Protestantism was outlawed in Canada. The Catholics could not eat meat for 140 days of the year, when Cod made up a significant part of their diet. Even before the settlement of new Canada, French fisherman fished for Cod off the shores of Newfoundland for consumption in France. In Canada, fur trading initially was the major source of income for settlers. Beaver furs were a popular harvest. If Beaver could be eaten, that would be a bonus:
…Was the beaver an animal or a fish? If it belonged to the fish family, it could be served throughout the year. Bishop François de Laval submitted this important question to theologians at the Sorbonne and to doctors at Paris’s Hôtel-Dieu hospital. The experts earnestly discussed the issue at length and consulted other illustrious scientists and came down with the conclusion that the beaver was a fish because of its tail. The decision brought joy to the colony…. (p51)
Growing up in the 60s in New Hampshire, the only second language taught was French. Our teachers stressed that they were going to teach us “pure” Parisian French, not the bastardized version spoken in Canada. This was not always the impression of Canadian French:
…Jean-Baptiste d’Aleyrac, who fought in the battle of the Plains of Abraham, had rubbed shoulders long enough with the Canadians to observe the language they spoke. “There is no patois in this country. All the Canadians speak French just as we do.” He added that they had borrowed many words from mariners and replaced words used elsewhere. Some examples were “amarrer” meaning to moor or make fast instead of “attacher,” or “haler” meaning to haul in or tow instead of “tirer.” New words observed included “tuque” which had replaced the term “bonnet de laine,” a very popular and useful piece of winter clothing…(p57)
A traditional Canadian tuque hand knitted by my loving wife:
Here it is as part of the official lumberjack uniform:
Canadians, having inherited a refined palate, did not take to eating horse meat:
…Beef may well have become scarce but horses were in abundance throughout the colony. Bigot estimated that the colony had about 3000 horses and so civil and military authorities set out to convince the soldiers and the general population to eat horse meat. Vaudreuil, Bigot, Montcalm, and Brigadier François-Gaston de Lévis tried setting an example by preparing a meal based entirely on horse meat. It featured “small horsemeat pies à l’espagnole; horse à la mode; horse scallops; horse on a skewer with a thick pepper sauce; horse hoofs au gratin; horse tongue miroton; frigousse horse stew; smoked horse tongue and horse cakes, like hare cakes.” They soon learned that you can put horse meat on the table, but you cannot make the soldiers and the people eat it…(p76)
Live Free Or Die:
…Pierre Winters strongly defended the idea (revolution) in a letter to newspaper publisher Ludger Duvernay of La Minerve on September 30, 1833. “I hope that we shall stop humbly petitioning and that we shall speak like free men or at least like men born to be free. Thus I hope that the universal cry from one end of the country to the other will be ‘freedom or death’ and that we shall sing ‘Live Free or Die’.”…(p139)
On migration to New England:
…Mr. Francis Parkman has ably pointed out their singular tenacity as a race and their extreme devotion to their religion, and their transplantation to the manufacturing centres and the rural districts in New-England means that Quebec is transferred bodily to Manchester and Fall River and Lowell…(p189)
On French Fecundity:
…No other people, except the Indians, are so persistent in repeating themselves. Where they halt they stay, and where they stay they multiply and cover the earth…(p189)
