"Gibelotte de Ste-Anne de Sorel" is my father's recipe. My mom kept it after their divorce and, when I was 9, he died.
My dad's side of the family almost entirely live in Sorel. I see them, at best, around twice a year. My distance from them is both physical and emotional, I do not consider myself a "Salvail" like I feel I should. I long to feel a sense of belonging within my family but as it stands I have no idea how to.

Gibelotte is a regional specialty from Sorel. They even have a festival for it during the summer. According to my mom, this was his family recipe and you can tell by looking at what's written that he must have known it by heart. There's absolutely no measurements, it was written as reminders, not as instructions for someone else to make it. According to my cousins, this recipe was my grandfather's.
Because of this little issue, I asked my cousin to help me figure out the recipe. Francois is a chef, co-owner of the Distingo with another one of my cousin's, and has a gibelotte named after our grandfather on the menu. He is, for obvious reasons, my most trusted ally in making this recipe. He helped me find substitutes for ingredients I couldn't get (lard) and helped me prepare and make it in time.

I hoped that by making gibelotte, I could become closer to my father. I hoped that making a family recipe I could form a closer connection to my family. Cooking for someone, sharing a meal with them, is an act of love. I may have never tasted my dad's own recipe, from him, but I can make it myself.

The experience of creating this meal from scratch was remarkably fulfilling. It took around 4 hours in total, with an hour being done the night before to prepare the vegetables. During the process, I thought about what it meant for me to make such a well loved recipe, passed down through at least 3 generations. I thought about the changes made in each generation: how my grandfather made it with brown bullhead while my father made it with fish bouillon, how my father made it with lard while I replaced it with pancetta. I worried that I wouldn't even like it, that I would spend hours trying to make a recipe I wouldn't be able to eat. I wondered if it was accurate, if my version was recognizably gibelotte. That question was answered with a resounding yes from my family.

Making gibelotte helped me reconnect to a part of me that felt lost. I'm grateful I could include it in my work.