Chef Antonin Mousseau Rivard and his friends from Alaclair Ensemble organized a feast on the site of the future MIL campus at the Université de Montréal, creating an extraordinary gastronomic experience: a dinner consisting of 100% local foods.

Hidden in the midst of a building site engulfing one of the last centrally located vacant lots on the Island of Montreal and hemmed in by two railways, an improbable garden flourishes. At the foot of the eccentric MONT RÉÉL pyramid, a temporary collective design experience that evokes Mount Royal looming in the background, honeybees gather pollen in the Miel Montréal floral garden wedged between the foreman's office and the fence behind which heavy equipment relentlessly excavates the vast site.

In the distance, huge tower cranes bring building materials into the reinforced concrete skeleton of a university building under construction, while several men work in the belly of what will become a centre of knowledge destined to nourish the bright minds of future generations.

A freight train passes by, brakes squealing as it pulls several freight cars, perhaps loaded with black gold from the West to nourish our insatiable appetites at the risk of starving the planet by permanently disrupting the climate. It is followed by a passenger train, most likely bringing hundreds of people from the city where they earn their income home to their bedroom communities in the suburbs, where supper might be waiting.

Following a butterfly flitting among the beds of a flourishing collective garden, we come across a fledgling farmer harvesting huge zucchinis. "I never manage to harvest them in time! ", she sighs. She grows food in community gardens to feed people in her neighbourhood at affordable prices.

A sign that urban agriculture is increasingly popular – a television crew is busy filming in Bioma Coop's market garden a bit farther on. The garden has been wrested from the gravel of a former railroad yard. And since the seeds of the future can be sown anywhere, the Friends of the Mountain nursery stretches out before us, like the promise of urban nature ready to reassert its rights in the city and even conquer hostile terrain by decontaminating previously fertile lands, as long as we give it the chance.

An imposing presence in the middle of this jumble of equipment and installations is Le Virage, a structure made of modified steel containers. One serves as the canteen where the chef and his team are hard at work.  Mingled with the dissonant sounds of the urban soundscape is the drone of ventilation systems at a nearby factory and the rumbling of a generator. The chef steps out of his kitchen to greet the artists who have just arrived.

Time for the first round. The bar features a locally distilled gin-based cocktail made from Quebec corn, as well as local beers and even a local wine. There are no vineyards on the Island of Montreal, but there are a good number within a 100 km range of the city. No white wine this evening, however. When you drink locally made products, you have to be content with what's on offer!

The chef was busy in the kitchen during the band's sound check, firing up the grill and decorating fresh salads of the day with edible flowers as novice locavores began to arrive. They sat at tables alone or in small groups waiting for dinner to begin.

Once the food was ready, everyone lined up in single file. No prayers before digging in, but brief thanks and a passionate speech from the chef promising diners delicious meals made with locally sourced products available in Montreal or the immediate vicinity. Between the fresh vegetables and herbs grown on-site, fish caught in the St. Lawrence River plus dairy products imported, as it were, from a farm 77 kilometres from Montreal, he achieved his goal of creating a full meal consisting of local foods. "It’s a question of choice," he noted, adding that he wants to make people aware of what's possible with locally grown or produced food.

While the worker ants were taking a break or sitting down to dinner with the cicadas singing in the darkness, dessert arrived. Cotton candy made of maple sugar and foie gras - why not? Tomorrow the construction site will continue to devour the city. So what shall we eat?

By Simon Van Vliet