From seed to plate

From the outset, La Société des Plantes has been a project for exploring regional possibilities. I felt that this was something I could also bring to my region: developing crops, seeing what could be grown in the Bas-Saint-Laurent region that would bear fruit, have good results, and that people weren’t growing yet. The primary mission was to preserve and develop genetics that are adapted to the region, that is, to produce seeds that are well suited because they have been selected in our climate from one generation to the next. And there’s another aspect of La Société des Plantes that reconnects me with my artistic past. It’s a purely cultural aspect, or the whole aesthetic aspect that can be found on seed packets.

I think it’s a profession that’s regaining its place now. But historically, it hasn’t been a very prominent profession. There was someone in this region, Lucien Dubé, in the 1940s. But he was rare. So I think that back then, seeds were harvested in families, you know, everyone did it for themselves. It was easy with lettuce and tomatoes, but when it came to seeds that were purchased, they probably came from the general store, and then from larger distribution platforms. So there weren’t that many businesses, small artisanal businesses organized with a regional catalogue.

Actually, it’s quite funny because I’m reconnecting with my great-grandparents a lot right now. Because I developed an agrotourism component a few years ago, people come here to learn and to eat. So there’s a dining experience centred around a skill that I share with them. And I learned, after starting La Société des Plantes that my great-grandparents did the same thing in the ÎIes de Sorel. For them, it was all about duck hunting and fishing. So people from the city would come for the weekend, and they would be taken fishing and duck hunting. People would eat there. So it was a form of agrotourism in the early 20th century. And so I feel very close to those great-grandparents.