Well, basically, it was a farm that specialized in dairy production, but I wasn’t that interested in dairy production. So I converted the dairy herd into a beef herd, because my idea was to raise beef cattle and process it on the farm. We work organically and we care about the environment. In any case, these are all things that are very important to us. Louis also thought that way a bit, along with animal welfare. You know, pasture for cows, no inputs on the farm, lots of permanent grassland. So I’ve made changes in terms of production itself, but a lot of progress had already been made over the years, so I didn’t have to do that.

Well, let’s begin with my family and friends. Yes, I had help there. My father was really supportive. He stopped working for three years, the first few years after I took over the farm, because I needed help. After that, in farming, you’re surrounded by a terrific support network. I surrounded myself with advisors to help me boost my production a bit.

But, basically, we have 40 beef cows. They’re a cross between Simmental, which is a French breed, and Angus, which is an English breed, so that’s our cattle herd. Basically, it’s a cow-calf operation, so the cows stay in the herd and give birth to calves every year. And it’s those calves that we sell as meat. That’s right, our cows stay in the herd and produce calves. So that’s cattle farming, which involves producing all the fodder needed to feed these animals and maintaining pasture for cows in the summer. Apart from that, what else do we do? Part of our land is used for grain production, so we grow bread wheat, which is wheat for human consumption, and we also grow oats and peas. Those are the main crops we grow. Other than that, there’s also forestry production in winter, because there are a lot of woodlots on the farm, so we cut wood for the sawmills in winter.

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But basically, we process half a cow every week. All cuts of beef are available. We’re open on Fridays and Saturdays for customers, and the whole half cow is available that weekend, fresh. Then there’s a portion that’s also distributed to grocery stores, otherwise we make our own homemade sausages. Hams, pâtés, basically all meat products, we make them too. We also try to stock the shop with local products from other producers. So we have pork, lamb, and poultry from producer friends in the region, as well as vegetables. It’s become a kind of mini farm grocery store.

Well, it’s really fulfilling, you know, to do stuff, to achieve things with your business. You know, when there are tough times, but there are also times when, you know, the store is packed on a Saturday afternoon, and then you say, wow, this is cool, you know. What I’m doing is working. So in that sense, it can be really rewarding

I think we’re a business that’s pretty well established in our community.

You know, we only work with meat from the farm or local producers, so we’re doing our part for food self-sufficiency in our region. We’re really proud of that. And then, you know, sometimes there are just as many people people from the village of Mont-Carmel who come to buy their meat for the week, and then you also have, say, people from Quebec City or Montreal who stop by because our products are of high quality. But you know, we’re always happy to see local people coming to buy stuff from us. And I think people appreciate us too.

Well, it’s everywhere, actually. It’s like, I don’t even think it can be categorized in terms of importance. It’s just that I wouldn’t have done this project without my family. And I’m doing it for the family too, so that’s that. Like I said earlier, there’s a lot of elbow grease from everyone in the family that keeps the farm going today. So yes, it’s super important.

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So why did I decide to go into vegetable farming in 2017? It was because I wanted to get out of the restaurant business. I also wanted to get a bit closer to the product. I was processing beautiful products in the restaurant industry, but I found that my life lacked a little meaning. I wanted to produce food directly, while maintaining contact with customers. And at the same time, I was craving a bit of freedom and entrepreneurship, all of which led me to this path.

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So how does culture manifest itself in my cooking? Well, I like to say that I have four pillars. It’s funny, I used to give lectures on this when I had time, when I didn’t have a restaurant to run. So there are traditional or ancestral ingredients, traditional or ancestral techniques, the use of the land around us, and then the philosophy surrounding Indigenous or Wolastoqey culture. When we talk about philosophy, we’re talking about respect for Mother Earth, we’re talking today about, let’s say, using as many organic, locally sourced ingredients as possible. So we try to ensure that the ingredients have traveled as little as possible. After that, using the land also means reconnecting with the people who live there. Even though we are in a territory that is now inhabited by many different cultures, the fact remains that Wolastokuk is our ancestral territory. And I want to work with this territory, which was also used by my ancestors in the past. Then there are the ingredients, the ancestral ingredients, such as corn, everything that grows in the boreal forest, forest flora, non-timber forest products, spices, berries, squash, beans. I already mentioned corn.

Working with herbs that grow locally, but also meat and fish. Because in the restaurant business, the challenge of using traditional or ancestral meats, such as beaver, moose, and so on, is that it’s not legal to sell them, it’s not legal to market them. So we use farmed game, such as duck, deer, elk, bison, maybe rabbit, quail, and farmed partridge. We work with these products, but otherwise, when there are events where I can cook beaver, Indigenous events, or moose, we definitely do it. Then, in terms of ancestral and traditional techniques, well there’s cooking over a fire, smoking and drying, which I use a lot in my cooking. You can’t really imagine the aromatic potential of a dried fruit that you rehydrate in a sauce, which really brings out its flavor, a flavor that has already been concentrated by the drying process. So it’s all these aspects that ultimately build a bridge between my current cuisine and my Indigenous roots.

Of course, when it comes to learning techniques, let’s say, traditional cooking techniques, the language has helped me a lot. I have realized to a certain extent that if there’s a word in the Wolastoqey language that has no roots in French or English, and that word exists, then it is very likely that that the ingredient was used. I’m thinking in particular of polam, which means salmon. It doesn’t sound like saumon or salmon. I’m thinking of, let’s say, Cikon, which means apple. It doesn’t sound like apple; it doesn’t sound like pomme. Then there are other ingredients like pork. Pork in Wolastoqey is Piks. Clearly, it has an English root, so we understand that pork wasn’t available before the arrival of, for example, English or French speakers, in short, colonization. I found it really fascinating to discover ingredients through language. So language has really allowed me to understand and learn about food traditions, at least the food heritage of the Wolastoqiyik.

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So yes, that’s right, my cuisine is seasonal, people-oriented, local, and product-based. The idea is really to use what grows here in Quebec, and even more so in eastern Quebec, especially since that’s where we are. So creativity is simply enhanced, I would say, by this kind of blind spot, by using only a few ingredients, compared to the whole range of ingredients we could use if we didn’t set any limits. It pushes creativity, that’s what I really like about it.

Of course, traditional ingredients, ancestral ingredients from the culture, let’s say, Indigenous to northeastern America, are often found in my dishes. For example, I think of the pizza we make here in a wood-fired oven, where I incorporate corn flour into the dough. I use corn a lot in my cooking. It’s in the salsa I put on lobster tacos, in tortillas that are 25 percent corn. It’s also in the waffles we serve for brunch and on fried chicken coated in cornbread crumbs.

After that, my goodness, anything with dried fruit. Right now, I have a duck dish with mushrooms and a sauce made with sour cherries. Even though the cherries we use aren’t necessarily heirloom cherries, the fact remains that cherries are native to Quebec, at least certain varieties. After that, there are so many examples, there are so many dishes in restaurants, I’d say. I think, that I can name an ingredient from Indigenous culture in each of my dishes. Traditional ingredients are everywhere in my cooking, in a contemporary approach, in a modern approach.

For me, it was a bit of a revelation for my cooking and also for my roots to say to myself, why don’t we consume more of what grows naturally rather than what humans grow, be they men or women. So, when it comes to wild fruits, northern nuts, and herbs, why don’t we use fir instead of rosemary, mugwort instead of oregano, and tansy instead of sage, because sage isn’t native to Quebec, even though many people associate sage with Indigenous culture. So wild plants have a very important role to play in my cooking. I have a wall full of containers of all kinds of plants that flavour my dishes. I also make essences. Right here, I have one made from sweet gale, which we serve in Old Fashioneds instead of using bitters and Angostura. It’s a lovely little product that we like to make, not just for cooking, but for mixology as well.

There are two that I use quite often in my cooking. One is sweet clover blossom, which I would say has a subtle vanilla and tonka bean flavor, a molecule that is also found in vanilla and sweet clover. And sweetgum is another one I really like, with a slightly clove-like, spicy cinnamon flavor, as well as a woody taste that lends itself equally well to baking, cooking, game, and charcuterie. I would say those are pretty much my two favorites.

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It has brought us new customers that we didn’t have before. We had an aging clientele, and now with the young people, the cakes, and all the sushi, well, that has brought us a new clientele. Often, our front-line employees say to us, “These are people we’ve never seen before.” So it has brought in new customers and allowed us to increase our sales, so it’s really a plus for our company. Her desire is above all to please customers. Basically, when Emiko cooks, it’s not just to make food, it’s really to make the people who eat her dishes happy, to see them smile, to see the smiles on their face when they come to pick up their food. That’s really taking care of everything. It’s a real source of pride for her.

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Well, the history of the bakery is something important, something that has been part of people’s daily lives. So, for us, it was essential to keep all of that here. When we bought it, most people told us, “Don’t change anything, keep everything!” and we made it a point of honour not to remove anything. We simply added to it. So people are rediscovering recipes they’ve always had over the past 40 years, over the past 20 years, so it was important for us not to throw everything away, but to simply bring our image, and it was the same thing with Emiko. Emiko is therefore a very important addition to the bakery. Her personality makes her a warm person who likes to reach out to people. So, for her employees, she’s very maternal. She likes to take care of people and listen to them, which is a really important contribution to the bakery.

She’s very involved in the organization Je collationne. I don’t know if you’re familiar with it, but it provides snacks to schoolchildren in the Kamouraska region, including Rivière-Ouelle, Saint-Gabriel-Lalemant, and other areas. She’s very involved when it comes to distributing snacks; she’s really there with them. She also does a lot work with her children and her partner through the Guignolée, a media Christmas-time food and fund-raising drive. So she’s really very involved.

For her, it’s very important to keep everything that once belonged to the Leclerc family. She would like to put up photos of what the bakery used to be like. Because for her, it’s really important. A family through the years, four generations. We were talking earlier about how the bakery is 140 years old. So, for her, it’s very important. Then there’s something else that’s very important in Japan as well, family continuity. So, for her, it’s important to recognize what the Leclercs have done and then to add her own touch, while always preserving what the Leclercs have done for the bakery and the region too.

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When we started setting things up, we installed our poles at the beginning of May, OK. We installed them early because we wanted big tides to solidify them, so that storms wouldn’t come and rip them out. We set them up in advance. By September, we had installed the ropes, boxes, and nets in order to fish in October. And now, with global warming, we fish until November 15. In the past, there were no more eels by the end of October because they had all migrated. Now the water is warmer, so the eels migrate a little later. That’s why we take down our nets as of mid November.

We process smoked, marinated, or fresh products. Smoking is done entirely with maple wood. I have two types of smokers: a hot smoker and a cold smoker. It’s all artisanal smoking. That means that we smoke with maple wood, not sawdust, maple wood. Even cold smoking is done with maple wood, which no one else does. They always use wet sawdust. But it doesn’t taste the same as maple wood. The heat is also controlled manually. This gives it a special flavour.

When we process, it’s pretty much a family affair. Pretty much. Look. Even my wife cooks, my daughter too, she cooks. They make new products and ready-to-eat meals. They make sushi, all kinds of things. As for us, I make marinated products. My brother smokes fish. Then he slices it every morning in the summer . . . It’s fresh every day.

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