The story of a wizard from Île d’Orléans who became a master jam maker

Once upon a time, during a hot sunny morning in the fields of Île d’Orléans.

A little blond boy is absorbed by the sight of the immensity of the river which flows to the horizon, between mountains as far as the eye can see, bordered by endless agricultural fields. Farmer Elzéore, this tall, strong man who seems straight out of a fairy tale, gently calls him to order, with a big smile full of kindness. He is far behind these comrades, much older than him, in the strawberry fields. He must fill his baskets before noon when he will return home with his small bicycle because the afternoons are too hot for the children in the fields.

Already at a very young age, Vincent Paris cherished a particular love for strawberries from Île d’Orléans.

Spending his winters in Europe during his childhood, he found all the tranquility, beauty and purity of Île d’Orléans every summer. To fill his solitude, his father even prepared a micro-field of strawberries for him on the edge of Royal Road with a kiosk to sell his harvested fruits. On a wooden panel, with paint found in the garage, Vincent creates his first sign: Strawberry for sale. The adventure only lasted for the time of the first summer strawberries. But an entrepreneurial fiber had germinated in the young apprentice.

It is in the metropolis of Montreal that Vincent Paris rubs shoulders with the great chefs of the restaurant industry.

Both French and Italian, he worked in renowned restaurants during his studies at the respectable École des Hautes Études Commerciales. He will learn both that the best cuisine is made with the freshness and quality of its ingredients and that marketing is above all a matter of sampling and research and development.

According to Vincent, if the presentation leads to the first purchase, the quality of the product is the guarantee of a sustainable business. He gets his first job in a large national advertising agency for the largest fast food chain in the world.

Subsequently, it was the Internet phenomenon that led him to create one of the first digital agencies in the Old Capital where he returned to settle to start a family. The algorithms having got the better of his creativity, he learns during this chapter of digital marketing advisor to major hoteliers and tourist agencies that agro-tourism fascinates him more than anything. The call of its strawberry fields, the smell of hay and flowers is screaming.

The universe responds to him in 2012 when, almost by chance, he visits a small abandoned farm in Saint-Jean de l’île d’Orléans.

A small parcel of truncated land from the farm of the Fraternité desChevaliers de Saint-François d’Assise. An old barn cluttered with memories, stories, an agricultural plot of weeds, mint and couch grass, a two-hundred-year-old house crumbling under unfinished projects and drafts. An opportunity for the daring fools or unconscious dreamers. The Confiturerie Tigidou project came to life there on June 24, 2013, in the first corner of a restored barn. The native sorcerer of the island concocts recipes invented with the wild herbs that grow behind the barn, inspired by the methods of the greatest master jam makers in France. A legend was born, that of the best jams in the world.

Using high quality organic natural sugar, fresh lemon juice and all the berries that grow on this magical island, the apprentice master jam maker becomes Jamtender.

He explored and perfected for years new methods of less sweet preservation, alloys of fruits and boreal aromas and fresh herbs, creating a range of new and tasty recipes, at the height of his new aspirations; become the first recognized master jam maker in America. And preserve the aromas of the abundance of fruit in Orleans in summer throughout the year.

After a few years, success forced the jam maker and his team to look for a new location to meet the demand.

Miraculously, the universe responds to him through a councilor from the neighboring municipality ; the old boathouse in the heart of the maritime village of Saint-Laurent-de-l’île d’Orléans is for sale. It was then in the midst of a pandemic, that the big relocation project of Confiturerie Tigidou began. It is in the fall of 2021 that the first cauldrons are heated in this former wood mill, which has become a boat factory by FX Lachance. The smell of jam begins to spread in the shade of the village bell tower and Tigidou jams are found everywhere in delicatessens in Quebec.

In the spring of 2023, Vincent Paris, who has become a master jam maker, reopens his former workshop to the public in his barn in Saint-Jean on the island of Orléans, which has become the small farm Tigidouland, the Sorcerer’s Garden.

Tigidouland offers workshops for the interpretation and identification of small fruits from Île d’Orléans and develops magic potions from harvests in the garden. But it is said that the sorcerer jam maker still has plans to preserve the aromas of wild strawberries and other small fruits from his farm. If sugar is king in Saint-Laurent, alcohol takes root in Saint-Jean.

The legend of the artisan jam maker from Île d’Orléans has only just begun. And it will be a tigidou story “all the way”.