Canadians at Table. Dorothy Duncan

      

      For Colin, Adam, and Glenn,

       masters of good food, good fellowship,

       and fascinating folklore

      ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

      I WOULD LIKE TO EXPRESS MY APPRECIATION to all those who have contributed to this book and the stories it has to tell. Family, friends, neighbours, colleagues, and often total strangers have generously shared information, research, and clues for further investigation, comments, and criticism that have proven to be invaluable as I struggled to complete the manuscript.

      First of all, a very special thanks to those dedicated individuals who actually made the publication happen: Barbara Truax for her constant support and attention to detail as the manuscript unfolded; and the staff of The Dundurn Group for their expertise, knowledge, and patience — Kirk Howard, Beth Bruder, Michael Carroll, Jennifer Scott, Ali Pennels, and freelance copy-editor Pat Kennedy.

      Among those who made contributions were Carol Agnew, Colin Agnew, Julian Armstrong, Anne van Arragon Hutten, Jeanine Avigdor, Jane Beecroft, Dr. Carl Benn, Marty Brent, Bryan Brooks, Kenneth Brooks, Michael Brooks, William Brown, Jr., Christine Caroppo, Dr. John Carter, Dennis Carter-Edwards, David Clark, Janet Cobban, Derek Cooke, Nettie Cronish, Loretta Decker, Paul Denter UE, Dr. Victoria Dickinson, Naomi Duiguid, Judith and John Fitzhenry, Lawrence Fleece, James Fortin, Mary Lou Fox, Lillian Groves, Pamela and Peter Handley, Tom Henighan, Jeanne Hopkins, Robin Inglis, A. Isaacs, Ruth Keene, Rosemary Kovacs, John Laraway, Elizabeth Lavender, Louis Le Bouthillier, Marion Leithead, Joyce Lewis, Reverend John Linton, Michael Liposki, Dr. Glenn J Lockwood, Allen Maitland, Micheline Mongrain-Dontigny, Evan Morton, Harold Nichol, Robin Ormerod, Michele Pacheo, Joyce Pettigrew, Dennis Pollock, Robert Robinson, Nancy Scott, Jacqueline Stuart, Ross Wallace, Catherine Watts, Ian Wheal, and Marion Wilson.

      I must also acknowledge the courtesy, assistance, and support I have received while doing my research from the staff of the museums, archives, institutions, and repositories of collections of artifacts and documents, including the Anderson Farm Museum, Lively, Ontario; Anglican Diocese of Ottawa Archives; Archives of Manitoba, Winnipeg; Archives of Ontario, Toronto; Black Creek Pioneer Village, Toronto; Estate of William Kurelek and the Isaacs-Inuit Gallery, Toronto; Fort William Historical Park, Thunder Bay, Ontario; L’Anse aux Meadows National Historic Site, Newfoundland; Library and Archives Canada, Ottawa; Musée McCord Museum, Montreal; Museum of Northern History at Sir Harry Oakes Chateau, Kirkland Lake, Ontario; National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; North York Central Library, Willowdale, Ontario; Ontario Archaeological Society; Parks Canada; Sears Canada Inc.; Smiths Falls Public Library; Toronto Reference Library; Tweed Museum and Heritage Centre, Tweed, Ontario; Village Historique Acadien, Caraquet, New Brunswick; and the Women’s Culinary Network.

      PREFACE

      CANADIANS AT TABLE: FOOD, FELLOWSHIP, AND FOLKLORE is an introduction to the incredibly diverse culinary history of this vast land we call Canada. As we move along a historical path from First Nations to newcomers, we learn how skilled our ancestors were at surviving and prospering, despite the challenges of climate, geography, and environment.

      Every topic touched on here deserves to be explored and recorded in greater detail. Every topic deserves its own publication or series of publications to understand and appreciate its true significance.

      The sheer size of this nation, stretching from sea to sea to sea, and its dramatically differing regions, have spawned a bountiful legacy of food and beverages. In many regions of Canada, dedicated historians, cooks, chefs, authors, and other interested individuals have recorded their own rich local histories of food, beverages, and medicines. I hope their work and this brief overview will inspire others to tell their personal stories, to research local culinary traditions, to read local handwritten and published cookbooks, diaries, and other historical records, and to discuss with their neighbours, friends, and family how their food and beverage traditions have remained constant or changed over time.

      How did our ancestors constantly adapt and invent recipes with a surplus of some ingredients or a scarcity of others, while trying to feed their family, their crew, or their customers? A great deal of experience and ingenuity has never been recognized nor recorded. I hope, by turning readers into reporters and scribes, to help preserve a more complete record of everyday Canadians and their everyday meals for future generations. I also hope Canadians at Table will be the catalyst for new research, recording, and experimenting. We must treasure this, one of the greatest culinary histories in the world, one of which every Canadian should be proud.

      Dorothy Duncan

       Willowdale, Ontario

       June 2006

      CHAPTER ONE

      In the Beginning

      WERE THEY HUNGRY? WERE THEY LOST? Or were they simply following game across the land bridge that once connected Siberia and Alaska?

      We may never know the elusive details about those first arrivals, or even when they arrived — the men, women, children, small families, or tiny groups of hunters and gatherers who were lured to this land mass. Historians and archaeologists believe that human hunters did not reach the western edge of northeastern Siberia (western Beringia) until perhaps thirty-five thousand years ago.[1] When they actually made the crossing is still hotly debated, but we do know that those first daring hunters lived by the spear and the snare as they tracked and attacked the woolly mammoths and mastodons that roamed the continent in prehistoric times. They lived a nomadic life, foraging and trapping small game in addition to hunting the herds of large animals they relied on for meat, and for life itself.

      The established theory is that these hunters arrived in this new environment either on foot across the land bridge that once connected the two continents, or by coasting in watercraft. However, we must not overlook the traditions of Canada’s First Nations, who believe their ancestors, those first people on this continent, were “from the land” or “from the soil,” children of the Great Creator, who have been here from the beginning of time.

      Whatever their origins and despite their limited technological resources — fire, spears, atlatls (throwing spears), snares, and nets — those first peoples must have been adept at surviving, for not only did they find themselves in a new environment, but some dramatic climate changes were also taking place around them. As the great glaciers of ice that had gripped the land melted, the climate warmed, and this development affected the vegetation the mammoths and mastodons depended on to survive, eventually driving them to extinction. The bands of hunters, therefore, were forced to diversify and turned to smaller game such as bison, deer, caribou, bear, fox, hare, and beaver. Fish, wild fruits, vegetables, and medicinal herbs became more important to their diet, as well. To ensure that everyday life was not just a feast or a famine depending on the success of the hunters, those early people became skilled at preserving some of their food by air- or sun-drying it or smoking it. They could then carry it with them more easily, or they could store it in stone-lined caches on well-travelled routes and return to it when it was needed.

      In 6000 BC, the human population of North America was still sparse and was scattered in a myriad of isolated hunter-gatherer bands. If we judge from sites in many areas, people spent most of the year living in small family groups, exploring large hunting territories. They might have come together with their neighbours for a few weeks during the summer months at favoured locations near rivers or nut groves. The bands would have held ceremonies, arranged marriages, and traded fine-grained rocks suitable for tool-making and other commodities. Then they would have gone their separate ways, following migrating game, trapping small animals, and foraging for wild food.[2]

      Although these were usually nomadic people, they followed a “seasonal round” that was influenced by the changing seasons and their knowledge of the grazing herds. They often had seasonal or semipermanent camps to