Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Sugar Shack or Cabane à sucre, yummy!

In my previous post, I mentioned going to the Sugar Shack. I realised after Monkey’s comment that it may not be something you (non French-Canadian) are familiar with. Different strokes for different folks, I guess. Monkey’s question had me thinking and wondering if “la cabane à sucre” as we call it, is something typically Canadian or even French Canadian… I don’t really know. I just know it’s something we’ve been doing as far back as I can remember. I used to go on school trips in elementary school, then with my parents and with friends. It’s a spring thing to do, to go sugaring off. We had some family friends who actually owned and operated a little shack at the end of their farming lot. We would go and collect the maple water from the trees, boil it for hours until it turned into syrup and then have a meal where almost everything was soaked in maple syrup.

I remember a few years back when our friend from Hawaii came to visit and we brought her to a traditional place. It’s actually an historical site, pretty and interesting. When we tried to explain what and how it was to her, my best description was that it was the equivalent to a “luau” but with maple syrup and left over winter. She actually enjoyed herself and thought it was very different from anything she had seen so far.

A typical meal at “la cabane à sucre” is composed of some "creton" (basically pork and onion spread) and bread followed by some pea soup to start, some omelettes, some baked beans (in maple syrup), some sausages (also in syrup), some boiled potatoes or sometime roasted, some ham, some pork rinds (that we call “Oreilles de crisse”, and there's no translation for that!) and misc. pickled things like beets, cucumbers, and onions. Some places will also have some meat pie, but that’s not everywhere.


For desert there’s always some sugar pie, pancakes with syrup, “pouding chômeur” (literally translated to “Unemployed pudding” which is like a simple white cake buried under maple syrup - and I do make a mean one!) and some “Grand Père” (translated to “Grand Father” which are like donuts centre soaked in maple syrup) .

To finish it all off we go for some “tire sur la neige” (or maple taffy on snow). That's the best part!

It is VERY rich, and man oh man, is it sweet; but once every so often it not so bad.

Here’s a link to a little video showing you, if you’re curious; pretty much what it is all about.

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Images: Assiette & Tire

10 comments:

Unknown said...

that looks awesome AND disgusting at the same time. i'd eat it.

Daddy Papersurfer said...

That is one calorific menu!!! Is it to do with really cold winters and building up fat reserves? That lot would keep me going for several days .......

Johnny said...

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Charlie said...

Old "Mike" there is a spammer--best get rid of him before some poor soul clicks on it.

All of that food, every last bit of it, sounded and looked delicious. If you can see me through your monitor, I have slobber ... never mind.

Happy April 1st from a fool. Or something like that.

Green-Eyed Momster said...

Ditto what Kara said!


Beans with that?

Hugs!!

Site manager said...

Oh my gosh. That sounds amazing!



( the wordpress account won't let me comment. I freaking love technology!!)

~michele

Meg said...

I think I should move to Canada. Sounds like you guys like maple syrup as much as I do.

stinkypaw said...

kara: And you'd enjoy it, I'm sure!

Daddy P: Maybe it was originally, but nowadays, it's more to simply "pigout"!

Charlie: Took care of Mike. One additional time I'm thanful for not seeing thru my monitor. ;-)

GEM: Not just beans, baked beans! Yummy!

Michele: It was good, at least once/year...

Meg: This time of year is "maple syrup season", you'd love it!

stinkypaw said...

Johnny: Welcome to my world.

SICKITTEN said...

While rummaging for images on Google for my Sugar Shack post and ran into your site. Stinkypaw. Hysterical. I remember there would always be a case of stinkpaw before those clumping litters came around. I'm here in NY but originally a Quebecer from Gaspe, of all places. I see we have the same sense of humor.