Festivale de la Beouf

We took the detour from Drummondville through to Inverness to get our kicks at a beef festival going down there. This was cool because we would get to see Vicky, one of our Quebecois friends from Calgary, do her barrel racing at the festival's rodeo. Little did I know that the festival was literally a rodeo, with next to nil about beef going on. One stand providing information for breeders and a couple taste testers. The dinner was IGA pastrami reheated over open flames. Really a most depressing scene in a culinary, although we got some contacts for our return trip through Quebec, at which time we'll likely get to see a cranberry harvest, which is amazing. Another thing about the festival worthy of note is that they are totally insane. The play a version of poker,which is what I call bull poker. This game, in which four people sit in chairs in a ring with a bull until one remains, is highly insane. They literally just have to stay seated the longest to win, but the potential for frenzied intestinal gouging is present the whole time. Utter madness. Fro the record this festival is a huge deal in town, noone doesn't attend. There are streamers across all three roads, and people decorate their yards in celebration. Quite impressive.


In any case, we didn't stay for dinner, preferring instead the classic roadside meal of cheese, bread, and pepper. We went to a cheesemaker who discounts a variety of the regions cheeses to sell them in bulk. We got a pile of cheese for the same it would usually cost for one peice. 11 dollars got us 4 large peices, two soft and two hard. Each discounted to '2 for 5$' pricing. Total madness of a different sort. I would be large if I lived in this area. Like, really large.

So the festival was a letdown, the cheesemaker was a bonus, and we came out neutral in the end. It was cool to see Vicky ply her trade, and good to make cranberry contacts, so not all is lost. We also tried another poutine(curd exhaustion?), except this time with bbq gravy, which was horrid. Really depressing that it even exists on a menu for more than a day. Good curds though. Rocking out in the middle of Quebec. Going from festival to festival, no big deal.