Food of our grandparents

Grandma's Butter Cake

I've been thinking about food lately. No, stop. I think about food ALL THE DAMNED TIME! You see it's a security thing for me, as I am sure it is a security thing for many of you. We buy groceries first, before anything else, before bills are paid. Food!

I'm a bit anal about the quality of my food too. If I am going to the effort to eat something, to carry around those calories, it'd best be the best quality food I can buy. We don't eat packaged. That means that I spend a lot of my time cooking. It's a trade off. I cook so that I don't have to eat from a box. I also eat seasonally. I put up preserves when fresh is in season and cheap so that I can eat that good food year round. It was the way we were brought up. And you know what? Eating this way is usually far cheaper.
Now, I realize there are 'food deserts' in the world, there are a lot of them in North America, the land of the free and wealthy...even in Nova Scotia. That's a whole different blog post though, and what I really want to talk about here is grandma's food, how she taught us to cook, and how that is lost to many now.

I just finished making a batch of citrus chutney from the end of season oranges. Normally, at this time of year I make marmalade, but this year I wanted to switch it up a bit. I needed a change. Pierre had been taking oranges in his lunch for the week, and I had been thinking of getting him to save the peels for me, but it turned out I didn't really need them...at any point in history though, they would have been saved and preserved.
The last time I made marmalade, there was too much pith in the mix, that white bit of the orange peel, and it turned out bitter and would not set up! This time around, I was much more careful to peel the rind from the pith and chop that rind finely. To that I added the pulp of the citrus, and then a good large wack of sugar, some cider vinegar, raisins, and a small bit of Pierre's pepper blend. I boiled it up and got it into jars late last week. Then we packed the car and went to Ticonderoga. The jars sat on the counter.

At Ticonderoga, Gibb Zea was doing an experiment with salting pork. He got the salting down pat! In the staff kitchen, in a large glass barrel were the pork bits in the brine and salt. It looked good. He told me that it was an experiment, that he had been reading about salting meat in the period. On the Saturday, he made a stew with the salt pork, to compare with the fresh pork I was braising for the officers. Gibb did freshen the pork, but we all found the stew to be still too salty. I found out later, that while he had changed out the water several times, he had left the freshening part too late and didn't allow enough time.
Remember, he was going from written documents. Written in a time when some things were simply common knowledge. Nobody needs to eat salt meat any more. That knowledge is lost...

Or is it?

In the Maritimes, we eat salt fish to this day! It's one of those comfort foods that we eat when we are home, like grabbing a donair, or fried pepperoni. Fish cakes and eggs, with baked beans and green tomato chow for breakfast is still one of those things many of us crave. Many of us grab breakfast at the Ardmore Diner, but some of us still know how to do this from scratch.
In the Maritimes, there are often fish trucks parked in local parking lots, selling the catch of the day. We buy direct from the fishermen, and we buy what was caught...there's no ordering special, it's what the guy has. One day, on my way home from school, there was a truck parked at the foot of our street, at the old gas station lot. Grandpa had sent me down for some salt cod for Sunday dinner. I came home with a giant fillet of cod. Cod are huge, and the fisherman who caught this one, split it open, cleaned it, salted it, and sent it to Nova Scotia. So I'm walking up the street with a giant, rock hard fish, still with it's skin. Grandpa had expected I would come home with a bag of cod bits, not a whole fish.
Oh, well. The money was spent. Time to deal with the fish. Down in the laundry tub, next to the washing machine went the fish. He filled the tub with cold water. It was Wednesday. Every day the water was changed out for new cold water until the fish was pliable enough to deal with. It was at this point that I understood why the farmers out west used the salt cod we sent them during the depression to shingle their roofs. No, it didn't work out well, but if you've never seen a salted cod before, how would you know how to deal with it?
So when the cod was fresh enough, probably on Friday evening, Grandpa took it back up to the kitchen and skinned the fish, putting the edible bits into a large pot of more cold, fresh water. By Sunday it was fresh enough to cook (boiled in more fresh water until hot and cooked through). We ate it with boiled mashed potatoes and lots of butter. It was still salty.
I thought of this experience when I was talking to Gibb about his salt pork project, and how I could explain that more time was needed, that salt meat takes days to freshen, with the water being changed out daily, or even more often? Then I thought of how a soldier would be able to freshen pork while on the march. He wouldn't be able to do it properly, for sure. I suspect a lot of time they were eating really salty stew, much like we did on Saturday. Boiled potatoes, cooked in the stew would pull out some of the salt, but still.

There are things that we do today, that will be lost knowledge to our grandchildren. I think about those things a lot. Like how to roast a chicken, which chickens are the best to cook. What eggs look like when they are fresh from the chicken. How dirty eggs from the chicken's back end can stay on the counter, but once you wash them, they need to go in the fridge. And how all of that is different from buying food in the store, all sanitized and packaged. What exactly is a chicken nugget? You don't really want to know...

I got home from Ticonderoga and noticed that my chutney hadn't set up, again...No Biggie, back into the saucepan it went, with more sugar, lots more sugar, and more boiling. I don't really have a recipe, I just know that with acidic foods, more sugar is needed to get them to set up. Liquidy fruit is similar in that it also needs more sugar. I finally got the chutney to a good sticky consistency, and reprocessed my jars, new snap lids (the first ones went in the trash, as they'd already been used and the seal won't be good enough a second go around...even for fruit). I got my chutney in the jars again, and processed again. And this time, it worked. I have good, jam-like consistency. I am happy.

When I get back home to Nova Scotia, I will need to start teaching my grandkids how to cook. They will be a good age to start learning. I don't want to leave them all my grandmother's and grandfather's recipes, with no idea how to use them. The 'builder's mug' measurement only works if you know what a builder's mug is.

Spring: It's summer living history season

Sorry about the hiatus, I've been reading a great deal, preparing for, and writing my comprehensive exams. I have one left, due the end of June, so will probably be flying low around here for a bit yet. I wanted to give you a bit of an update on events that I participated in over the last few weeks.

Battle Road: Lexington and Concord Mass

We signed up for this event and was very please with the process and feedback I received from the organizers. This event is vetted, meaning that you have to send in images of your kit and clothing for approval by the board. There are fairly rigorous standards to follow, but I see these as more helpful than a hindrance. The guidelines give you an image of what to work towards, so you don't end up with substandard clothing and accoutrements. The feedback I received on our submission not only helped me for the event, but also helped me to improve some items for my second exam, my studio practice.

The event was centred around the evacuation of Lexington leading up to the first battle of the American Revolution. We would portray middle class people pushed out of their homes, the first refugees of the war, if you will. Many of these folks would not have chosen which side they were loyal to just yet, they would have been displaced in the early morning, not knowing which of their neighbours to trust, or even if they would have a home to return to, or when. Questions surrounding what you would hastily pack and bring with you in case of an emergency have been at the forefront of my mind since beginning this degree. Here was a chance to put those questions into motion.
We arrived for the event wearing our best dress, Pierre in a black wool ditto suit, me in my grey striped linen gown, as if preparing for a normal, middle class day. We carried a snap sack full of silver and pewter, cutlery, candlesticks, that sort of stuff...easy to turn into money stuff. I also carried my china tea set, the most expensive thing I would have owned in the period, having been imported from the orient.

There were comments made toward us about those terrible British soldiers. Our fellow living historians did not know either of us, or our background. We were simply people on the road, displaced like they were. We kept quiet about our Loyalist leanings while those 'patriot' folks were around. For us, this was great fun, being able to re-enact the history of the place, the beginning of the war, but underneath it all, I could feel the tension, and had a better understanding of how it must have felt for those people so long ago. The very real threat of not having a home, and being afraid of your neighbours. I know that what we are taught in history class is different than what is taught in the American classroom. To Americans, Loyalists are the losers of the war, the enemy even. To us, in Atlantic Canada and Ontario, those same Loyalists are our grandparents. As the day progressed, I would have a greater sense of that disconnect, as one of our travelling companions portrayed a British soldier, and despite also being an American, was treated differently because of that red coat. It was an interesting experience.

The day itself helped me to put into perspective what I have been reading on Interpretation methodology. I saw the event a bit differently than I would have a few years ago. The events of the Lexington weekend were impressive in their quality. I understood the need for tight guidelines and vetting of the living history people. The events had tight foci, and we needed to appropriately fit within those contexts. Every event I attend and participate in now will lead to a better understanding of how I will need to develop my dissertation. It was good practice.

No Quarter: Fort Ticonderoga

The second event of this spring happened just this past weekend, and I am still trying to process it. So, please bear with me.

In history, just over two weeks after the battles at Lexington and Concord, the New Hampshire Green Mountain Boys would take over a garrison of unsuspecting British soldiers on the edge of the colonial frontier, Fort Ticonderoga in New York, on the edge of Lake Champlain. The garrison there would not have known yet, what had happened in Concord and Lexington just a few weeks earlier. They were living their quiet, daily lives. It was a relatively small garrison of just 39 men, with their wives and children, living apartment style within a crumbling fort.

On the Saturday, Pierre and I would spend the day cooking for the officers. We were able to discuss the differences between the quality of food stuffs between the officers and enlisted men. The staff had prepared a stew of salt pork, cabbage, and root vegetables for the soldiers that day, and were serving it out of big kettles from the other side of the room. Pierre and I were braising a fresh pork roast, to be served with apple sauce, leeks and bacon, and a spring green salad. Still, all foods that I would have been able to obtain this early in the season, but prepared in an entirely different manner.

We were also in garrison, and so able to have and use more of the material culture we have been collecting as part of our interpretation over the past few years. It was nice to have my things at hand, and to be able to use them, much like a family in garrison in the period would have had. I was able to discuss the similarities and differences between what it would have been like to be a military family in the period, vs. what it is like to be one today. The progress we have made, and how recent much of that progress has been. Bits of knowledge that I have held onto since my days at the Halifax Citadel came in handy as I interpreted a soldiers wife living in barracks.

The taking of the Fort programming occurred as a special program on Saturday evening. We were divided up amongst the barrack buildings and at dusk, the interpreters portraying the Green Mountain Boys burst through the gates and rounded us all up. These interpreters had spent the last 24 hours on a route march from Vermont to the Fort in New York, crossing lake Champlain by boat on Saturday. I had no idea what to expect apart from what would happen theoretically from the script. It helped set the scene a bit further having spent the whole of Saturday in a quiet Garrison of British soldiers, doing day to day tasks.

When we were forced out of our barracks and rounded up in middle of the parade square, I honestly felt a bit of fear. We had just spent the last hour in the darkened barracks waiting while the public was escorted into the fort and given a brief preamble to what they would be seeing. Many of us napped during this hour, it had been a busy day of interpretation for most, and not a great night's sleep the Friday evening before. We were literally woken up, pushed out of the barracks and rounded up in the middle of the parade square by about 40 men with muskets. It really was a bit overwhelming, even though we all knew the script. I thought about what it must feel like to wake up in the middle of the night from a smoke detector, only to realize your house is actually on fire and you can't save anything. I was on an adrenaline rush. It was an amazing experience.

Once the evening program was finished, we were able to take questions, one on one, from the public. many asked what it must have felt like. Still shaken from the adrenaline, I was able to discuss these thoughts with them. I think we all left with a greater understanding of the events of Spring 1775.

Sunday was another quiet day. In 1775, the Green Mountain boys had taken over the garrison, but didn't really know what they were going to do with it. The Interpreters put their British uniforms away, and civilian clothes were put on, as the patriot soldiers were all civilian men, not a standing army like the British forces. There were demonstrations of the differences between the two 'armies', and similarities as well, as many of the people in America at the time still felt like British subjects. They were simply rebelling against perceived oppression from a King and Government across the ocean.

Pierre and I were able to talk about the material culture we were packing up from the weekend. What it must have felt like in an age before mass communication. What it must have felt like to be forced to take a 'side' in a war that you may not have even wanted to be a part of, if it fully was even a war...

I hope we get to go back and do more interpretation at Ticonderoga. It was one of the highlights of my living history experience. Both Ti and Lexington offered an outstanding degree of accuracy in kit, material culture, and interpretation. I am still gobsmacked by the experience.

We are quickly approaching the 250th anniversary of it all, the 250th anniversary of my family arriving in America and being pressed into service to the Crown. That man could not read, and signed his 'name' with an X. I hope to have a better understanding of his life when I am through, and can put into words for him, what it must have been like.