9 Jan 2012

Testing La Tourtiere

by | Posted in: Food, Photography | 0
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Tourtiere baked and styled by me, photographed by Curtis Hildebrand

20120108_flnhsmeatpie_09-800px What a great opportunity I had to use my Great Great Grandmother’s 1860 dishes this weekend! I had a short deadline to test a recipe for the Parks Canada food app. I have made pastry before, but with my full time work schedule, I don’t get elbow deep in flour too often. The last time I made pastry from scratch, I wasn’t paying attention and added a pound of lard instead of a cup, and didn’t notice until it was done baking!

I’m pleased to say this menu for French-Canadian tourtière turned out reasonably well. I won’t post the recipe as it will be appearing soon on the website. As a mostly vegetarian household, it was a very meaty dish, but it didn’t stop me from eating an extra serving today at lunch.

The funnest part for me was setting up the table and styling the food. Being married to a professional photographer, we’ve done this sort of thing before, and I think it would be fun to be a food stylist now and then!

The story behind my dish set: I received 12 place settings from my Great Aunt, with the story that they belonged to her Grandmother, who purchased them with egg money she saved up for the purpose. There are only a couple pieces missing, including the tea pot. Every time I return to my parents’ farm, I try to import a few more dishes. My favourite part of the set are the salt dishes, which I used in the photo. Also, I love the fancy silver tea spoon, used to squeeze out the tea bag, which is sitting on the tea saucer.

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