I’ve been a vegetarian for a week now, and it’s going pretty well thus far.

Many vegetarians report an increase in energy from the get-go. Did I get an energy boost myself? Well, I think so. Could be psychosomatic, of course, or it could be that the contrast between my Christmas Holidays diet and this one is so drastic that I’d feel this way even with a steak for dinner.

Still, this feels nice. It feels empowering. It feels like I’m in control of my diet, and I’m exploring new territory. Part of the reason I want to go 3 months without meat is that I want to see how this feels once the newness of it is gone; so we’ll see how things feel when I’ve been going 2 months without meat. For now, though, it’s pretty cool.

My biggest difficulty thus far has been to clearly define, and then respect, my own definition of vegetarianism. Initially, I wanted to avoid having eggs, milk and cheese if I didn’t know that they were locally-grown and organic. This is proving to be a tough proposition: I might get a dish I ordered that contains cream, for instance, or agonize over whether they used gelatin in a dessert I might have.

So after reconvening with Helene on the subject, we both decided that although we should try and avoid milk, eggs and cheese from non-small-scale sources, it was better not to agonize over it for the time being. After a month of vegetarianism, we can “crank it up” and see how we handle it. So for now, I try and restrict myself to black coffee, for instance, but I won’t make a case if cream ends up in my dish.

I haven’t felt the need to apologize for being a vegetarian; that is, until I went back to the Farmers Market yesterday. I told Grace, a kind and cheerful Polish woman who sells amazing beef jerky and pepperoni. I didn’t want her to think I didn’t like her products anymore, so I spilled the beans about my experiment. I told her I’d miss her pepperoni.

She patted my hand, a sad expression on her face. “They’ll miss you too!”

As you know, I place a lot of importance on small-scale meat production, as opposed to industrial slaughterhouses. I believe that although it is ethically acceptable to eat meat, this does not imply the right to treat animals inhumanely.

Here is a blog post that exemplifies the kind of understanding and appreciation that can grow from small-scale meat production. The fascinating story comes from Joe Cloud, who operates a small-scale slaughterhouse in the US. Joe is the partner of Joel Salatin, mentioned in Michael Pollan’s Omnivore Dilemma.

Queen of Spades lifted her tail and had a pee. I watched as Gingerbread Boogie tasted her urine, sticking his tongue in the stream, then curling his lips back and inhaling deeply to catch the fine aromas, like a wine aficionado with a premier cru Burgundy.  Bulls do this to see if the cow is coming into heat. Here he was in the abattoir, and he was enthusiastically thinking of one last fling. I admired his spirit.

Postcard from a Slaughterhouse: The Ones that Got Away

(Via The Ethicurean)

As I said in a previous post, I’ve decided to give the vegetarian lifestyle a 3-month trial this year. Last Sunday, I took my parents and brother out to Au pied de cochon, and sensing the orgy of meat this would represent, I decided that it would be a fitting point to start my vegetarian experiment.

And so, as of yesterday morning, I’m a vegetarian.

Going vegetarian has one very specific thing in common with quitting smoking, it would seem. When you’re a smoker, you go hours without thinking about the fact you are not smoking at this precise point in time. But quit smoking, and suddenly you’re thinking about your non-smoking every damn minute. As you’ve seen from my recent posts, quitting meat has the same effect on me: I just can’t stop thinking about the absence of it. That is particularly annoying, given that in the days leading up to the Christmas Holidays, my meat consumption was already down to a handful of meals a week.

Ahead of the beginning of my vegetarian experiment, I phoned Helene, who is currently staying at her grandmother’s for the Holidays. I discussed with her my idea to stop eating meat immediately following my trip to Au pied de cochon. Turns out I hadn’t thought this one through.

“Now, what precisely is your reason to become vegetarian? This will influence your choices and restrictions,” she explained to me.

That one is a bit tricky, because as I previously explained on this blog, I’m actually fine with eating meat. So part of my trying out vegetarianism involves imagining myself not being fine with it, and seeing where I draw the line.

“I’m actually less fine with eating an egg that comes from an agro-industrial chicken, than a steak from a small-scale organic farm. So for me to quit eating that steak and having eggs at McDonald’s feels wrong.”

“So vegan, then. But to what degree do you want to do it? Are you fine with wearing leather shoes?”

Ah, yes, the good old downward spiral of vegan ethics. You start by wanting to cut meat because it feels wrong to butcher a veal, and the next thing you know, you’re avoiding silk because you feel guilty for exploiting silkworms.

In the end, Helene and I decided to be dietary vegans in most restaurants, and ovo-lacto-vegetarians at home and in restaurants that offer local and/or organic products. I feel like a smoker who quits smoking cigarettes unless they’re menthos and/or unfiltered Gauloises. But as Helene sagely points out, if you try to do too much with vegetarianism, you’ll just go crazy and give up.

So after reading on vegetarian food, today I went out to Planet Organic, Edmonton’s organic supermarket. I considered myself something of a finicky buyer before, but this reaches entirely new levels. For instance, I’m now looking for “vegetarian cheese”. What’s non-vegetarian about normal cheese you ask? Many cheeses are made using rennet, an enzyme. And it turns out that newborn calves’ stomachs are a wonderful source of rennet.

Well, that’s just peachy. What’s next? Eggs are actually made out of aborted chicken fetuses? This isn’t as easy as it was meant to be.

Anyway, I’ve made it back home with a modest amount of vegetables and one cheese clearly labelled as “rennet-free”. Score! I’ve also braved the refrigerated aisle in order to explore the dark underworld of meat substitutes.

I’ll be trying these out over the next few days, and blogging about it afterwards. But in the meantime, I’ve got one terrifying word for you:

Veganrella.

Having heaped praise on the Old Strathcona Farmer’s Market throughout the better part of last year, I was curious to revisit the fabled Marché Jean-Talon during my Montreal visit. Partly, I wanted to see how the Market held up to my year-old memories of the place; but also, having learned a lot about food and local agriculture this year, I wanted to look at the Market with these new eyes.

Old Strathcona Farmer’s Market and Marché Jean-Talon have very different missions. Old Strathcona is a traditional farmer’s market, promising that every vendor is directly responsible for growing, raising, baking or crafting the products you can buy. The Jean-Talon Market, on the other hand, offers no other promise than to allow a variety of relatively small food vendors to congregate in a common space. It has more in common with “ethnic” markets (its roots as an Italian market still show today), offering specialized food products to a segment of the population.

Jean-Talon Market is split in 3 distinct parts: the periphery of the market is made of various shops that have more in common with modern stores than stalls at an ethnic market. You get a mixed bag of shops in the periphery: from the spectacular (Fromagerie Hamel or the absolutely awesome Marché des saveurs) to the forgettable (the bland fruit supermarket Sami Fruits and baker chain Première moisson.) The second part of the market is a recent interior construction hosting year-round producers selling their wares, while the third part, only open in summer, is the exterior market, where seasonal producers come in droves. To be fair, Jean-Talon truly comes alive in the summer, but being that this is January, I had to content with vendors in the interior part.

I remember my delight at purchasing meat at Jean-Talon, and what I saw today pretty much confirmed this. Judging strictly from the look of it, and from the claims and explanations seen around the shops, the quality of the meat at Jean-Talon Market seems exceptional. Whereas I can only choose from four small-scale meat producers at Old Strathcona (albeit of very high quality), the meat on offering here is as varied as it is mouth-watering: elk and bison from Petite-Nation, Charlevoix lamb, organic pork… It’s all there, and I was pleased to  recognize the signs of care and pride I associate with small producers (”happy lamb!” proclaims a vendor’s sign.)

The produce, however, were a huge disappointment.

Oh, they were pretty, and varied, and perfect… like at the supermarket. If you go to Jean-Talon Market in the winter, you’ll find fruits and vegetables regardless of the season. Today, I saw asparagus, cherries, avocados, and even bananas. Naturally, none of these are from Quebec: cherries were from Chile, avocados from Mexico, asparaguses from as far as Peru. The bananas hailed from Columbia.

Now, that’s fine in itself, except that these imported produce are sold at stands claiming to belong to small farms from the regions of Quebec. The cherries, for instance, were sold at a farm’s stand, alongside with Quebec-grown hothouse tomatoes. The sign proclaming the tomatoes’ origin is huge; to find the cherries’ origin, you have to crouch and inspect the crates.

I don’t know how much this fools the Market’s patrons. Most likely they do not care, as they go to the Market because the produce are fresher than at the supermarket, and a few of the items in their bags end up being regional. But I can’t help but feel there’s some amount of deception involved. When a stall claims to sell heirloom tomatoes from a South Shore farm, and you end up buying cherries from Chile, you’re no longer dealing with a farmer, but with an importer. And aside from mandarin oranges from Morocco, all these non-Quebec origins were kept quiet: not hidden, but not advertised either.

Walking these aisles, I suddenly understood the Old Strathcona’s Farmer’s Market’s insistence on vendors being growers. This single principle has ensured that I can stop at a stall, and engage in a meaningful dialog with the person who raised my beef, roasted my coffee or grew my carrots. Over the last year, this relationship with the people growing my food has played a key role in shaping my worldview and my eating habits.

I don’t begrudge the farmers who pay the winter rent  at the Jean-Talon Market by adding imported produce to their stalls. But as I leaned forward to study the elastic band on the asparagus stalks, I remembered how precious the asparaguses I ate last summer had been. They had shown up in June, giving a summer flair to most of my dinners. Come mid-July, they were gone, announcing the autumn days ahead.

It’s summer in Peru, so the Jean-Talon Market gets asparaguses in January. But I can’t shake the hand that grew these. And in that singular absence, I feel a quiet but disconcerting loss.

Remember my idea of a 3 month vegetarian experiment? I’m about to get started on it.

I initially wanted to get started a bit later in January, when Helene got back to Edmonton with me, and we could plan this out properly. But I’ve been thinking about meat and nutrition over the Holidays, and I might have found the perfect way to kick my meat habit in style :

On Sunday, I’m taking my family out to Au pied de cochon.

If you’re unfamiliar with this Montreal establishment, it’s a crazy, innovative restaurant that specializes in absolutely decadent and absolutely amazing meals. Their portions are immense, the atmosphere is festive, and the flavors of the menu are unmatched.

If that sounds unconvincing, consider this: they serve poutine au foie gras.

I do realize there is something counterproductive, almost, about partaking in an orgy of meat before turning vegetarian. I feel justified doing so, however, by the fact that this isn’t something I’m starting with half a regret in my heart. I don’t know if I will become a full-time vegetarian past my 3 months “trial period”, but I’m open to it, or to going back to meat, whichever makes the most sense at the time. And so, in a way, enjoying the meat at one of Montreal’s finest establishments sounds like it should be part of the experiment.

Already, this Holiday period has been heavy on the meat. Whether it’s the bacon and eggs breakfasts my dad proudly throws together, or the divine bison rib at my favorite Montreal restaurant Chez Yoyo, I’ve eaten more meat in a week than I have over the last 2 months in Edmonton. And truth be told, I’ve been yearning to go back to my carrots and greens in Edmonton.

But it’s the Holidays, right? Time to partake of excess for a while, all in good cheer with the family, and then go back to our lives with a hangover and a few extra pounds.

And as far as meat goes, Au pied de cochon sounds like the ultimate send-off, whether it turns out to be a temporary goodbye, or a permanent adieu.

More and more, I feel compelled to do Good in this world.

I’m not talking of giving to charity, although I fully support this gesture. I personally give to Doctors Without Borders and the Canadian Red Cross, because I think their work is critically important in this world, and they do their work not out of religious obligation (both are secular organisations), but because they must as human beings.

But what I’m talking about is a different compulsion. I want to do Good. I want to leave this world, some day hopefully not-too-soon, and feel I’ve made a positive difference. And with each passing year, this compulsion grows in me.

This, I suspect, is years of travel sinking in. I’ve now seen a few parts of the world where people are much less fortunate than I am. More importantly, I’ve begun realizing how my own little world of comfort is constructed on the backs of people who must suffer for my peace of mind. It’s easier to ignore their pleas when you don’t visit them… But I have. And I can no longer ignore them.

You might think this yearning comes from a religious sentiment. You’d be wrong. If anything, my lack of religion is making the urgency of this desire even more pressing. You see, if there is no Divine Plan, if there is no Divine Justice, and rewards in the Afterlife… Then how can we tolerate what we do to each other? If there are no consequences for the exploitation of the poor, for the suffering of millions while the rich ones dine in peace… How can we stand it?

I would argue that the absence of any higher moral authority and justice means the need to do good is greater and more urgent than anything else.

The question is, then, how does one do Good in this world?

Does it suffice to be yourself, and make every decision according to your nature and in accordance with your sense of responsibility? Or do we not have a moral obligation to reach out and improve the world? Is there anything that matters, ultimately, besides lessening the suffering of your fellow human beings, or even, against all hope, contribute to their happiness and well-being?

I don’t know, and it nags at me. And if anyone has part of the answer, I’d love to hear them out.

Yeah yeah, I’m writing about food again. Sorry if you’re expecting commentary about life in Alberta or on making games, but this is what’s on my mind lately.

So in a recent post, I mentioned that I was fine with the moral implications of eating meat. However, I also pointed out that, according to vegetarian wisdom, you cannot truly make a decision about eating meat without first “freeing” yourself from it long enough to clear your judgment.

Fair enough, I say. I’m not convinced of the validity of this argument, but I’m willing to take it for a spin.

And so, starting in January, I’ll become vegetarian for 3 months.

If your immediate reaction to this is to think of arguments against vegetarianism… Please, there’s no need to try and dissuade me. Truth of the matter is, I’ve heard most of them, and I agree with a few. Like I explained in my previous post, I am perfectly fine with eating meat, so I am not doing this because I’ve somehow become convinced it’s the right thing to do.

Back in 2000, after watching The Insider and reading about the 60 Minutes findings that led to the real-life incidents the movie depicts, I made a similar experiment. I quit smoking, initially for 2 weeks, just to truly understand the extend of my addiction at the time. (See, I thought I could “quit anytime I wanted”, so I set out to prove it.) Five days later, having weaned myself cold turkey, I realized I could never go back to being a smoker.

And so, who knows? Maybe I’ll discover that vegetarianism is for me, and will resort to avoiding meat from now on.

Now, one doesn’t simply “become vegetarian”, I found out. There are numerous ramifications to walking down that path. For which branch of vegetarianism should I follow? Wikipedia lists more than 12 varieties of vegetarianism, ranging from the half-assed to the hardcore. Which one is the one for me?

Let’s say, for the sake of the argument, that I were to turn permanently vegetarian today. My reasons for doing so would be:

• Moral opposition to directly harming animals for food
• Moral and ecological opposition to the suffering animals go through when producing animal byproducts (eggs, milk, cheese) in industrial conditions

In other words, I would be opposed to any meat, but willing to accept eggs, milk and cheese if they were produced on a small-scale farms treating animals humanely. For the record, treatment of a chicken in an industrial egg farm is pretty atrocious, but you could argue that a small-scale farm producing eggs can do so in a way that leaves the hen living a pretty content life.

Interestingly enough, my own definition does not correspond to one of the many flavors of vegetarianism. My willing distinction between small-scale agriculture and agro-industrial seems to mark a divide that doesn’t exist in a formalized enough way to make it to Wikipedia.

And so, let me christen my own little brand of vegetarianism “ecovegetarianism”. Pompous word, I know. Here are the tenets of ecovegetarianism:

• Dietary vegan with agro-industrial products (e.g. fast food)
• Lacto-ovo vegetarian with small-scale, humane animal products

For the record, I’m currently lacto-ovo vegetarian with agro-industrial products, and non-vegetarian with small-scale, local farms.

Any advice or comments on this? I’d love to hear your thoughts!

If you’re even remotely interested in videogames, chances are you heard about the next World of Warcraft expansion coming out tonight. World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King is set to follow in the steps of The Burning Crusade and shatter all-time sales records for an expansion.

Remember those posts I made about finally quitting WoW? Well… yeah. It lasted three months, then I got sucked back in and geared up my Druid. I can’t explain it: I’m glad to do other things when WoW loses my interest, but when it has my attention, boy does it keep it. The game, quite simply, is fun, like no single player game I can think of.

Part of it is the social aspect. Living in Edmonton right now, it means I don’t get to see a few friends of mine outside the game. Chatting with them on Ventrilo, and running raids together, is one of the things I do to keep in touch. Which brings me to an interesting realization about WoW: it’s not just a game, but it’s a social networking platform, too.

And this actually explains a lot of its resiliency. Go to Orgrimmar, and stand in front of the bank: you’ll see dozens of low level players who probably never leave the city anymore. For them, WoW is a social networking platform, where they can create an avatar (most often a female Blood Elf in her underwear), and then take them for a chat with friends and strangers.

When you think of WoW this way, it suddenly explains how competitors like Lord of the Rings Online and Warhammer Online can’t seem to dethrone the 800-pound gorilla that is WoW. It actually works a lot like Facebook or Twitter: compare them to newcomers and they’re underwhelming; but they’re familiar, and don’t miss any critical features, and so switching to a competitor is a LOT more complicated than switching to another game. To really change, you’d need to change your entire online network of friends.

But it’s not to say WoW is all about playing Bejeweled while dancing naked on a mailbox in Orgrimmar… The game underneath is deep, challenging and rewarding. And it provides an amazing sense of community when you gather your friends and beat a particularly demanding part of the game.

And so, when the Tirisfal Glades Zeppelin begins carrying members of the Warsong Offensive to Northrend tomorrow, I’ll be on board one of them. First stop: Vengeance Landing, for a few Profession skill-ups, then I’m off to Utgarde Keep with my guildies.

Hail to the Lich King, baby.

I’ve been thinking about food a lot, lately.

One of the central modern problems raised by eating is that of meat-eating. I’m not deaf to the cries of animal activists; I agree that the treatment of animals by the meat industry – reducing animals to commodities whose suffering is inconsequential – is morally reprehensible.

I’ve been a vegetarian before (although I was very young at the time), and I’ve been giving serious thought to vegetarianism lately. It would certainly please Hélène, who has what I’d call ‘vegetarian tendencies’.

Yet I’m currently leaning away from vegetarianism altogether. What I have in mind is something I haven’t found a handy term to file under… Happyvorism?

My current thinking leads me to think that eating meat can be ethically acceptable. I believe that the eating of animals is part of human nature, and during the evolution of Humanity, we have influenced other species to depend on our own desire to eat or domesticate them in order to thrive.

What I do resent, however, is making any of the animals I eat suffer before they get on my table. And unfortunately, our Western way of approaching meat has led us to tolerate a whole lot more suffering than we should.

In Asia, it is customary to leave certain parts of the animal in the dish when it reaches the dinner table. For instance, if you ask for fish in China, you will get the head. Refined diners will know that the eyes of a fish do not lie about its freshness, so leaving the head is a way for the restaurant to stay honest. Likewise, if you ask for chicken soup in most restaurants in China, you’ll get the legs and the head as well.

Now, this disgusts many Westerners. These parts are too “chickeny” – they are associated with the live animal, not the meat we have at dinner. This is exactly why I think they are important: whenever we are forced to confront the ex-animal we now call meat, we are one step closer to our decision being a lucid one.

In other words, chicken feet and fish heads are ways to keep us honest about our food. And if you stop ignoring the fact your steak used to be a cow capable of anguish and suffering, you suddenly care about how they lived.

And so, I’ve made the conscious decision, recently, to only allow myself to eat meat that comes from small-scale, sustainable farms. This kind of meat usually comes from animals which have been allowed to grow and live in conditions resembling their natural state, and thus probably felt “happy” about their existence. I also hope fervently that this also means their slaughter was as humane as possible, and that suffering was kept to a minimum.

There are two things I’m hoping to accomplish to prove or disprove this position:

1. Become a vegetarian. I’ve heard it said that you are not in a position to make a judgment about the ethical implications of eating meat if you are a meat eater. I would be very happy to undergo the process, to know exactly where I stand on the issue. I’ve done it with cigarettes: I’ve quit smoking “temporarily” in 2000 to verify that I was smoking out of a genuine enjoyment of the activity. I haven’t touched a cigarette since.

2. Kill an animal myself. That might sound like it flies in the face of point number one, but I think it’s the logical extension of it. If I’m going to pretend to be fine with eating an animal, I want to take part of this final step, slaughter, and make sure I am comfortable with it in practice as well as in theory.

I’m pretty convinced that with these two steps taken, I will be in a better position to affirm my ethical beliefs concerning meat eating. Whether I decide to avoid meat altogether or actually revel in it, remains to be seen.

One thing for sure, though: I don’t need to see an industrial meat-packing plant to know I cannot ever feel good about myself by eating at McDonald’s. That part of the food chain is definitely behind me.

Post Scriptum: A lot of my current thinking has been fueled by Michael Pollan’s book, The Omnivore’s Dilemma. If you’re at all concerned about what you eat and the ecological, financial and ethical implications of it, then you owe it to yourself to read it.

Found this list on the web… Meant to be a list of 100 things anyone should eat before one dies. Let’s see how if I’m ready to die yet!

The stuff I ate is in bold.

1. Venison
2. Nettle tea (wouldn’t mind trying!)
3. Huevos rancheros (not sure why this is on the list…)
4. Steak tartare (have it from time to time, I love it)
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho (bonus points – had it in Saigon. It was AMAZING.)
13. PB&J sandwich (heh.)
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns (favorite dim sum dish, too)
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes (got some in the fridge right now!)
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras (totally hooked on the stuff, too)
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters (I love them – thinking of getting some next week)
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda (sounds awesome though!)
31. Wasabi peas (weird item… but yep, had them! In Korea I think.)
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi (I have it whenever I go to an Indian restaurant)
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar (oh hell yeah!)
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O
39. Gumbo (they got some good one on Whyte Ave, too)
40. Oxtail (had it in China, and tried it in France)
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects (quite a few times too)
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. Fugu (didn’t try it, but I’d be game)
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel (not a fan)
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin (my favorite sushi)
51. Prickly pear (not sure if I ate that specifically, but I did eat cactus)
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone (endangered species… but yeah, I had it)
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal (what the HELL?)
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini (I make a killer one as well)
58. Beer above 8% ABV (Oh yeah – Fin du Monde does the trick!)
59. Poutine (wouldn’t call myself a Quebecois if I didn’t!)
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads (thymus gland – sounds interesting)
63. Kaolin (not sure what that is – clay?)
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake (had the Chinese variety too!)
68. Haggis (in Scotland, too – was awesome!)
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini (in Shanghai of all places)
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill (haha! I’d be game)
76. Baijiu (more like something that might kill you!)
77. Hostess Fruit Pie (some of these entries are just silly)
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong (smoked tea – had it, liked it)
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict (had it this morning too)
83. Pocky (Japanese snack FTW!)
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant (don’t think that should be an entry by itself – it’s not a specific food)
85. Kobe beef (OH HELL YEAH!)
86. Hare (cooked it too)
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse (had horse sashimi in Japan)
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta (well, the Romanian version anyway!)
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake (many times)

Some of the items I’d put on my own eat-before-you-die list:

North Korean soju
Live fish
Dog
Fresh snake blood alcohol
Sichuan fish head
Lac-St-Jean tourtière
Lamb roast
Weasel coffee
Homemade rakiya
Homegrown vegetables
Real fresh milk
Fish’n'chip wrapped in newspaper
Xiao Long Bao (soup dumplings)

Anything you’d consider can’t-miss food?