By Rafe Calder
The pie is easy to describe. Meat, spices, pastry, a cold night in December. The argument is about almost everything else: where the name comes from, what goes inside, and which region gets to use the word.
We read three food pieces and one reference article, and report what each says. No recipe is given, and none is recommended.
The name
Two theories come from the Flavour Network article, a food-media feature. One says “tourte” was the name of a pigeon-like bird, and that early pies were made with such birds. The other says “tourtière” is also the name of the pie pan the dish was baked in. The article does not say which bird.
Wikipedia is firm on the other side. It says that despite a popular belief, the name does not come from “tourte”, the French name for the now-extinct passenger pigeon. It says dishes with the same name have existed in parts of France since the 17th century, and that the name likely shifted from the dish to the pie itself, as happened with “casserole”. A Smithsonian magazine piece from 7 December 2011 sits between the two. It cites the Ottawa Citizen for the name coming from “the dish used to bake a tourte”, and adds that tourte can also mean the passenger pigeon, once used to fill the pie.
So: pan, pigeon, or a French dish that gave its name to a Canadian one. We show all three and pick none.
A Christmas pie
Wikipedia calls it a traditional part of the Christmas réveillon and the New Year’s Eve meal in Québec, and says it is also an integral part of holiday meals for French Canadians in Winnipeg’s St. Boniface and St. Norbert neighbourhoods and in rural Francophone Manitoba. The Flavour Network piece says the tradition can be traced to the 1600s, when settlers ate the pie after midnight mass on Christmas Eve, at a réveillon feast borrowed from Europe. The Smithsonian article says it was served after midnight mass or at midnight on New Year’s Eve, though it does not use the word réveillon. TasteAtlas, a food-guide site, says only that it is often prepared between Christmas and New Year’s Eve.
That is a custom with a religious setting, and we report it as a dating of the habit, not a point of belief.
What goes inside
Here the sources are generous with variety. Wikipedia says the filling is pork, veal, beef or fish, plus potatoes, with game such as bear, venison or rabbit sometimes used, and says there is no single correct filling. Coastal areas often use fish such as salmon, it says, and inland areas pork, beef, rabbit or game. The Flavour Network article says the original fillings were cubed meats, often wild game such as rabbit, pheasant or moose, and that Montréal versions today use ground pork, beef or veal, while coastal versions may use salmon or trout. The Smithsonian piece says it is usually minced pork or a pork, beef and veal mix, mentions a seafood variation, and describes a duck version from a bakery in Montréal’s Jean-Talon market. TasteAtlas says usually pork, sometimes beef.
The spices overlap. Wikipedia gives cinnamon and cloves for Montréal. The Flavour Network piece says cinnamon, clove, allspice and nutmeg are almost always included. The Smithsonian piece says cinnamon, nutmeg, mace or cloves may be used. Wikipedia adds that ketchup, maple syrup, molasses or cranberry preserves are common accompaniments in Montréal.
Three regional pies
Wikipedia names a Lac-Saint-Jean tourtière, also called tourtière saguenéenne, a slow-cooked deep-dish pie with potatoes and small cubes of meat, often including game or turkey. It says that in its home region, ground-meat versions are called “pâté à la viande”, and “tourtière” is reserved for the local style. The Flavour Network piece describes Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean pies as giant, filled with game meats and large enough to feed a family of twenty. It says nothing about the “pâté” naming.
Montréal is the ground-pork pie, which Wikipedia says is widely found across Canada but less popular than the Lac-Saint-Jean style. Flavour Network describes it as a delicate shell. For the Gaspésie, Flavour Network describes layered dough with game or meat, sometimes potatoes, a crusty top and a soft interior. Wikipedia does not mention the Gaspésie at all.
In Acadian communities, Wikipedia says, the dish is called pâté à la viande, a pork pie that may also contain chicken, hare or beef, and in Petit-Rocher and Campbellton it is made in small pie plates and called “petits cochons”.
Dates in order
- 17th century: dishes of the same name known in parts of France, according to Wikipedia.
- 1600s: settlers eat the pie after midnight mass, according to Flavour Network.
- 18th century: “sea pie” popular among French and British colonists, called the direct forerunner of the Lac-Saint-Jean pie, according to Wikipedia.
- 1840: earliest recorded recipes, in La cuisinière canadienne, likely the first French-language cookbook published in Canada, according to Flavour Network.
- Late 19th and early 20th centuries: Québec immigrants bring it to New England, according to Wikipedia.
Side by side
| Wikipedia | Flavour Network | |
|---|---|---|
| Name from the passenger pigeon? | No, a popular belief | One of two theories |
| Oldest filling | Not stated | Cubed wild game |
| Christmas link | Réveillon and New Year’s Eve | Midnight mass, 1600s |
| Pâté à la viande | Named, Lac-Saint-Jean and Acadian | Not mentioned |
What kind of sources these are
Wikipedia is an open encyclopedia and we read it through a summarising tool. Flavour Network is a food-media site, and its piece mixes history with cooking description. The Smithsonian article is a magazine piece with a named author and a date, but it cites a newspaper. TasteAtlas is a food-guide site, and it is the thinnest of the four. We did not find a heritage body or a museum page on the pie.
Questions a buyer would ask
If a shop sells a tourtière, which region’s style is it? What is in it, and where did the meat come from? Is it ground or cubed? If a label gives an old date for the recipe, what is the source? And if the pie is called a pâté à la viande, is that a different pie, or the same one under a local name? In Lac-Saint-Jean, according to Wikipedia, the answer depends on who is speaking.
What we left out
Cooking times and weights, which Flavour Network gives and which read as one family’s method. Any filling recommendation. A claim in one source about restaurants and cost. Everything after the pie leaves the oven: toppings, sides, and the argument about whose grandmother did it right.
Roam first. Shop later.