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Beaumont volunteers mark 10 years of selling traditional, popular Christmas tourtière pies

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Beaumont volunteers celebrate 10 years of selling popular Christmas tourtière pies
For 10 years, volunteers from Beaumont have been making traditional French-Canadian tourtière pies and selling them as a fundraiser. As Kim Smith explains, they make hundreds every Christmas season — which are usually sold within minutes – Dec 24, 2021

For 10 years, a group of volunteers from Beaumont, Alta., have been making the French-Canadian Christmas tradition of tourtières, or meat pies, and selling them as a fundraiser.

The volunteers make hundreds of pies every Christmas season and they are usually sold within minutes.

This year, they made more than 800 tourtières and sold them every Saturday morning in November.

“We had 202 pies and we sold out in 25 minutes. The weekend before we had over 200 pies as well and sold out in 24 minutes,” organizer Carmen Grayson said.

The tourtières are a fundraiser for the historic St. Vital Église Catholic Church and also a recognition of Beaumont’s French heritage.

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St. Vital Catholic Church in Beaumont, Alta. in November 2021. Global News

“I am French-Canadian, Franco-Albertan — born and raised in Beaumont and it’s something we have every year. My grandmothers would make them. My aunts would make them,” Grayson said.

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“That’s my gift to my neighbours in my community, a tourtière because it’s us.”

On the final Saturday in November, vehicles lined up outside the church waiting for the pies to go on sale at 9 a.m.

“We come every year to get tourtières,” Ambere Porter said. “We’ve tried lots of different ones and these are the best ones in the greater Edmonton area that we’ve found.”

Another customer in line said eating tourtières at Christmas has been apart of her family tradition.

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“Christmas night when we’ve having a piece of tourtière, it brings back old memories of your childhood,” Patricia Plamondon said.

As for why they’re so popular, Greyson said they have used the same recipe for the past decade.

“We had a recipe in our Dames Catholiques cookbook… and we took her recipe and we stuck to it for all 10 years,” Grayson said.

This year, the volunteers in Beaumont made more than 800 pies and sold them every Saturday morning in November. Global News

To make 100 pies, Greyson said they need about 80 pounds of pork and 20 pounds of potatoes.

Sales are done for 2021, but the volunteers will be making more pies again in time for the 2022 Christmas season.

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