>> crowd: yamas. [ glasses clinking ] [ man speaking french ] ♪ [ men laughing ] >> anthony: wow. ♪ i took a walk through this beautiful world ♪ ♪ felt the cool rain

on my shoulder ♪ ♪ found something good in this beautiful world ♪ ♪ i felt the rain getting colder ♪ ♪ sha la la la la sha la la la la la ♪ ♪ sha la la la la sha la la la la la la ♪ ♪ >> anthony: it takes a special breed to live in a province like quebec. and winters are long.r. ♪ it takes a special kind of

person for whom frozen rivers, icy, wind-whipped streets, deep, seemingly endless forests are the norm. i will confess my partisanship upfront. i love montreal. it is my favorite place in canada. the people who live there are tough, crazy bastards, and i admire them for it. toronto, vancouver, i love you. but not like montreal. why? i shall explain. all will be revealed. in the meantime, check this guy out. what's the post office's motto? neither rain nor sleet nor driving snow nor plague of locusts will prevent the mail carrier from delivering my junk mail? here in montreal, the simple task of delivering the mail in winter comes with its own set of hurdles. icy hurdles. i gotta ask. do you have special equipment for this? >> mailman: we got, like,

slip-on boots. we do have our boots when it rains. uh, sorry, when it gets icy. >> anthony: uh-huh. >> mailman: with spikes on them. >> anthony: uh-huh. >> mailman: and they gave us also slip-on spikes, for when it's icy. >> anthony: any sort of city ordinance that you have to shovel? >> mailman: no. >> anthony: you're not -- they're not penalized financially or ticketed? >> mailman: no, they're not penalized or anything. no, nothing like that. >> anthony: any injuries in the line of duty? >> mailman: i've had, uh, several, like, tumbles. one incident, i was out for two months. i thought i broke my ankle. >> anthony: what is the most perilous aspect of the job? would it be dogs or icy stairs? >> mailman: in this area there's a lot of dogs, but i would say the icy stairs. ♪ >> anthony: it's one thing to have to work outside in this winteriness, but it takes a strange and wonderful kind of mutant to actually find it pleasurable. like, well, these two gentlemen.

do you like the cold? i mean, by "you" i mean the québécois. >> fred: it cleans the streets of ebola. >> anthony: the cold? >> fred: yeah. >> david: yeah. the frigid cold keeps the riffraff out of the city, for sure. >> anthony: fred morin and david mcmillan. restaurateurs, chefs at the legendary joe beef, bon vivants, raconteurs, historians of their beloved great white north. princes of hospitality. and what do men like this do for fun when the rivers turn to ice three-feet thick? when testicles shrink and most of us scurry for warmth and shelter? if they were like so many other canadians, they would go ice fishing on the st. lawrence river. >> david: the cabin fever induces in the québécois family. because we are confined, perhaps, to spend so much time indoors, a lot of the families love to do, you know, activities together like this. go to the cottage. go ice fishing. you know, it, like, gets you out of the house.

and it's very much a family thing. >> anthony: like many of their ilk, they'd seek one of the temporary small towns of sled-borne cabins, drill a hole in the ice, and wait. but these are not normal men. so is quebec better than the rest of canada? >> fred: obviously. >> david: it's not that. yeah. sure. >> anthony: i mean, no, come on. diplo -- you-you-you didn't -- you didn't have to think about that long. >> fred: no. >> anthony: now, wait a minute. now, are strippers paid hourly here? is that right? it's not a tip system? >> fred: it's -- yeah. it's considered an art. a performance art. >> anthony: it's considered a performance art. so how does that work? you don't -- you don't tip your stripper? >> david: you pay per song. you pay per song at the strip joint. >> anthony: you pay per song. >> david: yeah. and then you can get a dance in the back, which is a private dance. and that's 10 bucks a song. five bucks a song in public. >> fred: that's why i go to prog rock strip bars, because the songs are super long. [ laughter ] and i'm a bit cheap. you know, i go for the king shrimps and a lap dance. [ laughter ] >> anthony: after a suspiciously stunned-looking fish emerges

from the deep, previously rufinoled by an eager producer, no doubt, it is ignored. because fred and dave do things differently. no crudely fried fish in breadcrumbs for these large-living 19th century men. oh, whoa. holy shit. look at that. instead, a hearty lunch of french classics, accompanied by many fine wines and liqueurs, as befitting gentlemen of discerning tastes who've exhausted themselves in the wild. so this is how you live? >> fred: well, more often than not, yes. >> david: we always have to travel well and eat properly. we're drinking a natural white wine. [ speaking french ] white burgundy. these are glacier bay oysters, as wel a couple of beausoleils thrown in there. >> fred: they're delicious. and my prized possession, those little alsace glasses. >> david: fred's wonderful alsace glasses. >> anthony: yeah. >> david: but the funnest part about the restaurant business, isn't it the cutlery? just this spoon is absolutely gorgeous, you know? fred has a wonderful collection of tableware. without getting, you know, snobby or elitist, y know, the

eating off vintage, uh, tableware is one of the great joys out of life. >> anthony: well, this is the interesting paradox of you guys. on one hand, you aspire to run a democratic establishme, open to all. and yet you are hopeless romantics when it comes to -- >> fred: painful nostalgics. >> anthony: the art of living. right? >> fred: yeah. >> anthony: what the [ bleep ]? sustenance is required. holy [ bleep ]. look at this. like, say, a consommé of oxtail to begin. followed perhaps by a chilled lobster a la parisienne? >> david: the art of dining is kind of disappearing, much to our chagrin. i work super hard at being an excellent dining companion. >> anthony: when seeking excellence in a dining companion, what qualities does one look for? >> david: i turn my phone off. i -- you know, i never put my elbows on the table. i don't -- >> anthony: really? >> david: of course. come prepared with stories. don't drink too much. don't become sloppy. >> anthony: come prepared with anecdotes? >> david: absolutely.

>> anthony: no elbows on the table? >> david: no. it's not -- it's not -- it's not proper. >> anthony: i'm a total failure as a dining companion. what -- what is that? what's that, you ask? an iconic escoffier-era classic of gastronomy? ho, look at that sauce. holy crap. the devilishly difficult lievre a la royale, a boneless wild hare in a sauce of its own blood, a generous aping of fresh black truffle, garnished with thick slabs of foie gras, seared directly on the top of the cabin's wood stove. oh, damn. look at that. >> david: we're -- we're in a wooden shack, over 3 feet of ice and 100 feet of water. >> anthony: you are hopeless, hopeless romantics, gentleman. oh, jesus. look at that. oh. the seared foie is perched atop an ethereal suspension of joel robuchon-inspired potato puree, of course.

>> david: this is cornas from reynard vineyard by thierry allemand. >> anthony: nice. >> fred: that's wonderful. >> anthony: yes. yes, it is. really, is there a -- is there a billionaire or a despot anywhere on earth who at this precise moment is eating better than us? >> fred: no. >> anthony: no. look at that. >> david: epoisse, saint-marcellin. >> anthony: cheese. there must be cheese. in this case, a voluptuously reeking epoisse, who some, less hardy outdoorsmen might call overripe. but not us. oh, this is awesome. what do we have here? >> fred: a few cubans. >> anthony: oh, wait a minute. you guys, uh, have a much more relaxed attitude towards the importation of cuban cigars. chartreuse, of course, and a dessert as rare as it gets, a dinosaur-era monster long believed extinct. >> fred: this is gateau marjolaine. >> anthony: who does this? no one. >> fred: uh, it's one of those, like, painful nostalgic thing.

>> anthony: right. layers of almond and hazelnut meringue, chocolate buttercream. oh, my god. look at that. mmm. damn, that's good. for these guys, this is normal. this is lunch. >> fred: sundays it's like playhouse in my house. it's french playhouse. >> anthony: yeah? what do you do? >> david: they get dressed at their house. >> anthony: no way. tell me all about this. >> david: he dresses the [ bleep ] kids, too. >> anthony: he's a dandy. >> david: he's a dandy. >> fred: a sunday -- a sunday dandy. last time i did, i did praline rose, and the linzer torte. i made a crème caramel. i made salade d'orange au rhum. >> anthony: right. >> fred: i made les prunes au vin rouge. >> anthony: right. >> david: prunes in red wine. >> anthony: yeah. >> fred: with a crème fraiche. and then a huge cheese cart that was about, like, 15 kinds of cheese. >> anthony: right. and how many people are in your family at this meal? >> david: him and his wife and two young boys. >> anthony: and how are the -- how old are the kids? >> fred: two and four. >> anthony: so you, your wife -- >> fred: yeah. >> anthony: and a 2-year-old and a year-old fred: they don't -- they don't make it tohe end. usuay i have to, like -- [ anthony laughs ] >> fred: i have to, like -- >> anthony: eat the pruneau.

>> fred: prematurely open the -- open the -- >> david: you don't like pruneau? >> anthony: you know what, i'm thinking this and i'm thinking, "oh, that's really [ bleep ] up." but i'm also thinking, you know, "i gotta do that. i'm gonna do that." and actually my daughter would totally be into it. ♪ (vo) what's your dog food's first ingredient? corn? wheat? in purina one true instinct grain free, real chicken is always #1. no corn, wheat or soy. support your active dog's whole body health with purina one.

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decades, maybe every century, a nation will produce a hero. an escoffier, a muhammad ali, a dalai lama, joey ramone. someone who changes everything about their chosen field, who changes the whole landscape. life after them is never the same.

martin picard is such a man. a heretofore unencountered hybrid of rugged outdoorsman, veteran chef with many years of fine dining experience, renegade, innovator. he is one of the most influential chefs in north america. he is also a proud québécois. and perhaps he, more than anyone else, has defined for a new generation of americans and canadians what that means. he is an unlikely ambassador for his country and his province. but maybe not so unlikely. i mean, look at him. out for a day, trapping beaver with local trapper carl. >> carl: no. >> martin: no? >> anthony: so the bait is wood? >> martin: yeah. they just eat the -- the bark. >> anthony: they eat the bark? >> martin: yeah, yeah, yeah. >> anthony: now i understand in pioneer days, beaver was the financial engine of canada. >> martin: yeah. >> anthony: empires were built on it.

every hat practically in the world was a -- was made of a beaver pelt. >> martin: that's why today it's the, uh, icon of canada. >> anthony: to a lesser extent, the tradition continues today. carl continues to trap, usually called on by provincial officials to trap beaver and clear away dams and control what can become a destructively overpopulated situation. >> carl: yeah. >> martin: ah, oui? >> anthony: hello, my little friend. >> martin: oh, that -- this is a young one. and those, uh, are -- are the one we want to eat. >> anthony: what would you compare the meat to? is there anything like it? >> martin: the -- that's the thing, you know. there's nothing -- nothing like it. you know, when you eat beaver, you understand that it's beaver. >> anthony: martin, along with an encyclopedic knowledge of fine wines and an inexplicable attachment to the music of celine dion, is a big believer in honoring histy and tradition. if you still trap beavers, you should, if at all possible, cook

them and eat them, not just strip them of their pelts. and as incredible as it might seem, you can cook beaver really, really well. beaver tail, on the other hand, is not actually beaver at all, rather a quick spoon bread-type somewhat awry during an inadvertent inferno. [ laughter ] with the sauce, it almost looks like chocolate. it's so rich-looking, huh? >> martin: i love it when it's like that. some people don't put too much blood, but i like when it's very thick. >> anthony: wow. that's absolutely delicious. >> martin: yeah, it is. i wasn't joking, but -- >> anthony: tastes like chicken. [ laughs ] no, it doesn't taste like chken at all. >> martin: this is your first time? >> anthony: yeah. >> martin: oh. wow. [ laughs ] that's something. i -- i think you almost eat everything. yeah? >> anthony: yeah.

at this point, you know, animals, they see me and they're like -- >> martin: "no, no, no. not him." [ laughter ] >> anthony: yeah. "not that guy." there's a joke around here somewhere, but to tell you the truth, the stuff is just too good. it's, like, ten below zero in this freakin' town. and that generally does not spell "good time" for me. a good time for me is more like a palm tree, a beach, a swimming pool, where the only cold thing is my beer. ♪ but, no. these hardy culinarians of the north like to frolic in the snow and ice. more accurately, they like to obey their genetic québécois imperative to risk dental and maxillofacial injury by skating around, slapping at a hard disc, trying to drive it in each

other's general direction. i believe they call this sport hockey. this is not in my blood. do you s -- do you skate? >> david: yeah, we grew up on rinks like this. >> anthony: does everyone in -- in quebec? uh, it's pretty much obligatory. "here's your stick, kid." >> david: yeah. what else do you do? there's no reason to live here if it's no hockey. >> anthony: hockey rinks pop up all over this city to accommodate montrealers' desire to risk teeth, groin, and limb. and right behind fred and dave's restaurant, joe beef, a pickup ga of efs, cks, and hospitality professionals is underway. some of these guys, to put it charitably, are a little long in the tooth to be out there swinging sticks at each other and, uh, uh, skidding around on the ice. this is a normal behavior? people actually do this for fun? >> david: yeah, yeah. absolutely. this is every day, québécois growing up, playing hockey. canadian national sport, man. >> anthony: right. and this young one is already being indoctrinated. hello, young man. >> david: you gonna play hockey? >> boy: yes. >> david: you're -- you're good at hockey? >> boy: yes. >> david: are you gonna be a goier a player?

>> boy: player. >> anthony: wow. >> david: a player. >> man: oh! >> anthony: oh, man. wait, am i gonna get, li, a mouthful of puck, by the way? ♪ it's being catered with fred and dave's usual restraint. [ david hums fanfare ] >> david: come eat. >> anthony: hot cocoa in styrofoam cups? uh, no. try a titanic choucroute garnie a la alsacienne containing flintstone-size hunks of pork belly, poitrine, bacon, homemade boudin blanc, kielbasa, smoked chops, plus, like, veal and pork links. oh, yeah. this is a truly heroic, uh, choucroute. >> fred: oh, look at the beautiful work of linking these. >> anthony: it's awesome. this dish is the, uh, single best argument for sharing a border with germany. [ laughter ] and of course the finest wines known to humanity.

>> fred: we got german wine. we got silvaner in pirate bottles. >> anthony: sweet. what am i drinking here? >> david: canadian riesling. this is norman hardy riesling from prince edward county, five hours from here. amazing wine. >> anthony: there's an allegory here somewhere. i'm reaching for it. something about fred and dave's reckless abandon, coupled with precision and technique. a hockey metaphor, perhaps? ah, the hell with it. ooh, look, sausages. ♪ ♪ if you've got the time welcome to the high life. ♪ we've got the beer ♪ miller beer

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only xfinity gives you more to stream to any screen. ♪ >> anthony: montreal to quebec city by rail. 160 miles of wintery vistas whip past the windows, evocative, for some, of another time. >> fred: here you go. canadian caviar. sturgeon acadian caviar. >> anthony: i'm not sure about dave mcmillan, but in fred morin's perfect world, we would all travel by rail. it would still be the golden age of rail travel. so, uh, tell me about the great canadian rail system. >> fred: it's purely emotional. >> anthony: really? fre there's nothi rational about it. >> anthony: fred it what one might call, conservatively, an

aficionado. how extreme is your railroad nerdism? >> david: this is how bad it gets. operating manual -- >> anthony: for this model of train? >> david: this is -- yeah. this model. >> fred: yes. >> anthony: so you have other operating manuals. >> david: this is how -- >> fred: yes. [ anthony laughs ] >> anthony: books, printed ephemera, collectibles. fred retains an enduring love for the great iron horses that still take passengers across the frozen land he calls home. but it's something more than just nostalgia. it's also an appreciation for a dying art. >> fred: i mean, it's like the old cruise ships or -- you transport your comfort, you know? >> anthony: in those halcyon days of cross-country rail, there were lavish dining cars, luxurious sleeping compartments, a bar car with liveried attendants. >> david: when you look at the menus of all -- all the -- what how people used to eat on trains, that's all inspiration of how we cook in the restaurant. you know? >> anthony: casserole with sweetbreads and fresh peas with béarnaise sauce. roast leg of lamb, currant jelly. >> fred: very nice pictures in

the book -- the dining by train book -- of a guy holding the turkey, cutting the turkey. >> anthony: right. >> fred: when you order a drink -- >> anthony: right. >> fred: -- it comes from a bottle made out of glass into a glass made out of glass. >> anthony: right. >> fred: which is kind of cool in our day and age. >> anthony: it comes back to service, doesn't it? >> fred: yeah. >> anthony: oh, thank you. we are presented with a perfectly serviceable omelet. there may no longer be a smoking lounge with brass spittoons, but this does not mean a traveler has to suffer. so you always travel with a truffle shaver? >> david: well, during truffle season. >> anthony: as a gentleman must. hold on. wait a minute. i've got to get a in-action photograph here. hold on. canadian rail. so all these people are going to be, like, be expecting -- "wait a minute, where's my fist-sized black truffle? could i have the truffle option, please?" oh, of course. >> david: now, what was the other -- >> anthony: don't forget the foie. quebec city. one of the oldest european settlements in north america. samuel de champlain, known as

the father of new france, sailed up the st. lawrence and founded this site in 1608. when the fighting started with you-know-who, quebec city was the french stronghold. until the bitter end, when the french fell at the plains of abraham. ♪ the french may have lost that one, but some things french have stayed firm, unbowed, resiliently unchanged by trends or history. le continental is the kind of place about which i am unreservedly sentimental. [ david speaking french ] when i was younger, i ate here with my grandparents and my parents. >> man: oh, yeah. >> man: well, that's older restaurant in town, it's open since 1956. >> anthony: classic, un-ironic cuisine ancienne, meaning dishes you haven't seen since, like, forever. a hipster-free zone of french

continental ocean liner classics, such as caesar salad, tossed fresh to order tableside. and beef tartare, also prepared tableside, as one must. shrimp cocktail. not a deconstructed shrimp cocktail, mind you. a shrimp cocktail. the way jesus wants you to eat them. all served by a dedicated professional. in -- at culinary school, we were taught this. we had real customers as your final class. we'd have to do the -- peel the fruits tableside, all that, which inevitably would fly off the fork and land in somebody's soup. i was so bad at it, too. i'd start with the orange. run into trouble. i'd be, "i'll be right back." behind the screen, i'm, like, with my teeth, stripping the thing. at least once a day, one of the students would set themselves or the customers on fire. ♪ the sterno would, like, spill and they'd light it. and there'd be this line from, like, the thing down, across the floor, up their leg.

no, that shit doesn't happen here. like i said, professionals. >> waiter: this is going to go, uh, like a big fireball. >> anthony: fireball. good. the kind who know how to properly prepare these dishes. ♪ sweet. >> fred: i swear i had, like, a goosebump moment. >> anthony: yeah. for dave, another classic -- filet de boeuf en boite. a filet mignon, a sauce made of cognac, cream, and glace de viande. that is nice. look at that. and for fred, scampi newburg. when's the last time you saw the word "newburg" on a menu? awesome. absolutely awesome. but for me, that most noble of dishes, dover sole. this appears to be one of the few remaining servers alive who knows how to take that fish off the bone, sauce it, and properly serve it. thank you very much. >> waiter: my pleasure. bon appetit. >> anthony: merci. man, i love this place.

i'm so happy. oh, it's very comforting. there's continuity in this world. across town -- ♪ the younger, wilder l'affaire est ketchup, which, i am reliably informed, means, "everything's cool," in local idiom. [ man speaking french ] >> anthony: at this point in my life, i just don't know anymore. are these young cooks, these servers, these dedicated entrepreneurs, are they hipsters? or am i just a cranky old [ bleep ] who thinks anybody below the age of 30 is a hipster? i don't know. but i admire them. >> david: so, how much did it cost you when you opened? >> man: not much. >> anthony: look at this tiny electric four-burner stove. at no point in my cooking career

could i have worked with one of these without murdering everyone in the vicinity before hanging myself from the nearest beam. how long did it take you to adapt to the -- to the equipment? >> man: uh, i would say, like, three months. at the beginning, like, i -- i was lucky that i didn't have, like, a lot of customers. >> anthony: right. >> man: i was, like, "oh, man! oh!" i was freaking out. >> anthony: and yet these kids today, look at 'em go. serving a wildly ambitious and quite substantial ever-changing menu out of this -- this suzie homemaker oven. tonight there's zor clams with buerre noisette. ooh, and a cream of haddock roe. very cool. thank you. i love razor clams. and coquilles saint jacques. you'll notice that nobody in quebec seems to skimp on the portions. a tureen of foie gras, head cheese with cassis mustard. oh, and a ris de veau truffe. that's truffled sweetbreads. and you got some goose hearts persillade for good measure.

>> man: that's a goose heart. >> david: it's excellent. goose heart. >> anthony: hearts in general. oh, also you got your morue salee with grilled tomato bread. that's -- that's salt cod for you anglos. [ david hums ] >> anthony: i'm all swollen up like the michelin tire dude and ready to burst in a livery, omni-directional mist. hotel/motel time for me. imy moderate to severeng crohn's disease. i didn't think there was anything else to talk about. but then i realized there was. so, i finally broke the silence with my doctor about what i was experiencing. he said humira is for people like me who have tried other medications but still experience the symptoms of moderate to severe crohn's disease. in clinical studies, the majority of patients on humira saw significant symptom relief. and many achieved remission. humira can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. serious, sometimes fatal infections and cancers, including lymphoma, have happened;

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♪ >> anthony: how canadian is quebec? are they truly one entity or two? this is a question that has been wrestled with for some time. quebec is certainly part of canada, but in many ways, both culturally, spiritually, and linguistically, it's very much another thing entirely. there's a lot of history, much of it contentious. go back far enough and you get a clearer picture of why. the french arrived on the shores of quebec city in the early 16th century, but succumbed to the military might of great britain in the mid-18th. thus began a gradual but steady persecution of all things french. the québécois have struggled

mightily to hang onto their french heritage and language. the issue of seceding entirely, a notion that persists to some extent even today. journalist patrick lagacé meets me for lunch at bistro m sur masson to help me understand a little bit of what many québécois feel is at stake. so, i was going to talk about the whole history of french québécois identity, the separatist movement, all this, but i have to get right to the pressing matter of the day: pastagate. [ laughter ] >> patrick: pastagate. what do you want to know about pastagate? >> anthony: for those not up on current quebec politics, pastagate refers to an incident where local authorities notified an italian restaurt that they were in violation of french laws because they used the word "pasta," which is italian. this is -- >> patrick: okay, stop apologizing, okay? [ laughter ] >> anthony: don't get me wrong. my last name is bourdain. i lean french, hard. i am enormously sympathetic to

the language laws. >> patrick: you don't think it's preposterous? >> anthony: i do not think it's preposterous. but here we have a situation. [ laughter ] >> patrick: it is stupid. uh, i agree with you completely that this -- this province, 40 years ago, was in some respect, an english city. so we needed to have language laws for signage and stuff. >> anthony: now, signage, for instance, must by law be principally in french. french first in all things. >> patrick: but every bureaucracy produces byproducts of stupidity. and that was it. and you know what? it will not stand. >> anthony: the anglo-canadians treated french-speaking québécois like second-class crap for much of history. so, i get it. i'd be pissed, too. i'd want my own thing. and when i got it, i'd want to make sure there's no backsliding to the bad old days. >> patrick: when the parti québécois, the first, uh, sovereignist party to be elected, was elected in 1976, it didn't come out of a vacuum. it came out from a couple of decades of awakening and struggle. >> anthony: 50 years from now,

will people be still speaking -- >> patrick: french. >> anthony: -- predominantly french in montreal? >> patrick: yes. >> anthony: no doubt about it? >> patrick: no doubt about it. >> anthony: "french first" is something most would agree with. how far and how rigorously you want to go with that, well -- do you think there was ever any possibility or real majority or a plurality of québécois who would have voted in separate nation status? >> patrick: you know, in english you guys say timing is everything. >> anthony: right. >> patrick: and timing was never better than in the period of 1990, 1991, '92. because in '95, this country came inches from being broken up. >> anthony: close. >> patrick: yeah. >> anthony: do you think it'll ever happen in the history of the world? >> patrick: i don't know. but i know one thing. anybody who says separatism is dead in this country, in this province, is a fool. >> anthony: no matter how you feel about quebec as either separate from or as essential part of greater canada, any reasonable person loves this place.

correct me if i'm wrong. wilensky's is famous for the sandwich. the special. >> woman: wilensky special. right. >> anthony: and in what tradition does this fall? >> woman: it's basically eastern europe. it was a survival thing. it was 'cause they were poor. and that's what they could make. >> anthony: wilensky's. an old-school corner institution around since 1932, serving up pressed beef bologna and salami sandwiches, or specials, as they call them, along with egg creams and milkshakes. so, um, this a -- the special. and an appropriate beverage. egg cream. very happy. >> anthony: here's how it goes. there are rules. the special is always served with mustard. it is never cut in two. don't ask why. just because. that's the way it's always been done. a little respe for traon, please. mmm. i'm happy now. you know, some things are

beloved institutions for a reason. this is delicious. thank you.

♪ >> anthony: the tradition of the cabane à sucre, or sugar shack, is as old as maple syrup here in

quebec, where 70% of the world's supply comes from. deeply embedded in the maple syrup outdoor lumberjack lifestyle is the cabin in the woods where maple sap is collected and boiled down to syrup. over time, many of these cabins became informal eating houses. dining halls for workers and a few guests, where a lucky few could sit at communal tables and enjoy the bounty of the trees and forests around them. martin picard has taken this tradition to what is somehow insane extreme, creating his own cabane à sucre, open only during maple season and serving food stemming directly from those humble yet hardy roots. it makes perfect sense in one way. i mean, 130 acres produce about 32,000 gallons of maple sap, which run through these tubes to

here, where they're cooked down to about 800 gallons of syrup, which is more or less what they use per season here. nothing leaves the property. and it makes sense, while you're here, to raise hog and cattle on the property. and maybe keep a cabin or two around, for any friends who get too loaded to sleep it off. but this? this? is there really any reason for this? what are you doing here? why do you have to make life so hard? if money were your primary -- >> martin: no. >> anthony: -- motivation, it -- this doesn't seem like the fastest road to untold wealth. >> martin: my grandfather, you know, had a sugar shack. everybody had it. so, you can go back, you know, three generation. they had a sugar shack. and i'm very proud of quebec. i'm very proud of canada, you know? >> anthony: you celebrate canadian history, you celebrate canadian traditions, you

celebrate canadian, uh, ingredients, in a way that no one else has. are you some kind of patriot? is that what's going on here? is it -- is it national, uh, quebecois fervor? >> david: i think that's very much it. he's very much a patriot. i say all the time this is one of the most important restaurants, to me, in north america, if not the world. it's an art installation, if you actually look at it. >> anthony: the meal begins -- begins -- with a tower of maple desserts. good lord. sponge maple toffee. maple donuts. beaver tails. maple cotton candy. but, but, but wait, there's more. almond croissants, whippet biscuits, some nougat. >> david: yeah. >> anthony: ah, there we go. i think that's a first for me. i've never seen that done. >> david no? >> anthony: well, not with a hammer. let the madness begin. next, a whole lobe of foie gras with baked beans, on a pancake,

cooked in duck fat, of course, cottage cheese and eggs, cooked in maple syrup. wow. that's awesome. there's a healthy salad, sautéed duck hearts, gizzards, and pig's ear, topped with a heaping pile of fried pork rinds. good lord. mmm. oh, and a calf brain and maple bacon omelet, and these. how is this made? >> with love. >> panko-encrusted duck drumsticks. and maple barbecue sauce. good lord! wow. >> this is a classic quebec dish, a meat pie. >> tourtiere du shack, a whole lot of cheese, foie gras, calf brain, sweetbreads, bacon and arugula, but with martin, that's not sufficient. >> usually there's no truffle, but -- >> yes, black truffles. >> more truffle. >> it's going to be too much truffle.

>> my blood is getting thicker as i look at that. >> and now the main course, a home-grown, smoked right out front local ham with pineapple and green beans almandine, and with chicken. but with martin, chicken is never just chicken. >> stuffed with foie gras and lobster. we pump lobster bisque into the chicken. >> into the chicken. >> yeah. >> good god. there is a light at the end of the tunnel. >> oh. >> someone should be singing the national anthem now, really. in practically prehistoric old-school canadian classic, maple syrup is heated, then poured on snow, becoming a kind of taffy, but the preferred delivery mechanism does present some issues. >> mm-mmm.

>> no, no, no. >> what? >> take a big one, and you have to suck it. don't swallow it, you know? look. you have got to like that. >> okay. >> slowly, slowly, you know? >> okay. >> that's it. slowly, slowly. that's how it's good. that's it. >> can i do that in a manly way? you just sort of look away in a distracted way. it's like, i'm not really sucking it. >> the best way is to look up. [ laughter ] >> finally, there's maple meringue cake and maple ice cream with chocolate shards. any suggestion how to attack this? >> we did it once. i went to chef's suggestions for the ice cream cone. chef suggests you eat it just like that. >> that's the thing, i think there's too much focusing on the food, you know. like, wow, this is very intellectual, and blah, blah.

i've done too much all those, you know? i don't want to do that. i don't want to play games any more. >> because food is feces in waiting. [ laughter ] >> this is cnn. (avo) did you know two areas of your brain can make it hard to lose weight? contrave is an fda-approved weight-loss medicine that may

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♪ if there's one thing you always need on a cold, snowy night, it's yet another hearty meal. i meet back up with fred and dave at liverpool house, the sister restaurant to joe beef. >> i think we overcompensate a little bit with overabundance of food because of our insecurity of not being, like, good cooks. >> no, you know what, it's a combination of low self-esteem and generosity that explains the amount of food. >> first course -- >> gravlax of char. is solomon gundi. >> look at that. unbelievable.

look at the aspic work. >> this is smoked veal and potatoes inside. salmon pastrami. >> wait a minute, this is super classic. >> and this, oueff engelee, soft or poached egg in clear gel tan-set broth, classically garnished with white ham, tarragon leaves, black truffles. oh, my god, i was pretty sure i would live the rest of my life without ever seeing this again. delicious. but tonight, after a full week of franco-canadian full-on assaults on our livers and our lives, they thought it would be nice to take advantage of the insanely delicious fare by their brilliant chef omar, who's from pakistan. amazing, authentic pakistani food. so, what do we have here? >> butter chicken crack, tikka,

eggplants with pomegranate, a little mushrooms, rabbit korma, fingerling with fenugreek and fennel. this is donkey nahari. >> yes, he did say donkey meat. is there something wrong with that? the dishes continue, a pakistani gumbo with okra and coriander, a sesame seed and green pepper curry. hangar steak, scotch egg, and an authentic goat biryani. wow, biryani is awesome. >> are you full? >> yeah. pretty close. >> we did good work here. >> in the end, and perhaps as a nod to the anglo tradition, however, there will be stilten. ah, this is a genius meal. these princes of gastronomy, never a suboptimal moment, nothing short of excellent accepted.

beyond excellent, too much excellent, yes, possibly. over the top? yeah, definitely. it all comes around in the end. the circle of life. we begin at the beginning, the heart and soul of every right-thinking quebecois, apparently -- ice, a stick, and a puck. fred and dave and martin picard are joined by the original god of montreal gastronomy, the great chef norman la pris, to watch the canadiens lay waste to the carolina hurricanes, all the while eating, of course, and drinking, as it turns out, the finest wines known to humanity. man, here we go. >> oh!

when i was kid, my grandparents teach that there are some people who have been in madagascar before. they were very little people and they live in forests and they respect their environment.