Tourtière

A smell from my childhood to recreate in the darkest days of the year. I have no idea how old this recipe is, passed hand to hand maybe for three or four hundred years in Canada. Before that? Who knows. But the basic ingredients -- pork, onions, garlic, cinnamon, cloves and savoury -- show up in medieval recipes. When i was a child in Alberta i watched my grandma Rose make it in numbers sufficient for her four daughters' families' Christmas Eve dinner after midnight mass. I learned from my mom. And now my daughters make it. And I'm making it in France. I'm told it's not really known here, but Mme Perez, our local butcher , just nodded her head when I told her I needed the pork for a Canadian tourtière...

Maybe the past isn't that far away.