Shane Robicheau was born into the kitchen. A second-generation chef from Clare, NS, the 24-year-old grew up in his parents’ restaurant, Seashore Restaurant & Blue Rock Lounge, smelling the brine and salt and broth of freshly caught clams and lobsters, the simmering potatoes and onions, that made up the Acadian dishes his family had cooked and served for generations: Meals like rappie pie, chicken fricot and fring frangs—think potato pancakes, fried up with salmon or sausages or butter and molasses.
“It’s the simplicity of the dishes,” Robicheau, the creative force behind Le Ptit Robicheau food truck in Saulnierville, tells The Coast. The food comes from what’s available in the region. It’s hearty and reliable—the kind of staples you can pull from the pantry mid-winter in southwestern Nova Scotia that will last you until spring thaws the Annapolis Valley and the wind from St. Mary’s Bay changes from bitter cold to bucolic.
This week in Wolfville, those dishes will take centre stage (or main course billing, if you will) at the annual Devour! The Food Film Fest. French and Cajun cuisine are also on the menu at the festival, which started Monday, Oct. 23 and runs until Sunday, Oct. 29. And while the town might be small, the festival’s reputation is anything but: Anthony Bourdain visited the festival in 2014. French chef and writer Jacques Pépin came in 2017, and delivered an online workshop in 2020. Actors Gordon Pinsent and Jason Priestley have attended through the years.
The growth has been “extraordinary” to watch, says Devour! founder Michael Howell. The former chef behind the beloved (and since-closed) Tempest restaurant in Wolfville, Howell started the festival in 2009 as a way to “put bums in seats” during a time of year when tourism typically slowed in the valley.
“That first dinner in Kenny’s Farm Market, Jason and his wife were in the back, and it was freezing cold, and 40 people were huddled around a pot-bellied stove,” the Chester-born Howell recalls.
This year—and not for the first time, either—Devour! hosted a gala dinner at the Sonoma International Film Festival. Howell and Devour! managing director Lia Rinaldo watched more than 300 film submissions to come up with the final festival roster. This year’s silver-screen lineup includes Cajun Heart, a documentary that traces the links between Acadian and Cajun cuisine; The Most Remote Restaurant in the World, about a surprising Michelin two-starred restaurant on an island where only 53 people live; and Stella, about a Neapolitan pizzaiolo who hopes his pizzeria will become the world’s first to receive a Michelin star.
Of course, there’s also the food. Along with live Acadian-Cajun zydeco music, the annual “chowder smackdown” returns to Wolfville’s waterfront, and Saturday brings a “Fais do-do” Cajun dance party to the Wolfville Farmers’ Market, with dishes ranging from Cajun fried alligator with Creole remoulade to freshly shucked oysters and smoked fish served “boucanière” style.
Robicheau might be most excited, however, to serve molasses cake.
“It’s simple,” he tells The Coast, “but it’s the comfort of eating it—knowing years ago, that was my great-grandmother’s recipe when she had her small kitchen-slash-restaurant. It means something.”
This article appears in Oct 1 – Nov 5, 2023.