Canadians at Table: Food, Fellowship, and Folklore

by Dorothy Duncan

  Quebec Women’s Institutes have been active in Quebec since 1911, when the first meeting was held in Best’s Hall, Durham, Quebec. Institutes originated in Stoney Creek, Ontario, in 1897, through the efforts of Adelaide Hunter Hoodless, Erland Lee and a group of interested country women whose concerns for a better understanding and quality of life in rural homes and municipalities led to the forming of this organization that today, comprises around nine million members in sixty-eight countries.

  Consequently one of Quebec Women’s Institutes’ main concerns has always been good nutritious food for their families. Today wherever W.I.s are active and food is mentioned you know it’s bound to be excellent. Over the years they have offered workshops on various aspects of food production, prizes at country fairs for food and also for young gardeners. Their earliest association here in Quebec has been with the Department of Agriculture and these liaisons are still maintained today as well as their interest in all aspects of agriculture and food production.

  All too often in this modern day and age we find lovely recipes in magazines, newspapers, etc. but they require ingredients that are not always available in rural areas. With this in mind the members of Quebec Women’s Institutes have compiled this cookbook of simple and easy recipes of just plain good cooking.[5]

  Many of the cookbooks contain advertisements and illustrations for local merchants and industries (some also appear in the Tweedsmuir Histories). There are not only recipes, complete with the name and community of the contributor, but menus and quantities for large gatherings and community meals, such as a Ham Supper for 225 or Tea Refreshments and Dainties for 300 people. There are sections on homemade medicines, with recipes such as “Grandpa’s Recipe to Cure Arthritis” or “Cough Syrup,” antidotes for poisons, substitutions for missing ingredients, and much more.

  Many of these recipes reflect the historical, cultural, and regional preferences of Canadians. Recipes from the First Nations, such as Venison Jerky, Wild Duck, Bannock, Fried Rabbit, and canned wild meat such as deer, moose, buffalo, appear in Burriss Family Treasures, published by Burriss WI, Burriss, Ontario.

  Favourite Recipes, published by the Pickardville WI in Pickardville, Alberta, features Chuck Wagon Beans and other local favourites, while a contributor from British Columbia sent the recipe for Nanaimo Bars. Popular Recipes, compiled by the WIs on Prince Edward Island, contains recipes for Lighthouses (a type of cookie) and an array of dishes that highlight seafood. Favourite Recipes, published by Lyons Brook WI in Pictou, Nova Scotia, embodies the area’s historical beginnings and presents recipes for Scottish Oatcakes, Rolled Oats Bread, Oatmeal Cookies, Oatmeal Drops, and Butterscotch Squares. It also showcases a love of seafood, including salmon, oysters, finnan haddie, codfish, tuna, and more!

  Despite Canada’s cultural and regional preferences, there are some amazing similarities in the recipes and the dishes that have been, and continue to be, served for a century or more right across Canada. Gum Drop Cakes, Squares, and Cookies, for example, appear in almost every book, along with a basic pudding recipe with many names, including Half-Hour Pudding, Altogether Pudding, Poor Man’s Pudding, Hurry Dessert, Liberal Pudding with Conservative Sauce, or Conservative Pudding with Liberal Sauce!

  Many of the cookbooks highlight the foods of celebration on Canadian tables, with a host of birthday and anniversary cakes, while a few, such as the Cook Book, published in 1951 by Tara WI in Tara, Ontario, ventured into the realm of religion, with Hot Cross Buns, Easter Garland Coffee Cake, Paradise Pudding, and Divinity Fudge. Christmas is universally covered, with puddings, cakes, cookies, and pies featuring carrots, plums, mincemeat, dried fruit, and spices in abundance.

  In the last half of the twentieth century, a surprising number of recipes appear to have been influenced by, or based on, the food traditions of Canadians of Chinese ancestry, and include Orange Soy Sauce for Fish Fillets, Mock Chop Suey, Cantonese Chicken, Chicken Chow Mein, Hong Kong Casserole, Sweet and Sour Spareribs, Sweet and Sour Short Ribs, Pork Fried Rice, Sweet and Sour Tuna, Sweet and Sour Meat Balls, Chinese Meat Balls, Chop Suey in Casserole, Sweet and Sour Pork Chops and Cabbage, Canton Tuna Caserole, Oriental Beef, Chinese Broccoli and Beef Salad, and Chow Mein Cookies.

  Many recipes tell a story about the donor, the family, or the rigours of everyday life, such as “Grace Cameron’s Cake always served to my aunt’s threshers,” from Country Cooking, published by Zion WI in Durham, Ontario, or the “Tired House Wife Cake” from Cooking Favourites of Barkway WI, Gravenhurst, Ontario. Perhaps the ultimate is “Stay-a-Bed Stew,” which appears in From Our Kitchen to Yours, published by Auburn WI, Auburn, Ontario.

  Many Women’s Institutes prepared and published cookbooks to support fundraising. These publications are a priceless record of everyday Canadian life.

  The Junior WIs in many communities also published cookbooks. The Cook Book, published in 1932 by the Tara Junior WI, is an excellent example of a clear, concise guide for the beginning homemaker. She does not need to fret about what time of day to begin making her bread. “Take two cups of potato water at noon,” the recipe explains. If buns are to be made, “set about three o’clock in the afternoon,” so they will have risen twice and be ready to bake in the morning.

  For close to a century, the culinary and social history of Canada can be traced on the pages of these WI cookbooks, from Victoria Pudding to Prince of Wales Cake to Queen Elizabeth Squares. There are recipes — Apple Less Apple Pie or Poor Man’s Pudding or Poor Man’s Rice Pudding or Ham Bone Dinner — to feed a family during the Great Depression when the larder was almost empty. And there are many versions of Macaroni and Cheese, as well as tips on how to stretch a small can of tuna to serve a family of eight.

  These cookbooks, priced at 25 cents per copy, as was the Elm Grove Women’s Institute RECIPE BOOK, published in 1945, provided an affordable treasure that the thrifty housewife could not overlook. There are recipes for Canada War Cakes, War Fruit Cakes, and plain War Cakes. In the 1960s after the advent of television, Colourvision Cakes and TV Squares appear. In the 1980s whole chapters are devoted to “Something Quick,” featuring convenient recipes, shortcuts, and helpful hints for microwave cooking.

  The names of many recipes raise questions. What is a Featherbed? How do you make a Lighthouse? A Shipwreck? Cry Babies? Sex in a Pan? Angel Wings? Food for the Gods? How can we resist reaching for a bowl, a spoon, and the ingredients?

  Just as the Women’s Institutes around the world have changed and expanded to meet the needs of their members and their communities over the past century, so have their cookbooks and the astonishing wealth of information they contain. They are indeed a true reflection of their motto: For Home and Country.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Edith Had Got the Nutmeg!

  AT TIMES OF BOTH HAPPINESS AND HEARTBREAK, families, friends, and neighbours unite to commemorate the life, death, or union of those they love. In addition to the ceremonies that recognize their loved ones, Canadians have long traditions of food and beverages that are served to mark various occasions.

  Nicolas Denys described the bounty of one dish at a seventeenth-century Mi’kmaq wedding feast: “The bridegroom brought in the meat in a huge bark dish, divided it and placed it on as many plates as there were persons, as much as they could hold. There was in each [small] plate enough meat for a dozen persons.”[1] Two centuries later, Mary Gapper, an English visitor staying with her two brothers, who had taken up land near Thornhill, Upper Canada, recounted a visit on October 28, 1829, to Dr. Peter Diehl and his bride, Ann Macaulay, at York:

  We called on Dr. Diehl who begged to introduce us to his bride. We were accordingly ushered into a little parlour where she sat with her bridesmaids in bridal state. There was wine and bridescake on the table and another plate of little white rolls. We talked of the weather, the state of the roads, and our journey. The party exclaimed at our robustness when we said that we had come and intended returning the same day. The bride said she could have no enjoyment
living so far from neighbours.

  Then came Mrs. Sheriff Ridout and her daughter. I thought that the silence, which ensued, would never be broken. I am not sure that Mrs. Sheriff had spoken yet, but the bride inquired of the young lady in a half whisper if she had heard that Edith had got the nutmeg. This I learned was concealed in the cake and the happy person who cut the piece containing it was the next to be married. They all seemed to think being married excellent fun, except the bridegroom who looked rather more serious about it.[2]

  The following year, on May 13, Mary herself was the bride when she married a neighbouring farmer, Edward O’Brien, and her sister-in-law, Fannie, reported the event:

  After breakfast the little bridesmaid distributed the gloves to the gentlemen. We then went to equip ourselves and jumble off to church in the lumber waggon, the pleasure waggon being broken. We arrived there at eleven o’clock and found the carpenters busily employed, but they soon laid their work aside.

  Mr. Mathews performed the service most impressively and Mary and Edward behaved very properly on the occasion. Little Pug was very pleased with her dress, which was a French white, bonnet and tippet. She looked very pretty and behaved very well at first, but before we left the church she was restless and amused herself by pushing up nails.

  On our return home we found a large cake (made by Edward’s desire in the largest milk pan he could get) and wine on the table. Mr. Mathews stayed to dinner and between five and six returned to York in a thunderstorm. Mary and Southby remained with us the evening.[3]

  From Mary’s Journal we also have a description of a truly Canadian custom known as a shivaree (also chariviari, chivaree, and chivari):

  November 25, 1828 — A hard frost. After the rest of the party were gone to bed, Mama and I were startled by an unusual uproar ruffling the wings of the night. The dogs caught the alarm and added their barking to the sounds of horns, guns, and shouting which came from the distance. On enquiring the cause of the uproar, we were told that it was a chivaree. That is a custom, brought from Lower Canada, of assaulting the dwelling of a newly married pair with every species of noisy uproar that can be devised, for the purpose of extorting whiskey.[4]

  The custom of extracting either a treat or money from the bridegroom by loud serenading so that the visitors can go off and buy food and drink for themselves appears to have been first mentioned in the Quebec Gazette on January 12, 1786. That means the tradition may indeed have originated in Lower Canada as Mary noted. In fact, J. Long gives an account of the practice in 1791 in Voyages and Travels of an Indian Interpreter and Trader:

  Sometimes I distinguish myself at a charivari, which is a custom that prevails in different parts of Canada, of assembling with old pots, kettles, &c. and beating them at the doors of new married people; but generally, either when the man is older than the woman, or the parties have been twice married: in this case they beat a charivari, hallooing out very vociferously, until the man is obliged to obtain their silence by a pecuniary contribution, or submit to be abused with the vilest language.[5]

  In Canadian Prairie Homesteaders, we learn that after a shivaree in western Canada the guests were invited into the home of the newly married couple to visit, dance, and play cards. The neighbour ladies would bring along refreshments, fresh buns, jelly rolls, matrimonial cake, and doughnuts.[6] Not only did the custom spread across Canada, but it is still carried out in many modern rural communities.

  In 1840, Joseph Beete Jukes, the geological surveyor of Newfoundland, was delayed in his work in St. Mary’s because of a stiff knee, and records a wedding that he attended:

  I was taken by priest Father D to a wedding at a fisherman’s house close by. The company, consisting of young men and women with a few of the seniors, assembled about nine o’clock, and sat round the room drinking grog for some time. Presently a fifer struck up a tune, and reels and jigs began. There was much bustling of women in and out of a back room; and about half past ten the bride was said to be ready, the music ceased, a table was brought forward, the priest put on his scapular, and the bride and bridegroom came forward and knelt before the table. The priest opened his book, asked them the usual questions in English, and rapidly read a number of Latin prayers, and the ceremony was completed. Instantly there was a struggle among the men around for the first kiss, but as the bride was not yet off her knees, and the bridegroom was kneeling beside her, he had the best chance and won accordingly. A plate of cake was next produced and put upon the table: the bride and bridegroom came forward, took a piece of cake, and deposited several dollars on the table before the priest. Each one in the room then came forward and took a piece of cake, leaving a dollar before the priest, who stood behind the table thanking them as they came up. I had nothing but two-dollar notes in my pocket, of which I laid down one, when Father D took it up, looked at it, shook his head and said “Ah, sir, upon my word that’s too much! A five pound note!” When all had made their contributions, they stood round while he counted the money and declared its amount … nearly 15 pounds…. Supper was now brought in, consisting of tea and hot cakes; after which there was more dancing and grog-drinking, nearly to the break of day.[7]

  Marie Nightingale, in Out of Old Nova Scotia Kitchens, describes the customs of the first German settlers in that province when they celebrated the most festive of all occasions — the wedding:

  Guests lingered in those days often as long as a week, but more usually two or three days. The hostess used to press upon her guests that they must not leave until all the food had been eaten. That took a long doing, since bounteous supplies were laid in for the wedding feast — roasts of mutton and geese, hams, soups, puddings, pies and cakes.

  Always there was a fiddler to play his lively tunes for the polka and the Old-Fashioned Eight, or “Stamp your Sauerkraut.” Quantities of liquor were also consumed — sometimes as much as 25 gallons for one wedding![8]

  The newcomers from Belgium to Manitoba in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries brought with them the tradition and the recipe for the cookies called Belgian Lukken. They were, and are, usually served as a special treat along with wine to guests before a wedding or at Christmas. These delicious cookies are a combination of butter, sugar, flour, eggs, and either brandy or rum, and are baked on a krumkake iron until golden brown.[9]

  Many young unmarried women slept with pieces of wedding cake under their pillows, hoping they would dream of their future husbands.

  Food was not just a part of the wedding feast for our ancestors, but often an element of the courtship, as well. Karl Hansen, a young Danish bachelor and homesteader in the Thunder Bay District in the early twentieth century, was invited to celebrate Christmas with his neighbours, the Andersons, where he met Agnes, his future wife. He shares his memories of “walking out” with her:

  As soon as possible, I started to sow my cultivated land. I planned a big garden, where we could grow plenty of vegetables for our own consumption. Instead of a dairy cow we had a goat, as well as a suckling calf and a horse, and, as our livestock was not that numerous, we had not spent all of our time looking after them. Agnes and I just loved to fish for trout, and there were plenty of these small delicious fish. Sometimes we caught so many that we could use them for three meals a day, and neither of us got tired of eating trout. The major part of this, the first summer, was spent at the cabin, from where Agnes and I went on pleasure tours. If we were not out fishing we would be out picking berries, or we went on a tour back home to the post office.

  It was busy in our new home. Our mother was busy in the kitchen helping Agnes with the cooking. The whole Anderson family was present to celebrate the wedding in our new home. Everything went calmly and humbly. Only the family was present, no drinking, we only filled our stomachs with good food, a little more than we were used to. We had a happy day together. At last the lady and the landowner were alone on the estate. We had been that way so very often before, but there was a big change happening in our lives that evening.[10]

&nbs
p; The Canadian Cook Book, first published in Toronto in 1923, has a brief section on “Wedding Refreshments”:

  The serving of wedding refreshments may follow the type outlined for a formal luncheon; otherwise a choice is made of the buffet service or the arrangements suggested for the afternoon tea or reception. The hour of serving and the number of guests are usually determining factors in the service chosen. In any case, the bride’s cake should form the central table decoration. When the guests are to be seated, place cards should be used, the bride and groom being placed at the middle of one side of the table.[11]

  This popular cookery book continued through many printings, and by the thirteenth edition of 1941, we find detailed recommendations for those planning a wedding reception, with a variety of menus:

  Assorted Sandwiches

  Curled Celery Olives

  Tutti Frutti Ice Cream Raspberry Ice

  Wedding Cake Assorted Small Cakes

  Fruit Punch Tea Coffee

  OR

  Chicken à la King Water Cress Rolls

  Celery Olives Pickled Cherries

  Pistachio Ice Cream Apricot Ice

  Wedding Cake Assorted Cakes

  Bonbons Salted Nuts

  Punch Tea Coffee[12]

  Our Canadian ancestors were not only traditional folk, but they held many beliefs and superstitions about ingredients, prepared foods, and beverages, as well. These were all central to foretelling the future, warding off evil, or bringing good fortune. When Mary Gapper O’Brien recorded in her Journal “that the bride inquired … if she had heard that Edith had got the nutmeg,” that tradition lives on. In Pioneer Recipes and Memories, published on Manitoulin Island in 2004, the wedding-cake recipe still calls for one nutmeg! This book was inspired by Carrie Wilson (1891–1973), and many of the recipes in it are from a handwritten, indexed book that she kept.[13]