We continued on to the Little Italy neighborhood and the Jean-Talon Market, a huge, year-round public market for regionally grown meats, cheeses, fruits and vegetables. Such spots often serve as my museums, telling me more about a place than most collections of art or artifacts ever could.

It was a Saturday, and the joint was jammed with more than 100 stalls and thousands of Montrealers. Sure, the usual suspects were there: apples, potatoes, fall lettuces. But it was the shock of the new that captivated: cauliflower that looked downright hallucinogenic, with chartreuse or purple florettes. Cerises de terre, ground cherries, which came clad in their own papery jackets.

On Sunday night, as our time wound down, we followed our trip to its logical conclusion: dinner at Au Pied de Cochon, a boisterous bistro that offers an unabashed homage to all creatures fat and fowl, a cuisine that is profoundly, jubilantly Quebecois. Chef Martin Picard, a darling of the back-to-the-land school of cooking, looks like a lumberjack, and kind of cooks like one, too. On the menu: ''The Big Happy Pig's Chop,'' ''the Pig's Foot'' and steak that tends to be venison, when it's in season. And being true to his school, he's got poutine.

But here's the difference: Picard's poutine -- that much maligned mess of french fries, gravy and cheese curds that is Quebec's guilty pleasure -- is topped with foie gras.

Perhaps never before has a culinary crime been committed so gleefully. As chef and writer Anthony Bourdain has written, the haute poutine ``breaks every known standard of decency and common practice. And I loved it.''

But if forced to choose, I'd say our favorite meal was at La Montée de Lait, a smallish refuge tucked into a quiet corner of the Plateau that offers a fixed-price parade of exquisite small plates.

And then, sadly, the time came to put down our forks and back away slowly.

The air had turned seasonably chilly, and we marveled at the Montrealers sitting at sidewalk cafés. For us, it was freezing, and unthinkable. But they were enjoying it while they could, knowing that everything -- even the temperature -- is relative.

And the bowls of hot chocolate couldn't have hurt, either.

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