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After spending some time in Quebec City and the Île d’Orléans, Tomiko and I resumed our Quebec Culinary Adventure, heading to the Charlevoix region between Quebec City and Tadoussac. Fromagerie St-Fidèle is a dairy in the Charlevoix region of Quebec and we stopped here to buy some cheese, obviously!
Fromagerie St-Fidèle, founded in 1902, has been making cheese with milk from Charlevoix cows for over 100 years. With such a history, the fromagerie had to adapt with the times. Between 1929 and 1945, the factory used steam power to churn the butter, while the summer products were cooled with ice cut from the frozen lakes during the winter. Products were distributed using trucks, horses, and later, snowmobiles. After several decades, the fromagerie continues to expand and buys out other fromageries and cooperatives, and the product line expands to include cheddar and then Swiss cheeses.
At Fromagerie St-Fidèle, we bought butter and a beer-ripened Swiss-style cheese called La Belle Brune de Charlevoix. This beer-ripened cheese uses a beer called La Vache folle from the Microbrasserie Charlevoix in Baie-St-Paul and tasted nutty but with a definite hopsy hint of beer. We also shared a tiny bag of chili-flavoured cheese curds, excellent for a quick snack while driving. The dairy bar, which serves fresh, homemade ice cream, is open in the summer. Tomiko and I passed on that, though, having just had breakfast.
Tomiko and I noticed that cheese (and dairy in general) is cheaper in Quebec than in Ontario. Maybe good quality cheese is seen as a human right in Quebec and thus it’s more affordable? It probably has to do with taxes and tariffs, but we like our explanation better!
At the Fromagerie St-Fidèle, we even saw a poster that was advertising milk for sale: 1000 litres for just $75! Incredible! A regular 4-litre bag at the grocery store is a good price at $4.00 back in Toronto. Maybe they had extra and had to get rid of it quick. Either way, it was cheap!
Visit Fromagerie St-Fidèle:
2815 Boulevard Malcolm Fraser, La Malbaie, QC G5A 2J2
(418) 434-2220
