A series of little gems to discover…   Youthful, dynamic and open to the world, the Centre-du-Québec region is bursting with vitality, with its delicious terroir products and its huge diversity of festivals. Let it amaze you!   Aptly named, this region is right in the centre of southern Quebec, and offers a happy and original combination of agri-tourism, the outdoors, golf, cycling, snowmobiling, ATVing, culture and heritage.   Lining your route you’ll find numerous antique dealers and many festivals to attract you throughout the year. Its famous Mondial des Cultures de Drummondville (July) and its unbelievable Festival international de musique actuelle de Victoriaville (May) represent only a small facet of the diversity of its events.   This is a region where plains and valleys nudge up against one another, offering gentle, beautiful landscapes in which you’ll find a huge variety of terroir products. 85% of its territory is occupied by the agricultural sector, so Centre-du-Québec has what it takes to make agri-tourism alluring!   Centre-du-Québec
			Flavours of the region This region is rich in agri-food events, such as the Festival des fromages de Warwick, the Festival du Cochon (pork products) (Sainte-Perpétue), the Festival du Bœuf (beef products) (Inverness), the Festival de la Canneberge (cranberries) (Villeroy), and the Festival de l’Érable (maple sugar products) (Plessisville). So there are plenty of opportunities to tickle your tastebuds.  The region has many cheese makers, and offers a circuit of the most interesting ones, so gourmets can discover cheeses made from cow’s milk, goat’s milk and ewe’s milk. The snow goose makes a stop here, and farmers have developed a production program that’s certified for quality. Products are rillettes, terrines, pâtés and conserves. Cranberry growing has increased considerably since the opening of an interpretation centre in Saint-Louis-de-Blandford. Smoked sturgeon from Odanak and Notre-Dame-de-Pierreville is a traditional delicacy inherited from the Abenakis. Further south, the landscape is dominated by sugarbush – a veritable kingdom of maple syrup producers and sugar shacks to satisfy your sweet tooth. A dish to make you smile... Even if we can’t agree on its exact place of origin (Warwick, Drummondville or Victoriaville), “poutine” certainly originated in Centre-du-Québec. A combination of French-fries, gravy and curd cheese, this special concoction is now served in food outlets in the United States and even in Europe! Did you know? Cranberries are harvested by flooding the plants and then mechanically beating them to release the berries. The water level is then raised to allow them to float without getting caught up in the foliage.  Other names for this little berry include “pomme des près” or meadow apple, Atoca, lingonberry and deerberry. While sailors may not have known about its high Vitamin “C” content, they did know that it protected them against scurvy. The Amerindians consumed them to prevent urinary infections and to cure digestive problems. Thus there is much interest in collecting these wonderful berries, quite apart from their traditional use for making cranberry sauce to accompany roast turkey.  When dried, they make a delicious snack!   A little history When the first colonists arrived, the production of maple syrup was already well established among the various indigenous cultures. The Amerindians did not however have the materials necessary for heating a receptacle to a very high temperature. So they would heat stones and throw them into the maple sap to bring it to a boil.  Another method was to allow the sap to freeze overnight and then the next day, lift off the layer of ice that had formed, repeating the operation until all that was left was maple syrup. Maple syrup played an important role in their diet, their culture and their religion.   For more information about the Centre-du-Québec region: 1-888-816-4007 www.tourismecentreduquebec.com