipe. Every family has their own "original" recipe, passed down through the generations. Like the recipe, there is no one correct filling, as the meat that goes into the pie depends on what is available in the region. In areas close to the ocean, fish such as salmon is commonly used, whereas pork, beef and game are used inland.

The name supposedly comes from the name of a pie-making utensil but by 1611 tourtière more or less referred to the meat pie as we know it today.^[1] There is speculation that this culinary form is related to Moroccan pastry-making practices brought to Europe by way of Spain.^[2]

[edit] Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean

The tourtières of the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean area are slow-cooked deep-dish meat pies made with potatoes and various meats (often including game), which are cut into small cubes. Elsewhere in Quebec and the rest of Canada, this variety of tourtière is sometimes referred to in French and in English as tourtière du Lac-Saint-Jean or tourtière saguenéenne to distinguish it from the varieties of tourtière with ground meat.

[edit] References

1. ^ Tourtière - Quebec Meat Pie, a traditional recipe on the Worldwide Gourmet
2. ^ FARE OF THE COUNTRY; A Festive Dessert of Southwest France - New York Times

[edit] External links

• The tourtière debate at the CBC archive.