Canadians at Table: Food, Fellowship, and Folklore

by Dorothy Duncan

  Pemmican initially gave the North West Company a great advantage over their Hudson’s Bay Company rivals, who continued to depend on bread, porridge, and meat cured with salt, instead of adapting to Native foods. However, as the story of Canadian food unfolds, we will soon learn that this dependence on pemmican, much of it produced by the buffalo hunters of the prairies and available at Pembina, the North West Company post on the Red River, would eventually be a major factor in the company’s demise.

  In July the two groups began to assemble at the inland headquarters — the fur brigades from the west and the merchant partners from the east. It is not surprising then that the annual Rendezvous became a legendary time of feasting and celebration. The population of Fort William grew to about two thousand persons (at the same time the population of York, the capital of Upper Canada, was about six hundred) and included the English and Scottish merchants and their clerks; the French Canadian and Métis canoe men; and the men and women of the First Nations who were guides, advisers, and providers of specialized needs such as survival foods for the chain of forts and posts stretching into the interior.

  The central building at Fort William was the Great Hall, and these descriptions tell us how it appeared to two travellers of the period:

  In the middle of a gracious square rises a large building elegantly constructed, though of wood, with a long piazza or portico, raised about five feet from the ground, and surmounted by a balcony, extending along the whole front. In the centre is a saloon or hall, sixty feet in length by thirty in width, decorated with several pieces of painting and some portraits of the leading partners. It is in this hall that the agents, partners, clerks, interpreters and guides, take their meal together, at different tables. The kitchen and servants’ rooms are in the basement.[10]

  The dining hall is a noble apartment, and sufficiently capacious to entertain two hundred. A finely executed bust of the late Simon McTavish is placed in it, with portraits of various Proprietors. A full-length likeness of Nelson, together with a splendid painting of the Battle of the Nile also decorate the walls.[11]

  An 1844 account of dinner at Fort Vancouver, a North West Company post on the Pacific Slopes (the company firmly controlled this area, which stretched from San Francisco to the Alaska border), finds Governor (Dr. John) McLoughlin, who had served earlier as the doctor at Fort William, presiding at table:

  At the end of a table twenty feet in length stands Governor McLoughlin (known as the Father of Oregon) directing guests and gentlemen from neighbouring posts to their places, and chief traders, the physician, clerks and the farmer slide respectfully to their places, at distances from the governor corresponding to the dignity of their rank and service. Thanks are given to God, and all are seated. Roast beef and pork, boiled mutton, baked salmon, boiled ham, beets, carrots, turnips, cabbage and potatoes, and wheaten bread, are tastefully distributed over the table among a dinner set of elegant Queen’s Ware, furnished with glittering glasses and decanters of various coloured Italian wines.[12]

  During the month of the Rendezvous, dignity appears to have been set aside once the sun began to set. Days were spent in the Committee House at meetings, at which the business of the trade was carried out in great secrecy, but the nights were spent dining and roistering in the Great Hall. Dinners of “buffalo tongue and hump that had been either smoked or salted, thirty pound lake trout and whitefish that could be netted in the river at the gates to the Fort, venison, wild duck, geese, partridge and beaver tails would be augmented with confectioners’ delicacies that had been packed all the way from Montreal in those great canoes. They drank the wines of France and Portugal, whiskies from Scotland and the Canadas, rum by the hogshead and, on occasion, the finest champagne.”[13]

  Cooks and bakers prepared imported delicacies for the elaborate banquets held at the annual July Rendezvous at Fort William.

  Fort William Historical Park, Thunder Bay, Ontario

  Traditionally, five toasts were given, and these were presented in the following order: Mary, the Mother of all the Saints; the king; the fur trade in all its branches; the voyageurs, their wives, and their children; and absent brethren. When the dinner and toasts were over, the Great Hall witnessed one of the sights of the ages:

  With the ten gallon kegs of rum running low and dawn fingering the windows of the Great Hall to find the partners of the North West Company, names that mark and brighten the map of Canada, leaping on benches, chairs, and oaken wine barrels to “shoot the rapids” from the tilted tables to the floor, and singing the songs of home. Mounting broad bladed paddles, the gentlemen in knee breeches and silver buckled shoes pounded around the hall in impromptu races, shoving boisterously, piling up at the corners, breaking off only to down another brimming bumper [of spirits].[14]

  However, the Rendezvous was soon over, and by August 1 both groups left for home so they would not be caught on the frozen waterways. For the partners returning for the winter to Montreal, there was the Beaver Club’s fellowship and feasting to look forward to. The club was founded in February 1785 with nineteen members, all of whom had explored the Northwest. The object of the club was “to bring together at stated periods during the winter season, a set of men highly respectable in society who had passed their best days in a savage country and had encountered the difficulties and dangers incident to a pursuit peculiar to the fur trade of Canada.” Despite this restriction, an additional nineteen members were accepted by 1803.[15]

  The club did not have its own headquarters but met every fortnight from December to April in one of Montreal’s famous eating establishments. It did have its own china, crystal, and plate, marked with the club’s insignia. At the meetings the members themselves had to wear their insignia if they wanted to avoid a fine. This medal was gold and bore the words “Beaver Club of Montreal instituted in 1785,” with a beaver gnawing the foot of a tree and the inscription “Industry and Perseverance.” The reverse side carried the name of the member, the date of his first voyage of exploration, and a bas-relief with the motto Fortitude in Distress and a canoe with three passengers in top hats being guided through rapids by canoe men.[16]

  Colonel Landman, a guest of Sir Alexander Mackenzie and William McGillivray in the early nineteenth century, gives us a vivid description of one of the Beaver Club dinners that lasted twelve hours:

  At this time, dinner was at four o’clock and after having lowered a reasonable quantity of wine, say a bottle each, the married men withdrew, leaving a dozen of us to drink to their health. Accordingly, we were able to behave like real Scottish Highlanders and by four in the morning we had all attained such a degree of perfection that we could utter a war cry as well as Mackenzie and McGillivray. We were all drunk like fish, and all of us thought we could dance on the table without disarranging a single one of the decanters, glasses or plates with which it was covered.

  But on attempting this experiment, we found that we were suffering from a delusion and wound up by breaking all the plates, glasses and bottles and demolishing the table itself; worse than that, there were bruises and scratches, more or less serious on the heads and hands of everyone in the group…. It was told to me later that during our carouse 120 bottles of wine had been drunk, but I think a good part of it had been spilled.[17]

  Other guests at the Beaver Club confirmed that description:

  They served bear meat, beaver, pemmican and venison in the same way as in trading posts to the accompaniment of songs and dances during the events; and when wine had produced the sought-for degree of gaiety in the wee hours of the morning, the trading partners, dealers and merchants re-enacted the “grand voyage” to the Rendezvous in full sight of the waiters or voyageurs who had obtained permission to attend. For this purpose, they sat one behind another on a rich carpet, each equipping himself with a poker, tongs, a sword or walking stick in place of a paddle and roared out such voyageurs’ songs as Malbrouck or A la Claire Fontaine, meanwhile paddling with as much steadiness as their strained nerves would permit.[18]


  The last Beaver Club dinner was held in 1827, but the event was resurrected in the twentieth century. The Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal brought it back to life in 1959, and it now has nine hundred members around the world. Once a year club members dine on a five-course dinner with appropriate wines. Each course is paraded through the club, led by costumed coureurs de bois, voyageurs, musicians, and a representative from the Kahnawake First Nation. Now, as then, five toasts are proposed to the Mother of All Saints, the queen, the fur trade in all its branches, the women and children of the fur trade (Heaven preserve them!), and absent brethren.

  Beaver hats have been forgotten by the fashion world, fur-trading empires are a thing of the past, but once a year hundreds of men and women still gather to pay tribute to an unlikely team of men and women who ruthlessly pursued a small animal across this continent. Their success depended on their food supplies and the strength, skill, and stamina of a chain of men stretched across the continent. They came from different classes, languages, cultures, and standards, but they found a common cause, and until 1821, when the Hudson’s Bay Company and the North West Company merged, they were legends in their own time.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Bread Was the Foundation of Every Meal

  AS THE FISHERMEN, FUR TRADERS, MISSIONARIES, SOLDIERS, surveyors, and eventually settlers began to arrive in the land now called Canada, they were often astonished by its incredible bounty, beauty, and harshness. They came from every walk of life, from a multitude of cultural and religious backgrounds, and they had scores of reasons for leaving their homelands, either as sojourners or settlers. Many had come to barter for furs, work on the fishing vessels, or serve in the garrisons and either chose to stay or to return later (often with their families) to take up land and make a 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.