Les tartes de Simonne

Raspberry pie (ready to bake)

Born in 1914, the same year that Canada entered the First World War, Simonne grew up at the end of Saguenay−Lac-Saint-Jean’s settlement period. At the age of 14, she started working as a maid for a doctor and got married at 20 to a farmer’s son, who became a merchant in her village. She had her first son in 1935 and was the mother of 9 children. The house was always busy with family, friends, employees, and trappers passing by to stock up at her husband’s store. The dinner tables were always full and when it came time for dessert, Simonne’s pies were always eagerly anticipated. With summer came pies made with seasonal fruits (strawberries, rhubarb, raspberries, blueberries, etc.) that the children picked, eating almost as many as they put in their baskets! The pies were baked in a wood-fired oven in the summer kitchen attached to the house, which gave them a unique taste. Simonne has been inspiring her family’s dinner tables for generations, and today she is the inspiration behind the pie that you are about to taste. A small red fruit with a hollow core, raspberries are full of love, flavour, and vitamins C, K and E. They provide folic acid, potassium and iron. The crunchy little seeds inside the fruit provide insoluble fibre that is good for digestion. Raspberries also contain pectin, which helps balance blood cholesterol levels, as well as antioxidants, believed to help prevent cancer and cardiovascular disease. So you can say that raspberries are a superfruit!