Bake, bake, bake. Write. Bake. Chat with my mother. Bake. Write.

Piles of baked goods. Yummy-smelling house. Happy, happy Autumn.

Time comes for dinner. I take out the tourtiere we picked up at Loblaws this morning, the box claiming that it’s Made from a traditional Quebecois recipe. My mother used to create an amazing home-made tourtiere that was our traditional Christmas Eve dinner. I proceed to get nostalgic. Open box, pop tourtiere in the oven.

Idly turn over box. Read ingredients.

Pork, beef, veal; water, onions, textured soy protein, potatoes –

Whoa. Jus’ whoa.

Textured soy protein?

I’m fairly certain that traditional Quebecois recipes for tourtiere do not include textured soy protein.

Don’t get me wrong – I like TSP when I’ve had it, especially in vegetable stir-fries.

It’s just… odd.

At least there’s no swarms of poly-syllabic chemical-preservative-like things lurking in this tourtiere. The ingredient list goes on to read: toasted wheat crumbs, salt, spice, dextrose, onion powder, garlic powder. Pastry: enriched wheat flour, lard, water, salt, calcium propionate. Glaze: water, enriched wheat flour, dextrose, milk ingredients, canola oil.

I know what all of that is. That’s rare, when I read ingredient lists. It usually depresses me. (Okay, the calcium propionate is a preservative, but it’s used in most bread products, and that’s just the pastry in this tourtiere. I’m amazed. I’m truly amazed.)