Francophone music, local beer, and Québécois fare: Festival du Bois takes the party to the kitchen
With its focus on French Canadian culture, the fest shares classic recipes—and pairs them with Port Moody ales and performances from across the country
Food plays a part in the cultural celebration that is Festival du Bois, which, for its virtual 2021 edition, shares recipes for classic French Canadian dishes, such as tourtière, courtesy of Ricardo Cuisine. Photo by Ricardo Cuisine
Festival du Bois takes place for free online from April 16 to 30.
IT’S A TIME-TESTED truth: house parties always end up in the kitchen. When the team behind Festival du Bois, Maillard’s music festival, was planning for this year’s event at a time when everybody is stuck at home, they wanted to keep the party going. Many of the musicians from across the country will perform from the heart of their own homes.
“Artists feed off of people, so we wanted to do a kitchen party kind of set up, a very personal-type thing,” Festival du Bois executive and artistic director Johanne Dumas tells Stir. “It’s more intimate. We wanted people to feel like they’re coming into their space and to have fun with that.”
Virtual emcee Monique Polloni of Radio Canada is interviewing every artist about how they’ve been spending time at home, including in their own kitchens, throughout the pandemic. “We thought, ‘Let’s just have fun with this,” Dumas says. “Let’s not take ourselves too seriously.’”
The theme for B.C.’s largest festival of French Canadian and Francophone music and culture for 2021 is “Festival à la Cabane”, with people experiencing the online events at home, in their own cabane. (Bonus: it’s all free.) The only thing better than taking in a concert by the likes of local violinist and musical prodigy Jocelyn Pettit, Innu folk-country singer Florent Vollant, Montreal Zydeco group Le Winston Band, or Acadian singer/songwriter Joseph Edgar, of course, is to enjoy it with good food and drink.
With food being a cornerstone of culture, Festival du Bois is sharing recipes for a few quintessential French-Canadian dishes. The recipes come courtesy of Ricardo Cuisine, a Montreal-based food-media empire founded by Ricardo Larrivée.
Every year, Festival du Bois partners with Yellow Dog Brewing, a craft brewery in Port Moody. In a typical year, it serves its Lumberjack Ale on-site. This time out, people can pick up its beer to sip at home, and the fest has some pairing suggestions to pull everything together.
The recipe for tourtière (meat pie) for example, follows tradition, filled with veal, pork, potatoes, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Festival du Bois’ beer pairing is Yellow Dog Squirrel Chaser Pale Ale: “middle of the road balanced beer for them, not too challenging on non craft people, but still enough character to be remembered favourably by beer snobs”, the fest website notes.
Pork “Creton” is a meat spread with ground pork, onion, and bread crumbs. Yellow Dog Shake a Paw Smoked Porter is the fest’s pick: “simple and smooth with unique smoky characteristics – this will work well with Creton/cheeses/ and charcuterie like Landjaegers or Jamon Iberico.”
Then there’s tarte au sucre, or sugar pie, a simple delight starring brown sugar. Have it with Yellow Dog Retriever Golden Ale, the “lightest, most dessert-friendly beer in their regular line up”.
All of the recipes can be found at Festival du Bois’ website, which also includes a full schedule of concerts, family programming, and other fest happenings. Yellow Dog is at 2817 Murray Street; it’s open for pick-up seven days a week. It also has a patio with family-size picnic tables, and kids are welcome.
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