WE HAD OUR GUIDEBOOKS. We also had insider tips: instructions scribbled on napkins by tour guides, ideas served up by a concierge and some good stuff from the affable maître'd at Québec's Fairmont Le Château Frontenac, scrawled on an order pad still sticky from strawberries he flambéed for us the night before. What occurred on our culinary tour of Île d'Orléans one spring Saturday, however, far exceeded the sum of those well-meaning suggestions. The true gems my two friends and I discovered were the people we met and the artisanal cuisine we tasted - not by planning, but by pure luck.

The late-May morning is grey as we leave the city and head across the Taschereau Bridge, the island's first fixed link to the mainland, built in 1935. Only 15 minutes downstream from the city of Québec, Île d'Orléans is a world away, a quiet, bucolic setting where rural life passes at a leisurely pace. The island sits close to the north shore of the St. Lawrence, and the narrow highway, or chemin Royal, that hugs its perimeter is dotted with small farms and half a dozen distinctive villages. There are apple orchards and towering stands of old sugar maples, pretty stone churches and flocks of sheep and geese in the fields.

We immediately feel transported to the rural version of that historic Quebec we witnessed in the old city. Following Samuel de Champlain's arrival in 1608, this fertile island quickly attracted families who created one of the earliest colonies. By 1685, it grew to include more than 1,200 settlers, most from the Normandy region of France. Today, 7,000 residents carry on the centuries- old traditions of growing and producing food, and their wares are favoured by some of the finest chefs in Québec. Our gourmet tour along the 67-kilometre highway is one of many mouth-watering island routes for visitors who want to experience food from the ground up, including produce, cheese, meats, wine, maple syrup, baked goods and regional cuisine.