Food History Inquiry Pandemic Projects The potential for using the study of food is often overlooked in education. Yet food is necessary to human survival and can be linked to just about every human activity or industry and almost all school subjects through food history inquiry pandemic projects. Online study has grown by necessity and […]
Author Archive | M. Gale Smith
Halloween Tricks and Treats
Halloween Tricks and Treats There is a lot of discussion these days about whether or not Halloween will be celebrated in 2020. Worries about children missing out on the fun and candy makers fussing over lost profit makes one wonder about how this holiday evolved. Most accounts agree that what has become known as […]
Edith Adams
Edith Adams Edith Adams was a fictional name given to the food editor of women’s pages of the Vancouver Sun newspaper. “She” was responsible for the cooking/recipe/homemaking department from 1924 to 1999. You might wonder about the name “Edith Adams”. It was created by a male circulation manager because of the typographical advantage of having […]
Hogan’s Alley-Vie’s Chicken and Steak House
Hogan’s Alley- Vie’s Chicken and Steak House In January 2014 in honour of Black History month Canada Post issued a commemorative stamp celebrating Hogan’s Alley in Vancouver’s Strathcona neighbourhood. [i] If you live in Vancouver, you may be familiar with the initiative to restore Hogan’s Alley, the unofficial name for Park Lane. The alley ran […]
Salal Jelly
Salal Jelly How to make salal jelly continues a BCFHN blog from May of 2018 on the topic of salal, https://www.bcfoodhistory.ca/salal/. I was inspired by a patch of salal under a stand of cedar trees close to where I live on Vancouver Island and intended to follow up with a post on salal jelly when […]
Pine Mushrooms
Pine Mushrooms Pine mushrooms provide a source of income in various parts of British Columbia from August to November. This summer, you may come across signs like this one, when people are mostly travelling in-province. The arrow points to a mushroom depot where buyers pay cash to wild mushroom foragers and commercial harvesters for BC […]
Book Review – Street Farm
Book Review – Street Farm: Growing Food, Jobs and Hope on the Urban Frontier by Michael Ableman (2016). Chelsea Green Publishing. I found this book on BC Ferries before the COVID 19 pandemic and I just finally got around to reading it. It was the perfect feel-good read for lockdown times. Street Farm is a heartwarming tale […]
Book Review – Chop Suey Nation
Book Review: Chop Suey Nation: The Legion Café and Other Stories From Canada’s Chinese Restaurants, by Ann Hui, Douglas and McIntyre, 2019. Ann Hui is a food reporter for the Globe and Mail. She writes about her fascination with Chinese Canadian cuisine, sometimes called “chop suey” cuisine or in her family, “fake” Chinese food. […]
Soda Water
By M. Gale Smith on April 8, 2020 in BC food businesses, Heritage foods and recipes, Innovations and Inventions in Food History
Soda Water in BC As food history researchers we never know what might pique our interest. Recently I was looking at the collection of food images in the BC Archives Royal BC Museum website[i]. When I came across an advertisement for Thorpe’s Soda, I immediately wanted to know what it was all about. It turns out that […]
Make Toast Your Breakfast Food
By M. Gale Smith on February 5, 2020 in Consumer education, Innovations and Inventions in Food History, Kitchen Appliances, Utility companies
Make Toast Your Breakfast Food Do you eat toast for breakfast? I do! A recent survey found that one out of four Canadians made toast their breakfast food between 2002 to 2012[i]. In British Columbia this practice may be partly attributed to marketing campaigns by BC Electric Railway (later BC Electric, now BC Hydro). […]