(Gaspé) From Sainte-Flavie to Gaspé, via Chandler and Sainte-Anne-des-Monts, the roadside canteens of Gaspésie all have one thing in common: they serve shrimp rolls. Sometimes also with crab or lobster.
Published on 25 June 2020 at 6 a.m. 30
La Presse
For whelks, sea knives or sea urchins, it's something else. They are much more difficult to find.
But crustaceans have obviously become more democratic. They are even often prepared in the form of poutine.
PHOTO FROM THE GASPÉSIE TOURISM SITE
A lobster roll
It is clear that Quebecers appreciate the diversity of their seafood much more than at the time when capelin were used to fatten the fields, where crab was sold 25 cents a pocket and where it all came down to one fish.
“Cod, cod, cod. When I was a child, it was just that, “said Patrice Element, director of the Shrimp Fishermen's Office in Gaspé.
Today is different.
“30 years ago there were no shrimp rolls in the roadside canteens. Now yes. It cannot be said that the situation has not changed. It has changed a lot, ”says businesswoman Claudine Roy, former owner of the Brise-Bise restaurant in Gaspé, organizer of the Grande Traversée de la Gaspésie, president of the Association Restauration Québec and owner of the Auberge sous les arbres , when asked if Quebecers enjoy their seafood. “But for that to change, we need precursors, people who believe in it. “
People like her who dared to put poutine with shrimp on the menu. Or cooks like Ricardo or Marilou who increase the sale of seafood by offering recipes to the general public. Communicators like them, people I meet tell me, have a lot of impact.
PHOTO FROM TRIPADVISOR
A shrimp poutine from Le Baleinier restaurant, in Gaspé
In Quebec, we eat more imported seafood than Quebec seafood. Any visit to the supermarket shows it: freezers and refrigerators are filled with imported products and have few products from here. For some products, it is the same 100% or 99% of our production that goes to the United States, Europe or Asia, while we are putting in our grocery basket of farmed pangasius, often Vietnamese, or Thai shrimp or salmon or black Pacific cod.
Is it a problem ? Why should we consume more Quebec products if the fishermen and processors here make good business by exporting?
Because what is good is what is fresh, so what is local, replies chef Colombe St-Pierre, spokesperson for Manger notre St-Laurent, a project to promote local products.
“Because it's our land,” adds Claudine Roy.
To be more autonomous on the supply side, when international crises arrive.
PHOTO MARIE-CLAUDE LORTIE, LA PRESSE
André Pierre Rossignol and Gino Cyr
To better occupy and promote the territory, to develop regions economically otherwise. This is what I understand by talking to Gino Cyr, director, and André Pierre Rossignol, director and export advisor of Gimxport, a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting products from the Magdalen Islands and the Gaspé Peninsula.
If small processors working in small quantities allowed fishermen to operate other than on an industrial scale, by bringing small quantities of several species, possibly to stretch and vary the seasons, ensure a supply of various products, perhaps the culinary landscape, but also the economic, cultural, social, coastal regions would be different.
The local economy would be renewed, both for the people who live there year round and for tourists.
And working on a smaller scale puts less pressure on resources and allows more precise adjustments to inventory fluctuations.
Imagine if in addition to the shrimp rolls, you could eat sea knives or sea urchins in the canteens by the sea, as is done in Maine or Cape Cod, with oysters and clams.
According to Gino Cyr, the key to change lies in educating consumers and, therefore, changing demand, but also in government efforts to restructure the market so that small players are allowed to emerge.
Chef Colombe St-Pierre thinks the same thing and believes in projects like that of Chasse-Marée, for example.
Installed in Rimouski, right on the port, the three members of the team of this small company, the researcher Guillaume Werstink, the fisherman Emmanuel Sandt-Duguay and the one who watches over the conservation projects, Sandra Autef, find ways to transform Quebec products, by canning, in particular, so that we have them all year round.
And not just crab, shrimp or lobster. Burgers, knives, surf clams, almost all of which are currently exported to Japan, where they are served in sashimi and sushi, while the rest of the meat is left for local consumption.
These are exactly the products that Sandra Gauthier, director of Exploramer and instigator of the La Fourchette bleue program, wanted to highlight by creating her “Fourchette bleue” certification. It applies to all restaurants that use Quebec seafood, unknown but also from sustainable fishing, of course, so the sea urchins – “you have to go out of your way to have them here because 'they are almost all exported' – as Greenland halibut.
Forty products are identified each year.
Local demand needs to be boosted, she says. Consumers must ask for products from their fishmongers, their grocery stores, their politicians.
Because, according to her, it is insane that so many products escape the Québécois.
“It's such nonsense. This industry really needs a refresh . “
