Enjoying Apples It’s apple harvest time in the Okanagan. The orchards are beautiful with ripe apples and the farmers’ markets offer many varieties for sale. I am fascinated by the way apples have been marketed over the years and the traces of attitudes and beliefs that remain today about apples as a result of […]
Archive | Heritage foods and recipes
Sushi in British Columbia
By mgsmith on September 12, 2018 in Food Preparation, Heritage foods and recipes, Intergenerational food stories
When did sushi come to British Columbia? BC’s claim to the California Roll begins with the assertion that Chef Hidekazu Tojo of Vancouver first introduced it to Canadian and international tourists. Because the roll was so popular with tourists from Los Angeles, he named it after their home state. However food historians in California say it […]
Best loved cookbooks
Best-loved cookbooks, the ones with food stains all over the pages and split bindings are very far philosophically from coffee-table cookbooks with beautiful photographs and exotic ingredients. They’ve become popular ideas these days for contests. The Old Grist Mill at Keremeos featured a “dirtiest cookbook” […]
Quantity cookery
Quantity cookery, or cooking for large groups of people, is an underrated skill and one that needs to be retrieved. Considering that $31billion worth of food is wasted each year in Canada, amounting to 40% of all food produced, food waste is both an economic and a social problem. Of the 40% of food currently […]
Three Sisters
A Three Sisters garden is made up of corn, runner beans and squash or pumpkin, traditionally grown by the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, a sovereign people composed of five (later six) Indigenous nations in Ontario , Quebec and Northern New York. The beans give nitrogen to the soil for corn and pumpkins; the corn stalks support the […]
1860s BC Mining Town Food
Mining towns such as Barkerville, BC presented a particular challenge for the provision of food for miners and others rushing into the Cariboo during the 1860s Gold Rush. There was little local food production and public eating places such as restaurants and stopping houses provided food for many people. Lately I’ve been reading The Cariboo […]
Butter-making: A mark of excellent housekeeping
By Mary Leah de Zwart on April 30, 2018 in BC agriculture, Food Preparation, Food Preservation, Intergenerational food stories
Butter-making used to be a mark of excellent housekeeping for farm women. It requires close attention to sanitation and methodical treatment, from the way the cow is milked to the removal of liquid in the final working of the end product. It is both a science and an art and has been part of human […]
Laura Rose – Canada’s Dairying Queen
By Mary Leah de Zwart on April 12, 2018 in BC agriculture, Food in History, Intergenerational food stories
Laura Rose Stephen (1866-1963) was Canada’s Dairying Queen. Until big business took over the Canadian dairying industry she had a profound influence on quality and production of dairy products. She was born at Georgetown, Ontario, daughter of Lawrence Rose, a flour mill owner and had at least one sister and five brothers. The famous “Five […]
Milk Separators
The milk separator helped create a source of income for farm wives and the establishment of the dairy industry in Canada. Nowadays the milk separator is an object of mild curiosity in museums and at antique auctions. There’s one at the Greater Vernon Museum and Archives; when I heard a parent tell her child, “That’s […]
Selling BC Apples
It was challenging to sell BC apples in the 1930s. In 1931, based on data from 1926 to 1930, British Columbia led five provinces in total apple production (reported at an average of 1,279,000 barrels). In 1937, while BC apple production had increased it was surpassed by Nova Scotia. In 1942, BC once again edged out […]