Decadent chocolate-coated cookie contributed to Montreal's growth

Peter Rakobowchuk, THE CANADIAN PRESS

MONTREAL - A popular cookie that's still being gobbled up by Quebecers today is being given some of the credit for helping to launch the industrial growth of Montreal.

The decadent "Whippet" cookie, a chocolate-coated, marshmallow-topped treat, is more than a century old.

Housed in its familiar gold-and chocolate-coloured box, the Whippet made its debut in 1900 and the rest, as they say, is cookie history.

The Whippet and Viau Biscuits Corp., the company that made it, are featured in an exhibition at the Ecomusee du fier monde, a small museum in the city's east end.

Museum director Rene Binette says the Whippet was launched when the founder of the company tested it at a hockey game.

"People at the game liked it so much that it confirmed to Charles-Theodore Viau that he was on to a good thing," Binette said in an interview.

The cookie, first introduced as the "Empire," was considered a luxury item and its sales helped Viau to expand its operations.

But Binette said the high cost of vanilla and chocolate also put the Empire out of reach of the average Quebecer.

So in 1927, Viau decided to change the recipe and the name and created the more affordable Whippet.

Viau started the enterprise in a small bakery in Montreal's east end in 1867 and created the "Village" cookie - a plain, but hugely popular shortbread that Quebecers loved to dunk in their tea.

He continued to expand the business until his cookie and candy factory became one of the area's major employers.

Part of Montreal even became known as Viauville, and a church in the neighbourhood was named Saint-Clement de Viauville.

One cookie lover tells the story of his parents buying several boxes and being warned by them not to touch the treats because they were destined for "Whippet-starved" relatives in Ontario.

Viau became history in March 2004 when the company was sold to Kitchener, Ont.-based Dare Foods Inc., another family-owned business, and the factory was closed.

But Whippets are still being produced under the Dare banner at the company's plant in St-Lambert, south of Montreal.

A Dare spokeswoman says the company markets the "Viva Puff," a similar cookie, in Ontario. The Quebec Whippet has "real" chocolate while its counterpart is made with a "compound" chocolate.

If your mouth is watering for a Whippet, a seasonal variety of the cookie is sold across Canada during the Christmas season.

Dare's Marie-France Gaudreau said in an recent interview the original Whippet is the second bestselling cookie in Quebec today.

She said according to research the No. 1 cookie in the province is the company's "Bearpaws," a popular molasses cookie.

Contrary to what many Quebec cookie lovers may think, the popular Oreo sandwich cookie has not been around as long as the Whippet.

A spokeswoman for Kraft Foods Inc. says it was only introduced in Canada in 1949, although the Oreo was first launched in the United States in 1912.

There are older commercially made cookies, like those made by Peak Frean's of England, which were originally imported into Canada in the 1870s.

The Viau factory has now been converted into a condominium which has been appropriately named "La Biscuiterie," the cookie factory.

Cookie aficionados can visit the Viau: Cookie History exhibition at the Ecomusee du fier monde until March 23, 2008.

© The Canadian Press, 2007