END TIMES À LA JOE BEEF
Montreal chefs have a deep love of traditional Quebec cooking
Preparing for the end of the world is no longer purely an outlier’s pastime.
And while Costco’s $6,000 doomsday food kits may have come first, Joe Beef: Surviving the Apocalypse: Another Cookbook of Sorts (Appetite by Random House, 2018) by Frédéric Morin, David McMillan and Meredith Erickson, is infinitely more enticing, stylish and fun.
“Before you need $6,000 (worth) of food, maybe you need to learn how to cook. Maybe you need to be skilled at living in tight quarters with people without fighting. Maybe you need to be skilled at cleanliness, kindness, all of those things,” says Morin, co-owner of the Joe Beef family of restaurants.
Like the authors’ first cookbook devoted to the Montreal institution — The Art of Living According to Joe Beef: A Cookbook of Sorts (2011) — Surviving the Apocalypse is focused on French cooking.
But from recipes for spruce cough drops to homemade soap, and interludes extolling the virtues of odd cuts of meat, mixed martial arts and PBS, it encompasses its authors’ many other passions, as well.
“I’m interested in art, music, antiques, literature, gardening, farming, winemaking, plumbing, all kinds of different things,” says McMillan, who co-owns and is a chef at Joe Beef, Liverpool House, Vin Papillon, Mon Lapin and McKiernan. “We had to learn business the hard way. We went kicking and screaming into finance and real estate ... this book is about everything that we’re up to.”
The 150 recipes express both tongue-in-cheek survivalism and a deep love for the traditional cooking of Quebec.
And while the idea of stocking the shelves in your cellar with hardtack (a.k.a. prison bread) and pickled pig tongues may be partially in jest, there’s an underlying desire to live thoughtfully.
“I have zero regrets about my past,” McMillan says. “I don’t think Fred has any either. But it was a very difficult apprenticeship.
“It was very long, and it was a lot of hard work and it was very destructive. I’m an addict, alcoholic. Fred’s an alcoholic. But high-functioning. We worked super hard, we made everything happen.
“There are no bodies along the way, but I wasn’t happy with all the success that we’ve had. I didn’t know better; that was how I was shown the restaurant business.
“We cleaned up a year ago, arguably. And by us becoming better people, by us becoming sober, the company’s gotten sober.
“By us learning language, spiritual language, gentle language, language of kindness, self-love and love of others, that’s trickled down … The company overall has sobered up ...”
Morin adds: “There’s no longer an enemy.”
POT-AU-FEU D’HIVER (WINTER)
Serves: 4
1 1/2 lb (675 g) beef brisket
■
2 pieces (1 lb/454 g) bone-in ■ beef short ribs
1 whole veal tongue ■
Two 1-lb (450 g) flat-iron steaks ■ 4 white onions, each studded ■ with 1 clove
1 head garlic, cleaned ■
1 bouquet garni: 6 fresh thyme ■ sprigs, 1 tbsp (15 mL) black peppercorns, 4 fresh flat-leaf parsley sprigs wrapped tightly in the reserved leek greens and tied with butcher’s twine
1/8 to 1/4 cup (30 to 60 mL) ■ Kikkoman or other naturally brewed soy sauce
Salt and white pepper ■
2 tbsp (30 mL) apple cider vinegar ■ 4 marrow bones, 2 inches (5 cm) ■ tall
1 large carrot, cut into 4 pieces ■ 1 rutabaga, peeled and cut into ■ 4 pieces
4 small white turnips ■
1 leek white, greens reserved ■ for the bouquet garni
To serve: Minced fresh flat-leaf parsley ■ Baguette ■
Dijon mustard ■ Gherkins ■
Coarse sea salt ■
Pepper mill and peppercorns ■
1. Preheat the oven to 300 F (150 C).
2. Like most of our recipes, this one starts with a large Dutch oven — not a shameless plug for Le Creuset, we swear; we just seriously appreciate the brand’s ability to distribute heat evenly and maintain a solid seal. So, place the brisket, short ribs, tongue, flatiron steaks, onion, garlic and bouquet garni in a large Le Creuset.
3. Add 1/4 cup (60 mL) soy sauce then enough water to barely cover. Add 2 generous pinches salt and the vinegar. Cover and transfer to the oven.
4. After 2 hours, retrieve the pot and add the bones, carrot, rutabaga, turnip and leek white. Add a little more water to cover, but not drown, the veggies. Cover and return to the oven for another 1 1/2 hours.
5. Check the pot-au-feu for doneness: When you touch the meat, there should be no resistance; it should yield to a gentle touch from your finger without bouncing back. Using a skimmer or a slotted spoon, gently transfer each ingredient to a clean sheet pan, being careful to maintain its structural integrity. Cover the pan with plastic wrap.
6. Give the remaining broth a good boil, skimming off any impurity that threatens to betray your reputation as a champion meat-liquor maker. Season with salt and white pepper to taste, adding a splash of soy sauce as you see fit.
7. Divide the pot-au-feu ingredients equally among shallow bowls, discarding the bouquet garni. Ladle some broth into each bowl and sprinkle each with parsley. Serve with the baguette, mustard and gherkins, with salt and pepper on the side and a jug of the remaining hot broth. Provide soup and marrow spoons.