Jehane Benoît

Jehane Benoît OC (French pronunciation: [ʒan bənwa]; née Patenaude [pat(ə)nod]; March 21, 1904 – November 24, 1987) was a Canadian culinary author, speaker, commentator, journalist and broadcaster.[1][2]

Jehane Benoît
Born
Jehane Patenaude

(1904-03-22)March 22, 1904
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
DiedNovember 24, 1987(1987-11-24) (aged 83)
Sutton, Quebec, Canada
NationalityCanadian
EducationSorbonne and Le Cordon Bleu
Culinary career
Award(s) won

Benoît was born into a wealthy family in Westmount, Quebec, with a father and grandfather who were food connoisseurs.[3] After studying at the Sorbonne and Le Cordon Bleu cooking school in Paris, she started her own cooking school, Fumet de la Vieille France, in Montreal. She also opened one of Canada's first vegetarian restaurants, "The Salad Bar", in 1935.[4]

Life

Best known as "Madame Benoît," she wrote 30 books during her career, including the Encyclopedia of Canadian Cuisine (currently out of print).[3] She appeared regularly on CBC Television's Take 30[5] and later became a proponent of microwave cookery, writing several books on the subject as well as appearing in television commercials for Panasonic microwaves.[6]

Benoît introduced traditional Québécois menu items to English-speaking Canadians, including the meat pie known in French as the Quebec Tourtière, Benoît's "iconic dish".[3] She has been described by CBC's Joanne Bayly as a 1960s phenomenon.

In the 1950s, 60s and 70s, Benoît was Canada's cook. In both French and charmingly accented English, she was on radio and television, trying to improve how Canadians ate and how they cooked.[3]

In 1973, she was made an Officer of the Order of Canada "for her contribution to this art in Canada".[1]

In 2012, Marguerite Paulin and Marie Desjardins published Jehane Benoît's biography À la découverte de Jehane Benoît, le roman de la grande dame de la cuisine canadienne.

Selected works
  • Benoît, J. (1963). Encyclopedia of Canadian Cuisine. Les Messageries du Saint Laurent.
  • Benoît, J. (1964). Secrets et recettes du cahier de ma grand'mère. Éditions Beauchemin.
  • Benoit, J. (1970).

‘’The Canadiana Cookbook’’. Pagurian Press Ltd

  • Benoit, J. (1987). Microwave Food Fun. Saint-Lambert, Québec: Héritage.

Television series

References
  1. "Order of Canada citation".
  2. Legacy: How French Canadians shaped North America. Signal. 2016. pp. 259–276. ISBN 978-0-7710-7239-0.
  3. Bayly, Joanne (December 22, 2019). "Tourtiere for the holidays appeal of Madame Benoit". CBC. Archived from the original on 2021-10-10. Retrieved 2021-10-10.
  4. "Jehane Benoît". The Canadian Encyclopedia. Archived from the original on 21 December 2011. Retrieved 4 October 2012.
  5. "Jehane Benoit: her life and her kitchen in Sutton". All in a Weekend Montreal. CBC. Archived from the original on 10 June 2016. Retrieved 4 October 2012.
  6. Driver, Elizabeth (2008). Culinary Landmarks: A Bibliography of Canadian Cookbooks, 1825-1949. University of Toronto Press. pp. 248–249. ISBN 9780802047908.

Sources
  • Order of Canada Citation
  • Chrystine Brouillet: Jehane Benoît. Canadian cuisine's grande dame, in Legacy. How French Canadians shaped North America. McClelland & Stewart, Toronto 2016; réimpr. 2019 (ISBN 0771072392) p 259-278
  • (in French) in: Bâtisseurs d'Amérique: Des canadiens français qui ont faite de l'histoire. Dir. André Pratte, Jonathan Kay. Éd. La Presse, Montréal 2016, p 125-146
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