by Michelle Valois
French meat pie is a greasy wonder of pork, beef, and onion, filling a pie crust that is flaky and buttery. Some parts of French Canada add potatoes, some breadcrumbs. Either way, the additions were intended to stretch the meat, which you had to do if you were poor. My family used breadcrumbs.
My Mai Mai taught my mother and she taught me. These days, though, with one of my children vegan, I make a meatless meat pie, using mushrooms and lentils as a substitute for the meat. My relatives and other purists are appalled, but it’s actually not bad.
This vegan daughter of mine is also queer, and all three of my children are Jewish, as is my partner. I just found out that if you can prove that a grandparent was born in Canada you can apply for Canadian citizenship. If what is happening in Minnesota becomes the norm, we may just have to return to the motherland of meat pies, maple syrup, and ice hockey. I hope they won’t mind how I have tinkered with one of their national dishes in the three generations that my family has thrived in this so-called land of the free, but it appears that it is no longer free, which it never really was for people of color; now, though, it’s only free if you are white and MAGA.
My grandparents left their farms in Canada for a better life in the factories of New England. They could never have dreamed that their granddaughter would become a college professor, marry a woman, and be able to afford all the pork and beef she wants (but chooses mushrooms and lentils), the American dream come true.
My father fought fascists in Germany. He could never have dreamed that his children and grandchildren would have to fight them here on American soil, the American dream turned nightmare.
Meatless meat pie? You can make anything, really, without meat, but you can’t make a life without freedom.
My Mai Mai taught my mother and she taught me. These days, though, with one of my children vegan, I make a meatless meat pie, using mushrooms and lentils as a substitute for the meat. My relatives and other purists are appalled, but it’s actually not bad.
This vegan daughter of mine is also queer, and all three of my children are Jewish, as is my partner. I just found out that if you can prove that a grandparent was born in Canada you can apply for Canadian citizenship. If what is happening in Minnesota becomes the norm, we may just have to return to the motherland of meat pies, maple syrup, and ice hockey. I hope they won’t mind how I have tinkered with one of their national dishes in the three generations that my family has thrived in this so-called land of the free, but it appears that it is no longer free, which it never really was for people of color; now, though, it’s only free if you are white and MAGA.
My grandparents left their farms in Canada for a better life in the factories of New England. They could never have dreamed that their granddaughter would become a college professor, marry a woman, and be able to afford all the pork and beef she wants (but chooses mushrooms and lentils), the American dream come true.
My father fought fascists in Germany. He could never have dreamed that his children and grandchildren would have to fight them here on American soil, the American dream turned nightmare.
Meatless meat pie? You can make anything, really, without meat, but you can’t make a life without freedom.
Michelle Valois' work has appeared in The Massachusetts Review, The Florida Review, TriQuarterly, Pank, Brevity, and others. A chapbook My Found Vocabulary was published in 2017 (Aldrich). She lives in Massachusetts and teach at a community college.
