The Nanaimo Bar Who would have thought that Nanaimo Bars could be so controversial? We have always claimed Nanaimo Bars as a quintessential BC food mainly because of the name and the outstanding branding done by the city of Nanaimo on Vancouver Island. This famous recipe has been shrouded in mystery as no one has […]
Archive | Heritage foods and recipes
Newspaper Recipes 1878
Newspaper Recipes 1878 In an earlier post I shared a recipe for butter making and how to re-store aged butter. https://www.bcfoodhistory.ca/butter-first-bc-newspaper-recipe/ Butter making was a challenge in early settler days of British Columbia and the inclusion of this recipe in 1860 marked the beginning of newspaper recipes in the Victoria Daily Colonist and in British […]
UBC Food Group: Cinnamon Buns, Ponderosa Cake and more
UBC Food Group: Cinnamon Buns, Ponderosa Cake and more. There is something about the short cool days of December that turns our thoughts to comfort foods – chili, soups, stews and calorie-laden cookies, squares and breads. This year it has made me think of cinnamon buns and delight in discovering the best in my neighbourhood. […]
Christmas cheer
Christmas Cheer Here we are past the first week of December and Christmas is very present in my house. The tree is up and my whole neighbourhood this year turned on the outside decorations early to cheer the mood and brighten the dark dreary days and nights of December. It’s hard to know what people […]
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 […]
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 […]
Savory Rhubarb
By Mary Leah de Zwart on June 29, 2020 in Heritage foods and recipes, Heritage gardening, Local foods
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 […]
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