Le Bistreau d’érable opens its own culinary space

Noémie Gautreau-Régnier and Jérôme Sauvageau invited their partners to attend the official opening of the culinary space that will be part of the Économusée network. By sharing their experiences, they want to help pass on knowledge of the sugar season and the meals served in sugar shacks to citizens everywhere.

The Bistreau d’érable project in Sainte-Lucie-de-Beauregard is the first culinary space opened by the Économusée network company in Quebec. This new tourism concept aims to introduce tourists to culinary practices and give them experience. In the case of Bistro, the preparation of the traditional sugar season meal will be introduced.

Opening this new space in addition to its store will allow the Sugar Shack to extend its opening times each year. Eventually, the owners want to open year-round, but now they will start holding celebrations during the holiday season and welcoming people who will be snowboarding in the area for the year. So it will be possible to have a sugar shack meal there without being there at the normally allotted time of year.

The cost of the economic museum and cooking space project is estimated at $300,000. Nearly $150,000 of this amount comes from public funds, specifically through contributions from the Immigrant Resource Center of Montmagny and the governments of Quebec and Canada. Therefore, the company invested about half of the amount itself. A large part of Bistro’s investment is in terms of time and materials devoted to the project, explains Ms. Gautreau-Rainier.

knowledge transfer

Jérôme Sauvageau explains that dessert time has always been a part of his life, because he did it every winter at the family chalet in Sainte-Luce-de-Beauregard. He took over the management of the sugar shack when his older brother stopped producing the syrup. He states that the traditions associated with the sugar shack have always been important to him, because they represent the people of Quebec well.

For her part, Ms. Gautreau-Regnier says that she is originally from Montreal and that she had never experienced the sugar season before arriving in the region. She says she was drawn to the way time stood still during this period and how maple syrup became the only topic of conversation in the village. “I would like to bring these magical moments that I have discovered to as many people as possible.”

The two entrepreneurs say that from the beginning after it was built in 2008, they gave tours of the cabin facilities to interested visitors, and it seemed very much appreciated. So they decided to go ahead and create a space dedicated solely to sharing knowledge related to desalination times and the evolution of practices in this field.

In addition to a space for cooking traditional sugar shanty meals, traditional objects and appliances used specifically during sugar shanty times are on display. There are also videos filmed while a director was following the Bistreau d’érable team during last year’s sugar season. Testimonials have also been captured in order to capture period stories that show how practices evolved over the years, and through this project, the owners hope to introduce people from Quebec, and even from abroad, for whom maple syrup production is not part of their daily lives. The life, and knowledge associated with the sugar season which is also part of the intangible heritage of Quebec.