Saveurs: Exploring Indigenous Cuisines
The series Saveurs: Exploring Indigenous Cuisines, produced by La Fabrique culturelle of Télé-Québec and now available online, is an invitation to experience firsthand the cultural and culinary heritage of Québec’s 11 Indigenous Nations.
Discovering the traditional cuisine of Indigenous Nations and building bridges between chefs from diverse backgrounds and cultures is the starting point of this documentary series, created through a partnership between La Fabrique culturelle of Télé-Québec and Indigenous Tourism Québec. Balancing tradition and modernity, cuisine becomes above all a space for exchange and mutual learning.
The aim of the series, whose first season was released in 2022, is to explore the flavors of Québec’s 11 Indigenous Nations over the course of three seasons.
New season available! Season 3 – Saveurs: Exploring Indigenous Cuisines
The third installment of the series, composed of four episodes, follows Jonathan Rassi and Karine Beauchamp, respectively a professor and executive chef at the Institut de tourisme et d’hôtellerie du Québec.
We are taken to Waskaganish to fish for whitefish with members of the Eeyou Nation, and with the Inuit Nation to harvest wild berries. The journey also leads to moose hunting with the Atikamekw of Manawan, and trapping with the Naskapi in Kawawachikamach.
“Cuisine remains a pretext for meeting people,” adds Jean-Marc E. Roy, the director of the series. “And for seeing how people talk about it with passion and humility. Cuisine is a social lubricant; it nourishes in every sense of the word!”
To extend the experience, revisit the first two seasons of the series:
Season 1
During the first season, Marc de Passorio, former chef of the restaurant La Traite at the Hôtel-Musée des Premières Nations in Wendake, sets out to meet men and women who preserve ancestral culinary techniques. A feast with members of the Innu community of Mashteuiatsh, traditional lobster fishing with Daniel Lalo, an Innu from Nutashkuan, seaweed harvesting in Gesgapegiag with a member of the Mi’gmaq Nation and the Mi’gmaq and Wolastoqey Aboriginal Fisheries Management Association—each episode offers an opportunity to listen, to see, and to learn knowledge passed down from generation to generation.
It is also an opportunity for Jean-Marc E. Roy, the series’ director, to give back to the First Nations and Inuit the recognition they deserve in the evolution of Québec gastronomy. Whether it be drying or smoking techniques, or ingredients such as Jerusalem artichokes, wild berries, and fiddleheads traditionally prepared in Indigenous cuisine: “There is something to learn from the members of the First Peoples, present on this territory since time immemorial, careful to minimize their impact on the environment and to harvest only what is available,” explains Jean-Marc E. Roy.
Season 2
Over the course of three episodes in the second season, Wolastoqey chef Maxime Lizotte is followed step by step as he discovers traditional maple syrup harvesting with Anishinaabe Jimmy Papatie, sturgeon fishing with the W8banakiak of Odanak, and porcupine hunting with a member of the Wendat Nation in the heart of the Nionwentsïo, “our magnificent territory.”
“I was deeply moved by this experience,” says Maxime Lizotte, who grew up in the city and reconnects with his origins through the series. “Seeing how Indigenous Peoples preserve millennia-old traditions in an era where everything is so easily accessible is fascinating.”
Each episode also shows how cuisine is a vehicle for other cultural traditions such as drumming, singing, dancing, and craftsmanship.
