Update, December 10, 2024: The Vermont Agency of Agriculture shut down the Bombardiers’ pie-making operation shortly after this story was published because the couple’s home kitchen was not licensed for commercial use. For more, click here.
It didn’t take much to convince Carmen Beaudoin Bombardier to sing while she recently rolled pie dough for a batch of French Canadian tourtières in her Williston kitchen.
With a few deft moves of a wooden rolling pin, Beaudoin Bombardier transformed a lump of dough into a smooth round as she sang, in French, “Fringue, fringue sur la rivière. Fringue, fringue sur l’aviron.” The words roughly translate to: “Swiftly, swiftly, upon the river. Swiftly, swiftly, upon the oars.”
Beaudoin Bombardier, 75, grew up in Burlington’s Lakeside neighborhood singing such traditional French Canadian songs and performing them as part of La Famille Beaudoin, led by her father, Louis, a renowned fiddler. In 2018, Carmen participated in a Vermont Folklife and Young Tradition Vermont project called “Revitalizing Franco-American Song in the Champlain Valley of Vermont.”
The tune she sang is so deeply embedded in her memory, Carmen said, “I don’t remember learning it. I just remember knowing it.”
She also grew up with tourtières, the double-crusted, cinnamon- and clove-seasoned meat pies that Vermonters with French Canadian heritage customarily make and eat from Christmas through New Year’s. But for the nearly 200 meat pies she makes to sell every year, Carmen strays from her family’s recipe.
She adored her father — his tourtières, not so much. “My father made his with mashed potatoes,” Carmen said. “I wasn’t all that crazy about them: too dry.”
For the large batches she starts making in November to sell frozen to more than 100 devoted customers, many of whom buy multiple pies, Carmen uses her mother-in-law Valida’s recipe. She mixed in crushed saltine crackers instead of potatoes to thicken the filling.
Not only has she borrowed her husband’s family recipe, Carmen has also pressed him into service after her sister, Nina, moved to Arizona 12 years ago. The sisters had done the baking project together since the early 1980s, when Carmen started selling pies at Christ the King School’s holiday bazaar.
Dave Bombardier, 74, is responsible for simmering the “hamburg” and freshly ground pork loin in a huge 10-gallon pot. It’s so big that the couple took its dimensions into consideration when they remodeled their kitchen. The pot would swallow a standard kitchen utensil, so Dave uses a long-handled drywall mud masher to blend the meat with the spices and cracker crumbs.
The couple celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in 2021 with a summer party, during which family members played, sang and step-danced to French Canadian music. Last week, the pair worked seamlessly together to make about 40 pies. Ninety-eight were already stacked in their four freezers.
“Some people put allspice and nutmeg. That’s not our way.” Carmen Beaudoin Bombardier
Carmen had made 12 batches of her grandmother’s pie dough recipe that morning. The dough rested on the counter in large ziplock bags near the antique railroad scale that Dave uses to weigh meat out for each pie. The scale belonged to his father, who worked for the railroad.
As Carmen rolled the crusts, her husband stirred the meat and dipped out a spoonful for her to taste. “Needs more of everything,” she said.
The meat is seasoned simply with diced onion, salt and pepper, plus judicious amounts of cinnamon and clove. “Some people put allspice and nutmeg,” Carmen said. “That’s not our way.”
Longtime customer and friend Sue Abair of Williston buys two pies every year and appreciates the mellow seasoning. Abair, 77, grew up eating her grandmother’s meat pies for Sunday dinner during the holidays, she recalled. “She went heavy with the clove, and I didn’t like it,” Abair said. By contrast, she said, “The flavor of Carmen’s pies is just wonderful and not overspiced.”
Carmen publicizes the pies in the Christ the King parish bulletin and through Front Porch Forum. They cost $25, with $5 of each bulletin-referred sale donated to the school. “Last year, we got calls from Lyndonville,” Dave said.
He grew up in St. Albans and remembers his mother making about 10 pies each year for their family. They’d eat them throughout December and on Christmas Eve after midnight mass, Dave recalled, along with oyster stew.
“It’s his mother’s recipe, not that he helped her any,” Carmen joked. “I taught him how to do the crust edge,” she continued as her husband neatly crimped a steady stream of pies before putting them on the screened porch to cool the hot filling.
The first year, it took him several tries to master the technique, Carmen recalled. “He said, ‘You laugh, and I’m not going to help you.'”
After the cost of ingredients and the donation, the couple put their pie profits toward Christmas gifts. With extended family, they generally host about 30 on Christmas Eve for a spread including meat pie and oyster stew.
Carmen likes to eat tourtière with pickled beets, while her husband prefers his wife’s sweet-tangy turmeric pickles.
Abair told Seven Days she enjoys her slices with ketchup, but she wasn’t sure how her friend would feel about that. “I don’t think I’ve ever told Carmen that,” she admitted.
The original print version of this article was headlined “Piece of the Pie | A Williston couple share their heritage by baking and selling close to 200 French Canadian tourtières each year”
This article appears in Dec 11-17, 2024.
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