What got me really into food was visiting Chez la Mère Michel with my late uncle for the first time years ago. Monsieur and Madame Delbuget were like second parents to him he said and he went there often. My uncle worked all around the world, from Russia to Saudi Arabia from Rio to Chine etc. He worked in safety and security at large oil and gas refineries as the head of the location he went to. He always said that no matter where in the world he went he always had to come back to Montreal for Grand Prix weekend and a good meal at Chez la Mère Michel. I got to eat there dozens of times from whole meals to just dessert after going to another resto downtown.
Madame Delbuget was an original in Montreal culinary scene and I was so sadden when she passed away last summer. She ran that place for 50 years and now she and it are gone. She was one of the first to bring the idea of "continental" cuisine and ingredients to Montreal and she even was able to get local suppliers to grow stuff that were never seen in Montreal before as an example, her place was supposedly the first place in Quebec to ever serve endives. It also had one of the largest wine cellar.
In French starting at 13 minutes about talks about her and what she brought to Montreal.
http://medias-balado.radio-canada.ca/diffusion/2016/07/balado/src/CBF/assiette-20160704-1233.mp3
Thanks for sharing!
My earliest, most vivid memory of food goes back to Georgia. I was 5 or 6 years old at the time. For some reason, unknown to me still, my late father chose to bring me along to a beer hall where I tasted steamed dumplings filled with a combination of braised figs, grape leaves and chicken kidney/liver mixture. I HATED it and spat my first bite out immediately.
But it got me an entrance into what, at the time, I thought was a disgusting piece of food. Ever since that time I started tasting things as a child, inedible even at times. My experiences were far more often misses than they were hits, but I kept on going. Still can't put my finger on why that was exactly.
A few years later our family moved to Russia and that was a total disaster as far as my interest in food was concerned. My pre-adolescent palette got hit hard by the blandness that Russian cuisine generally represents. I was missing spices, herbs and seasonings a great deal and ended up losing interest in food altogether for about a decade or so.
I was rejuvenated when we made a trip to India. I must've been 17 or so. We stayed at a pretty crappy hotel in New Delhi but once I got my mouth on the buffet of theirs my life changed. I could not believe that the same chicken breast I tasted back in Russia - the bland, boiled piece of dry and tasteless meat - could taste so different given the sauce it sat in. Since that time I hold the Indian cuisine as the very dearest to me. It was also the fact that people living with nothing and possessing nothing could eat this well (as far as flavors go)...it shocked me. You know, fruits and vegetables SMELL over there. Not like anything you can ever find at a grocery store over here. It's one of the things I still miss the most while food shopping. Write it off to our climate in part, I guess.
Canada was next (after a brief stop in Switzerland) and it's where I currently reside. But my travels through India shaped my palette forever. I tend to concentrate on ethnic flavors whereas Western cuisine bores me. Food is my main motivation when traveling (although, to be fair, I have to travel a lot for work), and it's an never-ending source of my fascination and amazement.