new home in what had once been a hostile and alien environment. In addition, there were compelling reasons for many religious and cultural groups in the Old World to make the voyage to the New World. There were also the inducements of free passage and free land grants, as well as the lure of adventure or a need to break with the past.
Whatever their reasons, food was of primary concern to everyone, individual or family: finding it, preserving it, and storing it so that it was readily available to serve their specific needs, at the precise time and place they needed it. These newcomers brought with them memories of the ingredients, recipes, and foods they had known and enjoyed at home. Often they soon realized that their culinary heritage could not be transplanted to the new environment, for the challenges were simply too formidable. Confronted by a harsh (and often wildly varying) climate, new and unknown vegetation, lack of transportation except by water, and the necessity of usually having to clear virgin forest to develop gardens and fields, the new arrivals acquired an appreciation of the skills and knowledge of the First Nations in utilizing the native plants, trees, and other vegetation for food, beverages, and medicines. Eventually, for those who stayed and prospered, they attributed their success, at least in part, to their ability to combine the knowledge and skill they acquired in their homelands with that of the Native people, and to use the best of both cultures to survive the daily challenges they faced in this, their New World.[1]
Each individual family, cultural, or religious group solved these challenges in different ways, and their histories are varied and compelling. We have here just a sampling of the perseverance and ingenuity that those early settlers demonstrated as they cleared fields, planted orchards and gardens, and attempted to ensure there would be food in the larder not only for today, but for the weeks and months ahead.
The island of Newfoundland was to become Britain’s oldest colony, and along with the mainland of Labrador, Canada’s newest province. For a long time, settlement and agriculture were not only discouraged but actually outlawed in Newfoundland as Britain attempted to protect its fishing interests. Because of this prohibition, the interior valleys were not explored for over a century. Despite such challenges, early English and Irish settlers persevered and began to prosper by the eighteenth century.
Early Newfoundland settlers cleared land by burning the forests in winter, but the townspeople had to pay to have them cut down for firewood: They built themselves Cabins, and burnt up all that part of the Woods where they sat down. The following Winter they did the same in another Place, and so cleared the Woods as they went. The People of St. John’s Town, who did not remove, were put to great Streights for Firing.[2]
Hundreds of scattered communities called outports developed around the coast, making contact with larger centres almost impossible. As a result, obtaining fresh food in winter was difficult and
traditional Newfoundland food used dried or salted fish and meat as a basic ingredient. Women baked a great deal…. A small acre or two of stony soil, cleared from the forest by back-breaking labour, was farmed mostly for root crops such as potatoes and turnips. A cow and a few sheep were kept, with the enviable half dozen chickens running around the house. Children helped with the chores — berry picking for pies, tarts and jam, and when the boys were old enough, joined their fathers on the boats, for most outports survived by virtue of the excellent cod fishing around the coast.[3]
The Habitation at Port Royal, first founded by Champlain, was the catalyst for the arrival of the Acadian settlers, who faced many challenges as the French and English battled to control the area. The Acadians were farmers who had a deep love of the land, though they had no desire to spend time on the back-breaking efforts of clearing away the forests. Instead, they chose to settle along the banks of the tidal rivers, building dikes to hold back the tides. The rich, fertile soil that was reclaimed in this way was cultivated, and abundant supplies of wheat, rye, and vegetables were grown. On their farms they raised poultry, sheep, and pigs, and salted away mutton and pork for winter use. Their cattle were of a small breed and produced very little milk, so butter and cheese were not in plentiful supply.[4]
From the earliest days of settlement the French brought with them that touch of genius that transforms humble ingredients into masterpieces of culinary art. In the minds and hearts of French cooks, whether manor-house chef or habitant housewife, would have been some firm principles
— no waste in cooking and baking; everything used in meal preparation; a love of eggs, butter, cheese, and cream; and the knowledge that a little wine or spirit adds a lot of character to a dish.
The First Nations taught the newcomers how to tap maple trees and heat the sap until it thickened into syrup, or until it could be moulded into sugar.
The New World must have been filled with surprises for all of those first settlers, among them the food traditions of the First Nations, which were to have such an immediate and lasting effect on the new arrivals. The First Nations showed them how to tap the sugar maple trees so they would have a much-needed sweetener for cooking and baking. The Natives poured the maple sugar into birchbark moulds and stored it to be used later as a sweet, or to flavour foods such as cornmeal mush, cornmeal cake and Indian pudding. The French adapted the treat to many of their recipes for the cooking of vegetables, dumplings, puddings, and desserts. Not only did maple syrup become an important ingredient, but the making of maple syrup and sugar later became a traditional cottage industry in Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Ontario. “Sugaring off” parties brought family, friends, and neighbours together at the end of the maple syrup season to play card games, dance, sing and, of course, feast on an assortment of traditional treats. Many of them were made with the sugar or syrup, such as cookies, cakes, omelettes, crepes, snow taffy, baked apples, maple butter, and maple cream.
The forest yielded other new foods. For example, the Jesuits observed the Natives picking blueberries (also called soft juniper) and adding them to pemmican and to the cornmeal they were using in pottages and puddings. The settlers added them to cake dough, and the result was a moist fruit cake. The French also introduced some new fruit to the country, for Champlain planted the first grapevine in Quebec in 1608, and New France’s first bishop, François de Laval, imported the first apple and plum trees.
Bread was the foundation of every meal, and in early days would have been baked in a stone, brick, or clay oven beside the kitchen fireplace, where all the cooking was done. Often a larger “out oven,” shaped like a beehive and located out of doors, would replace or supplement the smaller indoor oven. Hardwood was placed inside either oven and burned for several hours to heat the clay-and stone-structure. Then the coals and ashes were raked out, the oven floor was sprinkled with cornmeal, and the round loaves were placed inside using a long, flat wooden paddle called a “peel.” Some of these large outdoor ovens served the whole community, and then the womenfolk were able to bake only on a certain day of the week; sometimes bread would become stale before bread-baking day came around again. The cooks and bakers using these ovens, like bakers all over the world, were attempting to make bread without the superb leavening agents that began to appear by the middle of the nineteenth century. As a result, those early breads would have been coarse and heavy, but as the years went by and yeast made with potatoes, hops, and other agents was perfected, there emerged the beautifully plump and round loaves that can still be bought at the roadside in Quebec today. Wheat, rye, buckwheat, and oats were the grains favoured for baking. Buckwheat was often grown on lean, rocky soil where other grains could not have survived. Many methods were developed to use stale bread. It was fried, made into bread pudding or French toast, crumbled into toppings, used as croutons for the ever-popular soups, stuffed into fish and fowl, and employed to thicken gravies and sauces.
The vegetables basic to everyday cooking would have included cabbage, carrots, peas, onions, and turnips, augmented by those the First Nations had been using for centuries, such as corn, pumpkin, squash, and potatoes. Dried peas have been part of human diets since biblical times, and sometimes have been used in
