Comments on: recipe: french canadian pork pie

By: Genevieve

Genevieve — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 04:36:40 +0000

Tourtiere without potatoes is just wrong! My Memere always used to serve it with a variety of pickles (including pickled fiddleheads NOM) but I suppose ketchup would work. Its not really christmas without tourtiere first thing when you get home on christmass morning. Then chicken fricot and ployes for lunch! Ahh. I miss home now, and Acadian food.

By: Mike

Mike — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 14:15:29 +0000

My grandmother war french Canadian and native American. My mother and Aunts started the Pork Pie Tradition at Christmas years ago. You recipe is similar to ours except that we add diced boiled potatoes to the mixture. We don’t do the ketchup thing. We serve it with Dill pickles, Delicious! We ask the butcher to double grind the pork butt. We end up making about ten pies every Christmas because all those upstate NY ploaks and Irish Micks wan t one.

By: Sandy

Sandy — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 23:39:55 +0000

I am making this right now to take to a potluck that will follow a sleigh ride.
I grew up in a French Canadian community in Maine and I have been eating this on or around Christmas Eve for as long as I can remember. My recipe has potatoes in it — you don’t drain the pork and onion mixture when it is done, instead you add cooked, mashed potato (no milk or butter) to soak up the grease! Mmm mmm good! I have eaten the pie plain, or with mustard, ketchup, chutney, sweet pickles… you name it. Depends on what mood I’m in and what else is on the table. Any way you have it, it is yummy. Now my daughter insists I make it every year.

By: Gaston

Gaston — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 22:31:39 +0000

Ketchup??? You would lose all the delicate flavors of the pie. Please, pork gravy is the only thing you should ever think about serving with Tourtiere. Our family has always made ours with ground pork and veal.

By: Julie

Julie — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 01:01:17 +0000

I got so homesick reading this, I damned near cried. My Father’s family was Scandinavian and my Mother’s French Canadian (Quebecois), so I ate all sorts of foods at Christmas my friends regarded as strange. Mom grew up speaking only French until she went to school at age 6. Her entire tribe worked in mills throughout Maine and NH. Unfortunately there are very few left as cancer has claimed the majority.

I loved the fun recipe layout and commentary. Our family were of the mustard inclination rather than ketchup, and the relish tray was ALWAYS part of Christmas dinner. One interesting twist to the recipe in my family: Ma Tante Priscilla used potatoes in her pork pie, but Memere and my mother used bread crumbs.

By: international trucks

international trucks — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 21:58:12 +0000

This was a great post, thanks for the info.

By: Jenn

Jenn — Mon, 09 May 2011 00:18:30 +0000

I LOVE Pork Pies. My family eats it on Christmas Eve and New Year’s Day. We make the filling as our stuffing for Thanksgiving. Ours has potato in it but it is still super yummy. It’s filling and comforting. I’ve never had it with ketchup because I just don’t want anything to happen to the delicious crust.

By: Branwen

Branwen — Sat, 12 Feb 2011 15:15:55 +0000

Thank you for sharing this. It was a HUGE hit with my French Canadian fiancée who swears it brought him back to the days of breakfast just after Christmas Mass at his me-mire’s house. The only disagreement I have with your instructions is the requirement to eat it with ketchup. My in-law’s to be insist it be served with mustard on the side! I’m inclined to agree with them, as it tastes phenomenal this way.

Thank you again!!

By: Donna Place

Donna Place — Fri, 24 Dec 2010 03:03:10 +0000

I just found this recipe and It sounds exactly like my memeres also. I have been looking for a long time to find a recipe that tasted as good as hers. She has been gone for a long time so I couldn’t ask her and she always cooked without cookbooks or notes. This recipe sounds like it could be hers. Even the photo looks like hers – she of course made her own crust….I don’t happen to care for ketchup but I will definitely make this pie….thank you….

By: Thom McCabe

Thom McCabe — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 18:26:54 +0000

Looking for a mail-order source for tourtiere (french pork pie). Any ideas?

Thnks,

Thom McCabe