The recipe is tested and approved. Prices are fixed. The poster is drawn. Tristan Dumais, 8, is ready. This Saturday, June 1, like more than 8,000 young people in the province, he is participating in The Great Day for Small Entrepreneurs. If last year he sold popcorn, this year he’s making… lemonade. “It’s really easy,” he says to justify his decision. And then, he knows that it is a drink that people really like, since his brother Arthur, 7 years old, sold it last year.
Indeed, lemonade is very popular during the event, confirms Mathieu Ouellet. In 2014, he co-founded this day during which young people aged 5 to 17 are invited to set up their own business in front of their home or in one of the markets organized for the occasion. “The children know that lemonade is easy to make, that it’s not too complicated and that it attracts people,” he says. Often, they will sell another product, such as muffins, jewelry or greeting cards, at the same time as this lemony drink, notes Mathieu Ouellet. Other projects are more out of the ordinary. One child once organized a ninja course, he gives as an example.
Last year, Tristan and Arthur raised around a hundred dollars thanks to their kiosk. Their goal this time? “I’m trying to accumulate $75 to get a video game,” explains the boy from Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu. “It taught them the meaning of money. […] Before, children would sometimes tell us: “You just have to take out your card.” It’s not infinite, my card,” remarks their mother, Anik Valcourt. Running a lemonade stand (or any other product) allows small business owners to learn a lot, underlines Mathieu Ouellet. And not just math concepts. “It gives them self-confidence, it improves their sense of responsibility […], it teaches them to communicate well,” he says.
When did the first lemonade stands appear in Quebec? At the end of the 1970s, estimates culinary historian Michel Lambert. Quebecers, thousands of whom traveled to the United States during the “flower power” period, were influenced by the daily lives of Americans. “In addition to music, there are plenty of eating habits that have become part of our customs,” he emphasizes. At the time, young Americans had already been selling lemonade for decades to earn a little money in the summer. The first mention of this practice in the pages of the New York Times dates back to July 1880. “This trade in cheap lemonade has greatly developed in New York,” it reads. The image of the small entrepreneur selling lemonade has been built over the years through children’s books, television shows, classroom exercises and advertising, points out author and professor Robert W. Sexty, in a article published on the educational website Children
However, it was not the Americans who invented lemonade, far from it. According to various sources, including the United States Library of Congress website, lemon-based drinks have been found since ancient Egypt. In New France, the fruit was first imported in the form of candied lemon, explains historian Michel Lambert. Later, in the mid-19th century, people began to drink what is similar to today’s lemonade. The peasants, who were hot in summer when they made hay, fetched very cold water from the stream and added cut lemons to it. “Because lemon was a fairly expensive fruit, the poorest people replaced it with cider vinegar,” explains Michel Lambert.
This has happened numerous times in the United States, but also on this side of the border, notably in Ottawa in 2016: police officers demanded the closure of lemonade stands run by children. Such installations sometimes contravene municipal regulations, which vary from city to city. In Longueuil, for example, regulations do not allow this type of kiosks on private land. However, a “tolerance approach” is practiced if no complaint is made, indicates the City. In Laval, these ephemeral installations are encouraged. “These allow children to organize a great fun activity allowing them to learn how to manage an inventory, keep a small cash register and, at the same time, offer good customer service,” underlines its spokesperson, Jonathan Levesque. In Montreal, each borough has its own regulations. In Ville-Marie, for example, this activity is possible without a permit.
If your municipality forces your children to take down their lemonade stand, you can always tell them, “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. » This famous quote, attributed to both writer Elbert Green Hubbard and speaker and author Dale Carnegie, invites people to turn an unfortunate situation into an opportunity, to make the most of adversity. This phrase – and different variations – has often been used in popular culture, notably on Beyoncé’s album Lemonade.