Homage to Cree cuisine brings Sabtuan cooking class to high-end Montreal restaurant

Traditional Cree cooking met Portuguese haute cuisine February 26-27 when the Sabtuan Regional Training and Vocational Centre’s (SRVTC) professional cooking class teamed up with renowned chef Helena Loureiro at her Montreal restaurant Portus 360.

Over the course of two nights, eight Cree students helped prepare a six-course menu that fused mousselines and consommés with pike and hare and incorporated bannock, Shelby dumplings, Labrador tea, wilted spinach, deer tenderloin and other Cree delicacies. Dessert was a mousse made of Saskatoon berries, topped with haskap jam and birch syrup caramel.

Located atop the former Delta Hotel (777 Robert Bourassa Blvd), Portus 360 is a revolving restaurant that provides its clientele with a panoramic view of Montreal’s downtown and Old Port – from Mount Royal to the iconic Farine Five Roses sign.

For aspiring chefs from Eeyou Istchee, Portus 360 provided a glimpse of what it’s like to work in a high-pressure, professional cooking environment. The experience, part of the annual Montréal en Lumière festival, opened their eyes to opportunities available once they complete their program.

“It’s really interesting, it’s a good ambiance,” said Mistissini’s Carole Ann Mapachee after wrapping up an afternoon of food preparation and an evening of service in the Portus kitchen. “It’s my second time in a big kitchen, I used to work in the Mistissini Lodge, but this is more high-class. We’re gaining knowledge about how to handle the kitchen, how to decorate plates – everything has to be precise.”

Oujé-Bougoumou’s Israel Bosum also had a great experience. “I’ve worked in other restaurants before, but this was different,” he observed. “It was tough but it was fun.”

Mapachee and Bosum were in the first round of students to share the Portus 360 kitchen with Loureiro and her staff. The rest of the class relaxed and enjoyed the meal their classmates helped prepare before donning their chef uniforms the following day.

“We were pretty busy and the time went by fast,” related Iris Awashish from Mistissini. “I learned a lot while I was there, how to actually work in a real kitchen, as opposed to the school kitchen, and handling the busy supper rush.”

“It taught me that you have to work really hard, for really long hours to be successful in a kitchen,” said Robert Martin of Waswanipi. “But it was awesome. I think other people should take this program.”

Sabtuan’s cooking instructor Jocelyn Myre says the idea of Loureiro’s “Homage to Cree Cuisine” and his students’ involvement originated from another famous chef, Jean-Paul Grappe. Grappe taught at the Institut de tourisme et d’hôtellerie du Québec for over 30 years and authored several cooking books.

Myre and Grappe have known each other for some time, but for the past six years they have been working together in the James Bay region, preparing suppers in Chibougamau and banquets in Waswanipi, often with the help of Myre’s students. It was Grappe who proposed a collaboration between Loureiro and the Sabtuan cooking class, and Loureiro jumped on board right away.

“[The idea] all came from Jean-Paul Grappe,” said Myre. “He had the idea of bringing me and the students down to Montreal to work with Helena Loureiro. He pitched it to her and she agreed. Then she came up north to see how we do our thing, talk about the possible menu and look at how we could incorporate Cree cooking into her style.”

Before a planning session with Myre and the cooking class at the SRVTC, Loureiro and Grappe first spent some time at the Neeposh camp in Waswanipi where they tasted Shelby dumplings, shared goose meat cooked over an open fire and learned about traditional Cree cooking firsthand.

Loureiro noted the parallels between Portuguese and Cree cuisine – cultures made up of fishers and hunters who nourish themselves from both the land and the sea. Her goal was to share Cree culture and gastronomy with a hint of Portugal, and help the Sabtuan cooking class develop their palates, techniques and knowledge of cooking in the process.

“The students really appreciated it,” Myre said. “They saw how a real kitchen works, with a professional chef and her team, and having to be on top of everything – they welcomed that exchange of knowledge.”