Maine’s Tourtière Holiday Tradition

For many Mainers, the holiday season doesn’t truly begin until tourtière hits the table. Pronounced TOO-chay or TOO-tyair (depending on who you ask), this spiced-meat pie is far more than a wintertime dish—it’s memory, ritual and a cultural tie to Franco American roots.

Traditionally served as a late Christmas Eve dinner after midnight mass, tourtière season now stretches well beyond a single night, appearing as early as Thanksgiving and lingering until New Year’s, at family reunions, church basements and community potlucks. Most households don’t just make a pie—they make several. Some bake theirs days in advance, freezing them for guests arriving from afar. Others gather assembly-line style to season, mix, roll dough and trade stories while snow swirls outside. Recipes are passed down through generations, often handwritten on scraps of paper or tucked away in family recipe tins. The core ingredients stay true: seasoned ground pork (sometimes mixed with beef or game), warming spices like sage, cinnamon, cloves and allspice, and a binder of Maine-grown potatoes or breadcrumbs. But it’s the whispered extras—slipping a pat of butter beneath the crust to melt, serving alongside pickled vegetables or topped with a fried egg—that reveal the family signature. The result is rich, savory and reassuringly familiar.

Franco Americans—a broad term for Americans of French-speaking heritage—include French, French Canadian and Acadian communities, all of whom shaped Maine in lasting ways. Among the earliest were the Acadians, French colonists who settled along the Atlantic in the early 1600s in a region called Acadie, which once included parts of present-day Maine. After the British began deporting Acadians in 1755 during Le Grand Dérangement (the Great Expulsion), many families fled into the forests and river valleys of Maine, especially along the St. John Valley, where towns like Madawaska, Fort Kent and Van Buren maintain strong Acadian roots. 

The second wave came in the 19th and early 20th centuries, when French Canadians from Québec crossed into Maine seeking work. Drawn by booming industries—lumber, textile and paper mills—they established thriving Franco communities in towns such as Lewiston, Biddeford, Brunswick and Waterville. In many of these mill towns, French-speaking neighborhoods formed, anchored by Catholic churches, schools, newspapers and French-language social groups that helped preserve language and culture through generations.

French, Acadian and Québécois flavors are embedded in community gatherings across Maine at annual celebrations such as La Kermesse Franco-Americaine in Biddeford, the Madawaska Acadian Festival and Fort Kent’s Ploye Festival. These events turn iconic dishes into full-fledged cultural showcases, blending history, traditions and, of course, food.

But come winter in Maine, it’s the understated moments we celebrate: the stories folded into dough, the laughter around flour-dusted tables, the knowledge that heritage isn’t just something remembered here—it’s something tasted, shared and passed forward, one slice at a time.

Recipe: How to Make Tourtière

Lewiston’s Franco Center—a performing arts center honoring Franco-American traditions through live dance, music and theater productions—shares this traditional tourtière recipe from Rita Dube. Make it at home to add to your holiday traditions.

Where to Buy Tourtière in Maine

Short on time—or just want to taste a local’s take? During the holiday season, stop by these bakeries and markets for authentic tourtière, no rolling pin required.

Belanger’s Drive-In & Dairy Bar, Fairfield

Hillman’s Bakery, Fairfield

The Sausage Kitchen, Lisbon

Grant’s Bakery, Lewiston

The Good Life Market, Raymond

Rosemont Market and Bakery, multiple locations