Montreal Journal V: Le Marche Jean-Talon

Photograph by Hallie Cohen

Le Marche Jean-Talon is a big indoor farmer’s market on the outskirts of Montreal and "Qui lait cru!?!" is the name of one of the many concessions that line the aisles. It’s a play on words “lait cru” is the raw milk out of which a certain kind of cheese is made, but “l’ai cru?” means "who would have thought" (literally it’s “who thought it?”) Who would have thought the booth could have been manned by such a “sympatique” young woman in her green apron and big black boots. “Havre-aux-glaces,” is another colorful name literally translating as “haven” or “habour” of ice cream. Remember when you used to dock at Le Havre on transatlantic voyages to France? Wonderful olives are to be found at Le Maitre Olivier and chanterelles (some foraged and some not) and herbs at Les Jardins Sauvages. You can also pick up a package of Quebec St-Viateur Bagels thinner and less doughy and salty than your typical New York Bagel. St Viateur was founded by Myer Lewkowicz, a Polish Jew, who survived Buchenwald and immigrated to Canada in l953. In many markets you find samples of items like cheese, but at Jean-Talon you can also sample cucumbers, oranges, tomatoes, kiwis and pears piled neatly on the counters and if you’re out to buy meats, head for the counter over which a sign reads "Charcuterie Artisanale," which sells everything from choucroute and sauscisson to pierogie.  The unique arrangements of words and foods that greet the shopper at Le Marche Jean-Talon can best be described with one word, “delicieuse.”

Montreal Journal: Sexe D'Or

St Jacques Street (formerly St. James Street), l910

Alfred Hitchcock set I Confess starring Montgomery Clift as the priest, in the capital of the province of Quebec, Quebec City, but the setting could have been the largest city of the province, Montreal. It didn’t turn out to be one of his most touted movies but Hitchcock captured a certain Quebecois feeling that Montreal still exudes despite the erstwhile torch of cosmopolitanism carried by the airport named after Pierre Trudeau. You remember the famed prime minister with the disco wife, Maggie who liked to dance without her underpants. As you drive in you still are impressed by the dirty weathered brick buildings that capture the underbelly of the urban landscape. The great boxer Arturo Gatti (who married a stripper and whose supposed suicide still remains a matter of debate) came from Montreal. Mordecai Richler, the local Philip Roth, wrote about the Jews of Montreal in St. Urbain’s Horseman and other books (St. Urbain Street is like London’s Golders Green). And speaking of strippers, Montreal is famous for its all nude lap dancers and nothing captures the phenomenon more starkly than a sign which reads Sexe d’Or, Pub Bare as you pass signs for the Rue Sherbrooke and Rue St Jacques on the way to Centre Ville. Old Montreal with its gilt edged office buildings and cobblestone streets is reminiscent of Manhattan’s Soho or Tribeca in the way it domesticates the age of the l9th century robber baron. The vintage Hotel Le St. James still is an oasis of personalized luxury whose room service carts come with their own hot and cold boxes. But the little bejeweled piece of Victoriana has been virtually swallowed up by the surrounding skyscrapers which block the view of monuments like Mount Royal and the Saint Lawrence Seaway. It may be a case of survival of the fittest, but who is the survivor who the fittest remains to be seen.