As a member of Charlevoix’s Flavour Trail and a municipal councillor, the bakery’s owner works with the region’s producers — for the veal for her meat pies, among other things— and makes it her duty to promote the gastronomic riches of this region, which she would never leave for anything in the world. Noëlle-Ange’s cousins produce grain on their ancestors’ farm for the flour used in the bakery’s wheat bread.

These forbears were the ones behind Boulangerie Bouchard’s famous speciality, the “pâté croche”—salty, comforting individual meat (or vegetarian) pies. Noëlle-Ange takes great pleasure in talking about her origins and her beloved Isle-aux-Coudres. “Our grandparents would canoe down the St. Lawrence to Baie-Saint-Paul or Petite-Rivière-Saint-François. For their meal, they would take a meat pie that they would divide up when they got there, but it

always got crushed on the trip. One day, Grandpa said to his wife, ‘Why don’t you just flatten them right away into hand-size pieces and we’ll each have one!’”

Today, people come from all over to taste the “pâtés croches” of Isle-aux-Coudres.

Tales of bread