Savory Rhubarb Cakes, crisps, crumbles, muffins, pies – tart and sour stalks of rhubarb have long provided a tangy, citrus-like food addition to plain, bare-bones diets. Rhubarb is the “pie plant” and as stated in previous blogs, the availability of sugar in the late 1700s increased its popularity. But, rhubarb goes further than pie. Savory […]
Archive | Heritage foods and recipes
Growing Rhubarb
Growing rhubarb Rhubarb thrives across Canada from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and maybe even the Far North (rhubarb is said to grow wild in Alaska, so why not Yukon?). It needs a few weeks of cold weather to force its growth (below 4 degrees Celsius) and extra mulching in lengthy cold winters. Otherwise, mild […]
Misunderstood Rhubarb
By Mary Leah de Zwart on June 10, 2020 in Heritage foods and recipes, Heritage gardening, Local foods
Misunderstood Rhubarb. A vegetable treated like a fruit. Understated. What do you know about it? Try this quick quiz (T/F). Bright red stalks and green/red stalks are equally ripe. Its leaves are poisonous and its stalks are not. It requires a few weeks of cool temperatures (under 5 C or 40 F) and moderate summers […]
What’s Making Food History – April 24, 2020
By Mary Leah de Zwart on April 24, 2020 in Food in History, Food preservation and food safety, Heritage foods and recipes, What’s Making Food History
“Sweet Spot – The Doukhobor Jam-Making Enterprise” is the first article in a five part historical series by Jonathan Kalmakoff, in the West Kootenay Advertiser, a supplement to the Nelson Star, Castlegar News, Trail Times, Rossland News, and Grand Forks Gazette and Arrow Lakes News. https://issuu.com/blackpress/docs/i20200423040004465/2?ff&pageLayout=singlePage&fbclid=IwAR2HhCBp6G9PMOzTJuk6_gJpHRGK32i9ibPGK-VJ90hzNHDhafbyd4NEgk0
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 […]
Basic Home Cooking
Basic Cooking Skills Basic cooking skills never go out of date. “Our grandmothers and mothers [sic] learned how to cook by the trial and error method….A child allowed to watch the cooking in the kitchen could be taught how a dough looked and felt when it was ‘right’….not many children or mothers [sic] have the […]
Easter Ham: Scruffy Hospitality
The Easter Ham was a tradition in my family. Neither 12-foot drifts, 75 mile-an-hour winds, or the prospect of having to walk up to 25 miles could stop our dad from getting home to carve it. On March 15 and 16 of 1951, a huge snowstorm swept through Central and Northern Alberta. On the first […]
Seville Oranges and Dundee Marmalade
Seville Oranges and Dundee Marmalade Oranges do not have to be from Seville and marmalade doesn’t have to be made in Dundee, Scotland. Yet, marmalade that’s not made with bitter oranges runs the risk of being just “orange jam”. And Dundee marmalade is a Scots creation by a canny Dundonian, James Keiller who turned a […]
Plum puddings and Proust
By Mary Leah de Zwart on December 15, 2019 in Food Preservation, Food preservation and food safety, Food writers, Heritage foods and recipes
Plum puddings and Proust Marcel Proust ate a madeleine – and a flood of memories resulted in a deep philosophical text about making memory conscious through one’s senses. In fact the madeleine has become a symbol of memories that arise unintentionally. The practicalities of baking give another dimension to memories, requiring skill, equipment and for […]
Cookie Recipes Set in Stone
Cookie recipes are set in stone – or are they? One way to preserve a favourite recipe is to have it carved in stone on your tombstone. Atlas Obscura[i] is an online magazine and travel company seeks out unusual items around the world. It recently featured a recipe on a granite tombstone in Brooklyn, New […]