My mother and grandmother always seemed to be baking or cooking, either for the day's meals or for the future. Dinner at midday, and supper in the evening, would be accompanied by a dessert. There would often also be a midnight or bedtime snack, something to eat before you went to bed, or before your evening guests departed. We kids might have a snack waiting for us when we got home from school, depending how near to supper it was. Eating between meals was frowned upon, as we were told it spoiled our appetite. We did not have afternoon tea, maybe because supper was served so early, about five. With the long hours of daylight in summer, the adults would have chores to do after supper. So food at bedtime may have been needed.
Dinner was the hot meal of the day, supper was warmed-up or cold leftovers. Breakfast could be toast, bacon and eggs, cereal or the ever present hot porridge in winter, usually rolled oats, less often cream of wheat, and even less fequently something called Red River cereal. Corn flakes, allbran, puffed wheat, rice crispies and wheat biscuits were the usual dry cereals in summer.
Each summer and fall would see my mother and grandmother, as all women in the community, busy putting down preserves: meat, fruit, vegetables and berries. The item would be cooked, then while very hot poured into jars, already sterilized and standing in a pot of boiling water. Space was left in the top of the jar for liquid wax to be poured over the contents thus filling the jar and sealing it; then the glass top was spring clamped tight with a rubber seal between the top and the jar.
If the whole operation were germ free, the contents would last the winter and into the next summer. Maybe longer. If not, the preserves would go off or spoil quickly. The careless housekeeper, in this respect, had to pull up her socks and take care. Even so, I remember my mother and grandmother inspecting the bottles regularly for any sign of a jar turning bad by noting the amount of mould. If caught early, the contents could be eaten. But not if it were meat.
I remember once, our mother served us a dessert of preserved pears and we all got sick. It was one of those unexplained things; I hesitated before eating preserved pears for years afterward. To ensure a longer life, the preserves were stored in a cool place, like the cellar or pantry. When a jar was opened, and the wax removed, there was often a small film of mould on top, which would be skimmed off. The preserve would still be fine. I wish I could remember the number of jars our mother put down each year.
A regular source of food of course was the cow; the dairy products were: milk, cream, butter, buttermilk and curd or cottage cheese. There was always a milking cow and weekly churnings.
Glasses of milk went with every meal for us kids, and with any snacks. We were not allowed tea, except a sip now and then. Buttermilk was also one of our regular drinks.
The bulk of our food came from the garden, fresh in summer, preserved or dried from the cellar in winter. Cucumbers, pumpkin, squash, rhubarb, beets and string beans would be preserved. My mother made chows and pickles from young cucumbers. Potatoes, carrots, parsnips and turnips would be stored in bins in the cellar in a semidried state. These had to checked from time to time to make sure none were rotting; if any were bad they had to be removed or the rot would spread. Peas and certain beans would be dried, stored, and then soaked before use. Also stored in the cellar was a barrel of sauerkraut, which was bought each year. We kids used to take handfulls from the barrel to eat. There would also be dried cod fish and a barrel pickled herring.
We had an orchard, which was left to look after itself; this meant that after many years most of the apples were terrible for eating raw. Two exceptions were the crab apples and in my grandfather's orchard, the August apples. We kids liked these large soft yellow apples. We were warned against eating green apples which could make us sick. My mother used to preserve the crab apples; from the rest of the apples, she made apple pies, baked apples, and apple sauce, to be eaten fresh or to be preserved. There were never any August apples for cooking as the few there were were eaten raw. My mother also bought apples to eat, and to cook. A barrel of apples would often be secured cheaply from the Annapolis Valley. Each year someone would make the trip by car and buy for friends and relatives, or someone would come around selling barrels of apples. They were cheap because they had been picked from the ground. These apples would be stored in the cellar and would last most of the winter.
Despite our orchard producing such poor quality apples, my parents heard some people raiding the orchard one evening.My father loaded his shotgun and let fly from the house. He said he shot the branch out from under someone. They probably just jumped to the ground in fright and took off. We were not bothered by apple thieves after that.
My mother bought plums, pears, peaches and grapes. The latter came in baskets, and we kids would get a share of the raw grapes before they were made into jam. Plums also would be turned into jam. Pears and peaches would be preserved. Bananas were bought occasionally, but we kids could never get enough. They were always eaten fresh. Our mother would carefully show us how to eat the banana by holding it at one end and peeling the skin back from the other end, eating as we did so. This way she explained, we never had to touch the fruit with our dirty hands. If there were not enough bananas to go around, they were cut up as a dessert, served with cream.
Our land was blessed with lots of berries. First, in late June, came the stawberries, which we picked and ate with cream as a dessert. The wild strawberries were not in large enough quanity to be preserved, so our mother bought boxes of tame berries, with which she made jam and preserves, and which we also ate fresh with our meals. Later in the summer we picked blueberries, rasberries, blackberries, rockberries, bogberries and cranberries. The first three were eaten raw or cooked as dessert or in making pies, as well as making up the bulk of my mother's preserves for winter. The latter three, had to be cooked and sweetened, before they could be eaten. They were very sour and were mainly preserved as jams.
Blueberries were used to make blueberry grunt; where the name came from I do not know. A pot of blueberries was boiled with dough boys or dumplings added. We would be served bowls of the blueberry grunt, hot the first time around, but leftovers could be served cold. It was one of my favourite dishes.
When in season, our mother would send us out to pick berries, or organize trips for the whole family with buckets, pots, pans and dippers. Whatever we were given was expected to be filled before returning. The currents, white and red, were turned into jam or eaten from the bush by us kids. Of course berries were eaten by us as we roamed. This included such things as pigeon berries, teaberries, white and red, and teaberry leaves. These leaves seemed to be in the woods most of the year, and we always stopped to eat a few.
Beside fresh meat from the killing of a deer, a calf, a pig, a rabbit or a chicken, there was pickled pork and corned beef kept in barrels in the cellar. Each year these barrels would be filled for winter use. Pickling was the only way to keep bulk meat, other than bottling, which my mother did with deer and rabbits. When my father shot a deer, the fresh meat made up the bulk of our meals while it lasted. Rabbits as they were caught in winter could be kept frozen till eaten or bottled. My mother prepared roasts of meat, stewed meat, as well as fried meat. Livers and kidneys were not wasted, but were fried or went into stews. Rabbit stew was a favourite.
Our mother made 'potted head', or that was our name for it; it was made from a pig's head and resembled pate.
And of course, there was fish which was very much a part of our diet, at least once or twice per week. In summer we had fresh cod, herring, mackeral, and halibut, all of which made up the bulk of the commercial fishing in Lower East Jeddore. Some was peddled to the house, some we bought at the wharf, some was given to us by friends and relatives. Being a fishing community the price was never high. In winter we had barrels or puncheons of salted or pickled fish, chiefly herring stored in the cellar.
Codfish was dried on flakes in the sun and salted by the fishermen. When going past their property, you would see the cod drying. The dried cod kept quite well and we always had a winter supply in our cellar. We kids would tear off strips and eat them raw. Fish was fried or baked. Cod fish always ended up as fish cakes when reheated for a second meal. My favourite was mackeral; herring had too many bones for my liking.
The fish which we caught ourselves, was eaten fresh. This included the flatfish and eels. They both would be fried; the eels were cut into inch-long lengths before frying. Some people did not eat eels, for whatever reason; maybe because they looked like snakes. We liked them. When the smelts were in season, they were fried and eaten guts and all; the eggs or roe was eaten as well.
When in season lobsters were dropped into boiling water and cooked. We kids would marvel at the change of colour, from a dark greenish gray to bright red/orange. The adults would break the claws for us, and we were shown early what parts of the lobster we could not eat. We kids were early taught to respect the claws of the live lobster; usually they had pegs, but not always.
Clams were usually made into clam chowder, a favourite with me. Sometimes, we just boiled the clams and ate them from the shell. Before boiling, they would be soaked in fresh water, which was supposed to force them to spit out any sand. We used to drink the water the clams were boiled in. From time to time, we would have a clam bake, when clams and perriwinkles were placed on a sheet of metal over a fire and roasted. We used to pick the meat out of the perriwinkles with needles or mat hooks.
Lobster boils or clam bakes were social events shared with friends and relatives. The Jeddore equalivent to a BBQ; but I cannot remember if meat were also cooked.
My mother and grandmother made lots of stews using meat (cornbeef, rabbit, deer); these would be accompanied with vegetables, and often dumplings. Corned beef and cabbage was a regular meal. There were thick soups with a bone, such as pea soup, barley soup,or just vegetable soup. Despite eating so much fish, I cannot remember ever having fish soup, nor for that matter, potato soup. There were roasts of meat as beef, pork, and venison, as well as chicken. Nothing was wasted; the next meal would be hash, fish paddies, or the like. There were various cassarole dishes of mincedmeat, scalloped potatoes, and macaroni. Every household had a hand-turned meat mincing machine, so meat paddies were a regular fare.
The Saturday night special was baked beans cooked with pork and molasses. The beans would be soaked overnight, and slowly baked in a crockpot in the oven most of the day. Saturday was also bread baking day, so the beans would be accompanied with fresh hot bread.
We ate a lot of fresh vegetables, as tomatoes, cucumbers, radish, and lettuce. For what ever reason, we sprinkled sugar on lettuce; maybe this was done to get us kids to eat it. But I seem to remember that adults also put sugar on lettuce.
Every meal, except breakfast, was accompanied by a dessert. There were the fresh berries or fresh fruit with cream, the cooked berries or cooked fruit, and the preserved berries or preserved fruit. There were pies and a variety of cakes, with frosting or jam, as well as tarts; and my ever favourite, date squares. There were also more mundane and cheaper desserts as instant puddings, jellies, boiled rice with rasins, custards, stewed prunes, baked apples and tapioca. We never ate rice as a vegetable. There was always fresh or whipped cream to top off a dessert. There were cookies, but more for snacks than a dessert. Our mother used to make gingerbread men, ginger snaps, and cinnamon rolls, as well as a variety of other cookies I can't name.
I preferred soggy cakes to fluffy ones, and my grandmother's cakes always fell, by accident or on purpose,I do not know, but as a result they were very moist. So I preferred her's to my mother's cakes. A birthday cake with frosting was always made for each of our birthdays. A few coins would be placed inside, so there was anticipation as to who would get the coins. Christmas cakes and plum puddings were made months in advance so they would be well matured; so were wedding cakes.
The regular meal filler and for snacks were thick slices of home made bread with butter, home made jams, peanut butter, molasses, or corn syrup. These latter three were always in my parent's and grandparent's houses, and are foods I relate in memory to my childhood. I remember once we had manufactured or bought strawberry jam, and the whole family had it spread on home made bread. I can't remember where it came from, but it was a rare treat. Another such treat was homemade icecream made in winter by our mother.
My mother had a rule that we kids ate what was put before us. There was no catering to individual tastes. We were told we were lucky to have something to eat, and to consider all the starving children in the world. I hated cheese. Garth hated turnips. I can remember him trying to pick turnip out of the hash. I was not forced to eat cheese, and when my mother was dishing out individual vegetables, she did not give my brother turnips. There was plenty of other food. Two dishes I did not prefer, but had to eat, as they were the main dish of the meal, were macaroni with tomatoes and, the other, was scallop potatoes. I did not hate them, but I would have preferred something else. I did not like baked apples too much either, even if they were stuffed with raisins.
I guess, all in all, our diet of plenty of fruit and vegetables, cereal, dairy products, meat and fish, was a well balanced one. It probably had not altered much over the past 50 to 100 years. However, there was a lot of fried foods. Lard and dripping were used daily to bake and fry. My mother always kept a jar in which to pour the fat from the frying pan. I remember eating bread dipped in the hot frying pan full of fat. There were always suckers as treats, as well as other candy, such as kisses. Fudge and toffee apples were made by my mother and grandmother. So we kids had our share of the not-so-healthy foods, but they were supplements to, not replacements for, what was good basic food.
If we had not lived off the land, cultivated or wild, foodwise the depression of the 1930's, would have meant great hardship for my parents and grandparents; as it was, we kids never went hungry. We were aware of money being scarce, of not getting things we would like. I never did get a tricycle, for example; but food there seemed to be aplenty.