TASTE THE TERROIR

A route through the Charlevoix region of Quebec offers a hyperlocal bounty and charming towns

- JIM ROBBINS

It is a culinary adventure that started with a bang. Some 400 million years ago, a meteor more than 3.2km wide slammed into what is now the Charlevoix region of Quebec, Canada, creating an impact crater 55km wide.

L'Observatoire de l'Astroblème de Charlevoix, a science centre devoted to studying the meteor's impact (an astroblème is a scar left by the impact of a meteorite or asteroid), near the town of Baie-St-Paul, has a plaque that explains the event. The explosion caused what is known as an impact winter to fall over the Earth as the ash, dust and debris blotted out the sun and devastated natural systems.

The impact modified the surrounding landscape and, over the eons, erosion, glaciers and other forces deposited nutrient rich soil in the crater, creating a distinctive terroir and nourishing productive farms. The farms became part of Canada's first agro-tourism programme in 2004, the Route des Saveurs, or Flavour Trail, with 33 official stops. It lives up to its name.

The savoury trail is built around hyperlocal food, everything from duck to foie gras to beef, and foraged sea buckthorn berries, whelks and wild mushrooms. "We use pretty much everything we can find around here," said David Forbes, a chef at Camp Boule, a buvette, or small restaurant, atop the ski area Le Massif in Petite-Rivière-St-François.

Charlevoix's two largest towns are Baie-St-Paul and La Malbaie, each with about 8,000 people. From Quebec City, my wife, Chere and I were headed first to La Malbaie — the "bad bay", said as a curse, no doubt, by Jacques Cartier, the French explorer who in 1534 AD, came to this part of what became Canada.