Some possibly useful notes on what’s open and closed for the New Year.
I hope all my readers have a new year with only good news!
Updates from December, 2020 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
-
Kate
-
Kate
A Uniprix store in Lasalle has had to apologize after taping off hair care products for Black people as inessential, while other hair care products were freely available.
-
Kate
CTV lays out how to put your Christmas tree out for city recycling.
MarcG
I already saw one this evening uncermoniously chucked in the gutter
Mark Côté
This made me chuckle:
2. Put in on the sidewalk with the base facing the street
3. Make sure it’s not obstructing the sidewalkNot sure of the average size of tree here but I definitely could not put mine *on* the sidewalk without also obstructing it… But I usually put mine on the lawn close to the sidewalk.
Bert
Interesting that for the purchase of a durable electronic good there is an environment handling fee. But for a durable good that is effectively destroyed by it’s purchase, the disposal is free
dhomas
Next year, I’m thinking of getting something like this instead of a cut tree:
https://houblonsfranklin.com/produits/fr/le-titi-sapin-p160/
I don’t really understand how cheap cut Christmas trees are. Seems unsustainable.
But @Bert about your comment, trees are pretty much compostable, whereas electronic goods will need to be processed at the end of their lifecycle.Bert
And doesn’t composting require processing? Turning over the compost pile, etc. Add to that that once dead, the tree off-gasses CO2. If the only thing is that these carbon sinks are intentionally destroyed and not put to practical use (e.g.making 2X4) seems such a waste.
Kate
The city chips the trees it picks up and uses the result for garden mulch. A low-tech but effective process (and it also smells great if you’re anywhere nearby). I don’t think it’s the same process as composting.
Chris
Bert, it’s not that you’re strictly wrong, it’s just that there’s orders of magnitude difference between biodegrading a tree vs all the water, fossil fuel, rare earth metal, etc. that goes into making electronic trinkets. It’s like you’re worried about a single dripping faucet when a 2 metre water main is broken.
-
Kate
Quebec’s cumulative Covid numbers cracked the arbitrary but striking 200,000 mark on New Year’s Eve, with 62 new deaths over the last 24 hours. The Santé Québec page has more statistics including a new table listing how many vaccinations have been given out by region – 6,857 in Montreal to date.
(I may have kvetched about this before, but every time I look at that page I get annoyed again at Quebec making Montreal region #6. And no, it’s not in alphabetical order, it’s just an attempt to put Montreal in its place.)
There won’t be new numbers Friday or Saturday, as last weekend.
Clément
Sorry Kate, the first 10 administrative regions were created in March 1966 (of which Montreal was already #6). In March 1966, the provincial government was liberal, a “Montreal friendly” political party if there ever was one.
http://bilan.usherbrooke.ca/bilan/pages/evenements/1789.html
Kate
I still don’t like it! 😉
Happy New Year, Clément.
Tim F
Well that led me down quite the rabbit hole. I found what seems to be the original government document proposing the regions and their numbering for the first time. https://numerique.banq.qc.ca/patrimoine/details/52327/3476223
I’m looking at it on my phone (not the best reading experience) but skimming through I’ve found nothing that explains the numbering. It almost looks like they tried to number them clockwise from the Gulf of St Lawrence. But I can’t explain Saguenay—Lac-St-Jean as région 02.
These numbers always remind me of French department numbering for some reason. It has that pseudo-Cartésien, revolutionary feeling to it. At least their numbering is (primarily) alphabetical.
Clément
Happy New Year Kate.
Keep up the great work, you’re one of my reliable connections to Montreal as I bid my time in purgatory. All the best!
-
Kate
There was a fire in a Pierrefonds restaurant overnight which probably was set on purpose.
I’m curious. Neither of these items (La Presse, TVA) names the restaurant. Neither does the account in the Gazette, which is usually more assiduous in reporting West Island stories.
I occasionally skim back through old newspapers available online (the Gazette on Google, La Presse on BAnQ) and, back in the day, the papers were very specific about naming. Individuals were often even identified not just by name but by address (“John O’Malley, of 1232 Centre Street, was charged with drunken brawling this week…”) and any reporter covering a story involving a commercial enterprise would not have hesitated to include the name and address of the business.
In this story, at least TVA has some photos, tells you the street name and shows you the address, so you can google if you’re curious. Neither La Presse nor the Gazette has any photos, putting up boring placeholder shots of emergency vehicles.
I write “back in the day” because I don’t know when this practice ended, or why.
Is such vague news reporting useful to anybody? Or do these media groups simply have very cautious lawyers?
Blork
A couple of months ago there was a TV documentary playing on one of the French channels about Léopold Dion (child serial killer from Quebec city circa 1963, dubbed “Le monstre de Pont-Rouge”). I’m not sure if it was in the documentary or in some of the other media surrounding it, but at some point you see the newspaper articles from back in the day regarding the victims, and they would name the dead child, give his address, and list his siblings. This is while the killer is still on the loose. Seems absurd by today’s standards, but that’s what newspapers did back then.
I suppose at some point people complained enough and better standards were set in the industry when it comes to naming victims and giving address of both victims and perps.
I doubt that extends to the naming of restaurants that get fire-bombed, but perhaps the specific reporters or editors in this case simply take the rule a bit farther than they need to.
vasi
The vagueness isn’t just around names or addresses. There are regularly articles like “The National Association of Something issued its report…” or “New Leger poll suggests…” or “Government announces plan….”. Rarely do they link to the document in question, or even provide enough identifying information that I can find it of my own accord. I’m not really sure what the point of this is!
John
For what it’s worth, the restaurant is Pasha Lounge, which serves Turkish food. It’s a few streets away from my house.
-
Kate
A woman drove her car into the front of a house in Montreal North overnight. Nobody got hurt. She’ll be up on drunk driving charges in the new year.
Bill Binns
No trial till March but does that mean she’s driving in the meantime?
Kate
Nether that account nor this one say anything either way about whether she can drive between now and her court appearance.
Meezly
According to QC law, if you were caught DUI and your blood alcohol content is above legal:
Immediate licence suspension for 90 days
Immediate seizure and impoundment of the vehicle for 90 days, in the case of a repeat offenceKate
Thank you, Meezly.
-
Kate
Mathew Roberge, last in the news six weeks ago when he failed to report to his halfway house, is once again on the loose, and his most recent victim wants the public to know it. Roberge stabbed her in the neck randomly four years ago in NDG, and had previously done time for manslaughter.
Bill Binns
Just a thought but maybe a halfway house is not the correct facility for someone who randomly stabs women in the neck?
david225
I think the ‘4 years ago’ bit is the big flashing light here. After he’s killed someone, and randomly stabbed another person in the neck, he should have been incarcerated until Trudeau III is running the show.
-
Kate
Michael Black alerted me below to the death of tenants’ rights advocate Ted Wright.
-
Kate
Some schools in the Hasidic community are accused of being open for classes despite the general lockdown till January 11. Their PR guy says the kids don’t have computers or tablets so they can’t learn from home.
Update: The Journal puts snarky scare-quotes around “école” in the headline on their version of this story.
Ephraim
And apparently they don’t have photocopiers, paper, books, pencils and the ability to drop off and pick up paperwork for their children either.
Kate
According to this Radio-Canada piece these schools are exploiting a government exception that says that students can still go to school if they live in areas where internet connections are not available. I imagine this was written in to allow for education in remote regions, not to permit city dwellers to break the rules because they deny their kids access to the internet on principle. The ministry shouldn’t let these groups play casuistic games with the rules.
CTV headlines its version of the CP story “Ultra-Orthodox Jewish council explains that schools can remain open in Quebec” which is misleading.The council doesn’t explain anything. It presents its very particular interpretation of the law, which the government should firmly dismiss, although somehow I doubt anyone in the CAQ is as well equipped to debate fine points of law as a Haredi rabbi.
(“Of course they live in areas where internet connections are not available. Their homes.”)
Bill Binns
If these events were hockey games or bachelor parties, the government would be more than happy to knock the doors down and issue a press release about the thousands of dollars in fines that were given. However, when it involves the spooky and mystical world of religion, the government wrings it’s hands in indecision or simply does nothing.
DeWolf
You say that, Bill, but one topic that came up this summer in the Mile End community discussion groups is that the police always showed up to break up gatherings outside synagogues, but they wouldn’t bother to show up to inspect big backyard parties, even after neighbours made noise complaints.
Chris
What ever happened with Eglise Nouvelle Creation? Remember the SPVM said the Criminal Code prevents them from breaking up religious services.* Since Hasidic “education” is mostly religious, is the SPVM similarly powerless here I wonder?
I tried to find what this might be, best I could find is: https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/C-46/page-41.html
Mark Côté
Rinks are open here in NDG… Saw some people seemingly playing hockey just the other day.
dwgs
Where was that Mark? The only one I know of is the Bleu Blanc Bouge and there’s no hockey allowed, just stickhandling and you have to book 48 hours in advance and you need a library card to book.
Mark Côté
It was the Bleu Blanc Bouge. I admit I do not know the difference between a game of hockey and stickhandling; I just noticed that it didn’t seem to be the skating-in-a-circle pattern, and I heard some hockey-like noises.
-
Kate
Covid numbers continue to rise. François Legault can’t be thrilled that we’re likely to hit a cumulative 200,000 cases in Quebec at the cusp of the new year; we’re also likely to reach 10,000 deaths by the end of January at the current rate.
Patrick Lagacé ponders the current issue of people travelling as the pandemic worsens, but concludes it’s up to the federal government to limit travel now.
Douglas
Looks like the government was lying to us when they said infections were happening in sit down restaurants.
Restaurants and other retail businesses are just a scape goat.
Kate
Douglas, you say these things, but you’re thinking like a customer. You’re not thinking about the people who work in those establishments. Contagion can happen anywhere people are working in proximity and sharing the same air.
Nobody should be risking their health so you can shop or eat in a restaurant.
You’re always looking for a gotcha. There is no gotcha.
Thomas H
The complete and utter failure of Quebec and Canada’s response to COVID is becoming more and more exposed by the day. Instead of following the lead of nations that have reduced community transmission to nearly zero through massive efforts in increased testing capacity and contact tracing, we are pouring all of our energy into lockdowns, shaming of rule-breakers, and paid television advertisements telling people that missing Christmas gatherings isn’t that bad because you won’t have to see your annoying uncle. And the numbers just keep climbing.
What our leaders and many others seem to lack is any sort of imagination that things could be so much better here, as they are in South Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam, Uruguay, Australia, Slovakia, or New Zealand. To shame people for travelling south (something I would not personally do for a variety of reasons) seems to me a massive distraction from the fact that the government has achieved NOTHING from a three-month lockdown except considerable collateral damage in terms of mental health and the economy.
What is needed, in my opinion, is for every adult in Canada to receive an at-home COVID test and to isolate until they receive a negative test. We will have no handle on asymptomatic transmission until we tackle this. That should drive the case loads down 60-80%. Do it once more, and dramatically reduce transmission again. Then we would have a manageable, low number of COVID cases that could be effectively managed through contact tracing. Then, we could open things up in small, measured ways and let people see their loved ones safely; but instead, let’s all give the side-eye to a few thousand people who show up in a few weeks with a tan, indefinitely suspend social activities of any sort, let millions live precariously on EI, and give ourselves a little pat on our back that we all showed a little solidarity while our cases and fatality numbers just keep climbing.
jeather
I think these people who are travelling are nuts; and the story of the person who went to England, came back before the ban, and then somehow infected their family members despite “following quarantine orders” shows that we are screwing up utterly in quarantne when people cross the border. I understand why, say, truck drivers would need to be exempted, but almost no one else should be. (This will really fuck over people in Windsor who work in Detroit, but also I don’t care.) Politicians everywhere are telling us to follow the rules and then breaking them themselves.
We need much, much better contact tracing — I have friends w kids in schools that had outbreaks, and they just say “nope, no contact for you” and no one knows HOW they define contact. Classmates? Same grade? What about siblings? (And of course, we need to figure out how people got it and then find the person who gave it to them and trace who they saw, because as we now know most cases come from only a few people.)
Everyone is having secret family parties indoors because they’d be caught outdoors. This thing is a mess.
Tee Owe
I am with Thomas H and Jeather on this. Test Trace Isolate. The virus needs new hosts. If it does not find them, it dies out. The TestTraceIsolate irecipe is intrusive and yes, draconian, but it works – do less and we are saying that we are willing to live with this pandemic. Our choice.
Tee Owe
Oh and yes, vaccinate – do both!
Kevin
Governments should have gone into full lockdown a month ago and they did not.
They are still acting as if people are obeying their mixed lame ass messages.
People are lying about staying in isolation after testing, travelling, and more.
So I hope nobody breaks a leg during the next ice storm—you won’t be getting surgery quickly.
jeather
On Christmas day I lost my footing on my stairs and slid down a bit and I was panicking imagining needing to go into the hospital on a holiday in a pandemic. (I’m fine.)
Ephraim
I don’t know about others, but if I was the cause of my parent’s or grandparent’s death (or even suffering) because a effing holiday… I don’t know if I could live with myself. Really, I can manage to connect with them by phone, by zoom, standing from a window a safe distance outside and talking from a mobile phone. This isn’t that effing hard, to live a year without being typhoid Mary.
@Kate – I don’t know why you bother answering anymore, it’s a shampoo bottle without the realization that it’s not a loop…. shampoo, rinse, repeat.
Kate
Ephraim, I’ve been trying to shut him down before anyone else gets involved in tangling with him, but he’s getting into pain in the ass territory here, I can see.
Douglas
Government told us all these establishments like retail and restaurants are causing a lot of the infection spreads without showing us any data. You Kate and Ephraim don’t question, you just accept.
Meanwhile in Florida, they traced less than 2% of the infection spreads to restaurants.
We have closed down restaurants and other establishments for 3 months now and infections haven’t gone down at all. Why do you think that is?
People are being shut down from socializing in public and now they are doing it in secret at their homes. 3 months in the government has done nothing about it. Instead of being able to trace back to troublesome establishments, we have done zero to figure out where all these infections are coming from.
If you are under 50 and healthy, you risk your health as much as you do when you decide to drive a car. Covid is a huge nothing burger for the under 50 healthy crowd. One anecdote won’t change those facts.
Douglas
Ephraim, you only like to talk to people that agree with you. I’m sure your world view is picture perfect and every time someone disagrees with you they are just a “shampoo bottle” and you have never been wrong about something in your life.
People that don’t like to read opposing view points have very small world views on things. Very black and white. Very shallow.
Kate
Douglas, do not call out other participants here. You are banned now for 14 days.
Ephraim
1. Statistics and mathematics don’t match what you are saying. Show me the numbers… the numbers constantly show that the more exposed, the faster it replicates. You know, the R number.
2. There are long-term effects and unknown effects of COVID. They can clearly seeing lasting effects to the heart muscle, even in people with mild cases. There are long term effects to the lungs (the alveoli) leading to long term breathing problems. There are also indications that getting COVID may increase your chances of having Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s. And then there are the unknown effects of COVID…. these are completely unknown, just like we didn’t know the long term effects of Polio or Chicken-Pox. We didn’t realize that there was PPS (Post Polio Syndrome) and the relationship between Chicken-Pox and Shingles. It’s too new to know what the long term effects are, especially the more long term effects… for example, if this will lower life expectancy in those who have it and/or worse, show itself in other ways, like higher cases on yet unknown diseases or known diseases.
So the more people you expose and who’s body’s can’t fight it, the more people you leave with the unknown consequences for the future. But many people don’t care about that, because it’s in the realm of the unknown. The same people that has condemned generations to possible shingles because they thought that the best treatment was exposing people to chicken-pox.
Sometimes called Rumsfeld’s Wisdom… there are known knowns and known unknown and unknown unknowns. Some people have decided to completely dismiss the known unknowns and the unknown unknowns for the sake of money. But that doesn’t give you the right to do so for others. You can choose what you want to do for yourself, if it doesn’t effect others… but when it does, we have a say. In this case, the say is the cost of your healthcare, the cost to society and the cost to others, who may not agree with the perspective that money is more important than anything else. Many people want to live to see their kid’s wedding, their grandchildren, etc. Money isn’t the be all for everyone.
Raymond Lutz
I didn’t take time to find out some corroborating studies, because this one “Assessing the Age Specificity of Infection Fatality Rates for COVID-19” seems OK and corroborates MY preconception 😎
Tl;dr: Douglas affirmation “If you are under 50 and healthy, you risk your health as much as you do when you decide to drive a car” is almost surely false (or deliberately senseless or incomplete).
From the aforementioned source: for the 45-54 age group, the Covid-19 Infected Fatality Rate (IFR) is 0.23% ie: if you catch the virus, you have roughly one chance in 400 to die from it. Versus if you died in that age group in 2018 in the USA, it had one chance in 7700 to be a car accidental death.
I concede it’s kind of comparing apples and oranges, but it gives you a rough assessment of the relative risks… One should find the odds of dying of a fatal car crash when riding, say, for 1 hour in an urban setting versus the odd of catching Covid shopping or dining out during a pandemic, but since Douglas can’t reply, I don’t care 😎
Daniel D
I think the unfortunate conclusion is the governments have tried to appeal to people’s better natures to follow social distancing protocols, and it’s not worked. It’s also too easy for people with symptoms to remain in denial, and go about their business as usual, not to mention asymptomatic carriers.
More so, as the people who are sticking to the social distancing rules see their neighbours flouting them, the more people are going to wonder why they should be the ones to carry the burden when others won’t. In turn, I think this is leading to a cascade of people giving up on social distancing.
The other contributors in this thread who state we need to test people without symptoms are right on point. I still don’t believe we have an accurate picture on how this virus is spreading, because many months in and the data is still not as complete as it needs to be.
Many governments are clearly still banking on the vaccine as a way of avoiding making those difficult decisions which could be seen to encroach on people’s perceived freedoms (eg: randomised home testing, a proper lockdown).
I truly hope the vaccines are the solutions we all hope they are, because I don’t see the strong leadership needed to tackle this pandemic via the other means which have been shown to work.
-
Kate
Some city managers will be getting a 4.5% raise in the new year.
An item I flagged but didn’t post earlier is that the city is dishing out lawyers’ fees to pursue a case against an engineering firm – condemned by the Charbonneau Commission report – to the Supreme Court. On the one hand, that’s a fair bit of money, and there must be some temptation to let it go, but on the other, letting crooked engineering firms get away with fleecing the public purse is not a good policy.
su
If they win the case the 650 000$ legal fees will probanly be returned to us along with the 14 000 000$ that Accurso and former executive committee member Frank Zampino pocketed.
Jack
I hope the NDG-CDN borough managers give themselves a sweet wellness weekend. The psychological harassment they have endured is unconscionable. Imagine being asked a question or asked to produce a file by a young woman and a bloke on top of it, the horror.
-
Kate
Notre-Dame-des-Neiges, the city’s largest cemetery, has closed at least till January 11. CBC finds that some people are upset by this but they should get a grip, there’s nobody to visit up there.
walkerp
Dog in the manger.
JS
The perimeters of both CDN and Mont-Royal cemeteries are porous. I’ve spent more time traipsing about them this year than ever before, and I don’t think I entered or left through any of the official entrances.
Kate
If you’re on foot they are, but not if you want to drive in.
JS
Lazy Montreal motorists will miss out on the beauty and peacefulness of having the whole of both cemeteries all to oneself, the wildlife, and the liveried skeletons doing their rounds in white compact cars. Binoculars provide a good cover story for when they catch up to you and can help evading them in the first place. They’re also useful for spotting cool birds that can sometimes be observed.
Kate
JS, was there still circulating security, did they see you, and did they do anything about it?
JS
Kate: The security is the “liveried skeletons” I mentioned. I avoid them, sometimes crouching behind graves or Terminator-style vanishing into the forested areas, which it occurs to me will be harder to do in the winter. I ran into a few people this year who told me that they had inconsequential run-ins with them. The one time I did speak to one (in CDN) was after hours, and he realized that I wouldn’t be trapped inside even though the gates were closed.
Kate
JS: thanks. I usually go up there a couple of times a year – it’s especially nice in spring and fall. But I once had a nasty run-in with security in NDN who told me I had no right to take photos. I’ve been cautious about going in there ever since, even though I have four great-great-grandparents buried in there so in some sense I have a right.
GC
What? Why wouldn’t people be able to take photos? Obviously one shouldn’t take photos of any mourners, out of consideration, but why should photos of the trees, headstones, etc. be restricted?
Kate
GC, if you read the small print on NDN’s website, they say you can’t film or photograph there without permission. I think it’s likely some security goon was bored, stupidly literal-minded, or just wanted to flex, because it’s not as if I was there with tripods and lights. I’d done photos there before and have done a few discreetly since then (the recent ones mostly for genealogical purposes) and not had trouble, but it was a nasty enough encounter that I don’t want to risk repeating it.
Mount Royal doesn’t seem to have a problem with photography nor does the east-end Repos. But you never know when a security bozo might get a kick out of giving you the bum’s rush.
GC
It would never have even occurred to me to check because I wouldn’t think it would be a problem. I love taking photos in cemeteries–especially old stonework of angels. And, yes, I also went to a tiny village founded by my ancestors and took tons of photos at the cemetery, for genealogy. A lot of them are online now, of course, but it’s still nice to be able to go and see the tombstones in person.
Kate
GC, I only checked the detailed rules after this happened.
Like most anti-photography rules, this one is completely undermined by how everyone has a reasonably good camera in their phone now, and can easily snap a few photos without being noticed.
GC
Looking forward to browsing those photos!
The only reason it would be a problem, in my mind, is if there is a culture that believes taking photos of the graves some how is disruptive to the dead or something. I’m not aware that such a thing exists but I would make an effort in that case, out of respect. I scanned the NDN online rules earlier today, however, and saw this: “At its complete discretion, it may also remove or order the removal of any object that is inappropriate or not respectful of the christian faith.” Being cross-cultural does not seem to be high on their list of priorities…
Michael Black
Tnere are websites that collect photos of grave markers. It certainly helps people doing genealogy, though I’ve not paid enough attention to know if there’s other interest.
JS
Different security guards have different temperaments. One snowier-than-this winter about fifteen years ago my then-girlfriend & I entered Mount Royal cemetery on snowshoes through the path that is accessed from the “wedge” part of the park on the other side of Camilien Houde. This trail leads to the area behind the Molson family tomb*, which is where a security guard “caught” us. So he’s giving us a hard time, and points out that we’re standing on [John or whatever his first name was] Molson’s grave. I forget if I was a wiseguy and said Mr. Molson, pointing downwards, himself wasn’t too discomfited by our presence or just thought it and kept my trap shut, fearing the truncheon of the wounded ego. When he asked how we had gotten in** we pointed to the other end of the cemetery, i.e. the gate near the Maison Smith, so we still got our cemetery snowshoe adventure.
Worth checking out up close if you’re in the area
** You’d think the the cemetery “security” guard would be the same skeleton driving around who doffed his chauffeur outfit and donned a Sherlock Holmes-style cap and cloak, hunched over our trail of footprints with a magnifying class looking for clues on how we suddenly materialized seemingly out of the ether right under his nose but alas
-
Kate
Shots were heard in Montreal North early Wednesday but no victims have been found.
-
Kate
The green line is down between Berri-UQÀM and Viau on Wednesday morning following an overnight fire in an STM construction excavation. As of 9:30 that section is still down, according to Twitter.
Update: At 10 am the green line twitter feed says the line is back to normal service.
-
Kate
A regular reader asks me to pose this question: what did you or your family or friends call these cookies (and what language did you speak at home)?Variations on whippet cookies are made worldwide and are given various fanciful names. The Wikipedia claims that anglos in Montreal have called them “nun’s farts” which I have never heard. Pets-de-sœur are a different thing entirely.
(For language background purposes: we spoke English at home, my mom was born here, my dad in an Irish Catholic enclave in the north of England. He had a few odd turns of phrase but no weird names for whippet cookies.)
Michael Black
I’ve never known them as anything but whippets.
MarcG
Whippets for me as well and English at home except when my French Canadian father stubbed his toe.
mare
You don’t want to know what they are/were called in Dutch. https://blogs.transparent.com/dutch/this-dutch-treat-is-racist/
At the time I had no idea. Cringeworthy anecdote: During a couple of weeks of the year they were sold in my high school during lunch break for 10 cents each to raise funds for UNICEF. Some kids bought many boxes and organized “Chocolate-coated marshmallow treats”-fights in the hallways were they threw them at other students. A snowball fight without snow. They’re really hard to get out of your hair.
Jebediah Pallendrome
I always called them Choco-Mallow Mouth Flavor Explosion. My family’s from Luxembourg but I grew up in Laval.
maggie rose
We called them Mallowmars when I was a child growing up in NYC, my Dad’s favourite. I think they’re a different recipe than Whippets, but are the same idea. Still sold as Mallowmars in the states, though I haven’t tasted them in many years.
maggie rose
According to this cooking site, there is a cult-like following for both cookies in New York and Quebec. Short history and recipe here https://naramata-blend.com/2017/12/11/mallomars-or-whippets-cookie-hack/. I often have a Whippet for old time’s sake. I keep a box in the frig.
John B
Pretty much stick with the dominant brand name: Viva Puffs out west, before I moved to Montreal, Whippets here.
Tim F
Thanks for putting the question out there, Kate. You can tell from the Wikipedia page title that the name is contentious, but as mare suggests, “Whippet”/“nun’s fart” is not the biggest controversy by a mile.
Just glad to know I’m not crazy.Kate
Thanks, Jebediah. Thanks all.
Ephraim
Whippets. Though, I don’t really like them. In Israel they are called Krembo and they are MUCH taller. https://chicagored.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/israeli-cookie-kramboo_b1.jpg (Incidentally, it’s Dumbledore’s favourite treat in the Hebrew translation of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, according to my cousin.)
Blork
I’m pretty sure we called them whippets when I was an anglo kid in Nova Scotia. My Francophone sweetie called, and calls, them whippets.
Blork
…and I highly doubt that Wikipedia reference is correct. As you say, Nun’s farts are a completely different thing, and even Montreal anglos are not that thick about such expressions.
Kevin
Any anglo who used the term “fart” in front of his mother would have been spanked.
Kate
This is true, Kevin. It was a proscribed word in our house – instead, we were allowed to use one of my father’s words for it.
Wiktionary says “(slang, Britain, childish, vulgar) Flatulence.”
ant6n
Back when I grew up in the old country (in Germany), we had a variation of these that were called “Negerkuss” (Negro’s kiss), even in the early nineties. Before my time they were even called “Mohrenkopf” (Moor’s head).
They’re taller, more fragile, and a big mess (=fun) to eat when you’re young. Germans are pretty reactionary when it comes to the language involving racism and sexism, so only in the late nineties did these things turn into “Schokokuss” (chocolate kiss) or “Schaumkuss” (foam kiss).
CE
Growing up on the east coast in an anglo household, they were called whippets. I don’t remember eating them very often.
In South America, I saw a packaged version of them made by Nestlé which were sold with the chocolate bars called Beso de negra (black woman’s kiss) which wouldn’t be considered to be particularly racist there. The package had a voluptuous woman blowing a kiss.
jeather
Definitely called them whippets, they were popular with my siblings. Never heard of other names for them as a kid, but a lot of people are completely baffled by the name, it’s very regional.
Tee Owe
Where I grew up they didn’t exist as such, but what did exist would have been called chocolate marshmallows, a poor substitute. Where I live now they are called floedeboller, polite term for what used to be called negerboller, not used anymore. Never heard of whippets. In my childhood the polite word for fart was puff – all to be found in the Wikipedia links that are posted- BTW to say that English was our household language is to miss the fact that there are many versions of English, not all understandable to each other. Try moving from Montreal to Australia via London!
Kate
Tee Owe, an old friend just married a man who started out in England, lived here in Montreal in his childhood, was moved back to England by his family, moved to Australia after he qualified as an MD, and is now living in California with my friend. I’m going to talk to her soon, and will ask her to ask him what he calls a whippet cookie.
…I’m relieved that we didn’t have a racist name for them here.
Daniel D
“Tea cakes”, but I grew up in the U.K. (the best ones come from Marks & Spencer – Do they have any of those in Canada?)
Kate
The Marks & Spencer in Montreal shut down years ago.
I can’t get my head around these being cakes. They’re too small.
EmilyG
Whippets.
Chris
We called them “May Wests”, or are these something different?
Michael Black
May Wests have no marshmallow or biscuit. They are a vanilla cake coated in chocolate.
Hervé
Des ouipets, bien sûr
Tim S. 20:26 on 2020-12-31 Permalink
Happy New Year Kate et al!
The sanity and solidarity of (most) of the commentators on here has actually cheered me up a lot this year. Even the ones who are cheerfully urging the sacrifice of people I care about are informative, in their way. Thanks everyone.
JP 20:39 on 2020-12-31 Permalink
Happy New Year, Kate!
Thanks for all the work that you do. I also really enjoy the high-level discourse that takes place in the comment section.
Best wishes to all for a joyful, safe new year!
J 22:07 on 2020-12-31 Permalink
Cheers!
dwgs 22:31 on 2020-12-31 Permalink
Happy new year one and all. And here’s to Kate for babysitting one of only two comments sections that I actually visit and participate in. Major thanks as always to our host, who somehow manages to let people speak freely and keep the peace. It really is a fine line between clever and stupid.
Wishing the best for all of you.
Tim F 22:55 on 2020-12-31 Permalink
Happy 2021!
Raymond Lutz 09:56 on 2021-01-01 Permalink
“sanity and solidarity” in rough time? Here’s the complementary video-essay: Who We Really Are… When Everything Goes Wrong. Watching LSOO (this video-essay YT channel) is a spiritual healing for me, a good way to start 2021!
And as a “mise en bouche”, the author’s presentation:
In this dark and difficult year, the year that gave us so many reasons to be cynical, to become divided, to fall into despair, hopefulness isn’t exactly what’s on people’s minds. And yet, this is exactly what I set out to explore. Alas, no jolly take on my favorite Christmas films, but a real search for hope in the dark; a critical reflection on humanity in times of disaster.
Studying human responses in the wake of calamities revealed a lot of things; fear, pain, loss, but it also revealed something that is often overlooked, something that might just restore your faith in humanity (if only a little bit). So, as we move towards 2021, I figured it’s high time to try and rekindle the light, and to discuss who we really are… when everything goes wrong.
Bill Binns 12:02 on 2021-01-01 Permalink
Thanks for another year Kate. Have been a daily reader for all but the first two of your 19 years. You must be close to setting some kind of record. How many blogs can there be out there with an unbroken string of daily posts as long as yours?
PatrickC 16:15 on 2021-01-01 Permalink
Happy New Year, Kate! and to all my fellow readers. You all help me keep in touch with the city with news and insights I couldn’t get elsewhere.
walkerp 16:19 on 2021-01-01 Permalink
Happy New Year, Kate! Thanks for all your hardwork this year. This is far and away the best local news and opinion/analysis site for montreal.
GC 17:58 on 2021-01-01 Permalink
Happy 2021, everyone!
JaneyB 02:23 on 2021-01-02 Permalink
A very Happy New Year, Kate! Thanks for your sage mayorship of Montreal City Weblog 🙂
Chris 12:43 on 2021-01-02 Permalink
Happy new year to all!