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7.6.13

The Canadian Food Experience Project - My Earliest Memory of Canadian Food

Have you met Val at A Canadian Foodie? She is a woman of boundless energy and creativity. This is her newest food challenge. She is passionate about good, clean, fair and local food. After attending the Canadian Food Blogger's Conference in Toronto this spring she is searching for our Canadian food identity.

This will be a year of challenges and I hope you join us on this journey of exploration. Every challenge is designed to make us dig deep into our Canadian psyche to record our interpretation of our culture as described through food.

Our first challenge is to share our first authentic Canadian food experience. I am a baby boomer born and raised on a small farm in southeastern Saskatchewan. My family homesteaded this land seven generations ago. We still own a part of that farm although we no longer work it ourselves.

Suffice to say that my first remembered food experience is authentic Canadian. My mental journey back to almost birth has been fascinating and enlightening. My mother was not well most of my life and as a result she did not do a lot of cooking. Our food was very basic but her one passion was baking. I don't even know if she ever used a recipe but we did have one thin book, the Five Roses Flour Cookbook.

We enjoyed home made doughnuts on special occasions. Almost weekly we would have raisin or lemon meringue pie. The cakes were simple but a family favourite was Matrimonial Cake.

When I was very young, as young as three years old, my mother would be in the hospital for extended periods and our neighbours, the Brock's, would look after me and my sister. This is my first memory of food. They cooked with a wood stove. Even we had a propane stove and oven but they still used wood.  We were grain farmers with chickens, ducks and pigs but they had a farm that completely fulfilled their needs. They had a dairy herd, berry bushes and a large garden as well as poultry. I remember them milking the cows by hand and separating the cream. They made butter! That was a treat even way back then when it really was not so unusual. But what I remember most vividly is the homemade bread that would come out of that wood oven almost every day. I remember the yeasty dough fermenting, the darkened bread pans and that oh so heady aroma. Smell is the strongest sense to bring back memories.


I have not made old fashioned white bread in many years. Today we are trendy with sourdough and rustic artisan loaves. This is my contribution to this month's challenge. I am making that wonderful pillowy soft white bread that I remember as a young child.


11 comments:

  1. No wonder bread baking is so ingrained in your soul Sarah. I enjoyed reading about your upbringing on the Canadian Prairies. They say that no matter where we end up we will always follow our roots.

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    1. I did not put 2 + 2 together on that! Very observant of you!

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  2. Your bread looks lovely..
    I am sorry to read that your mom was not well..
    It must ahave been so difficult for her..and for you.
    My mom had that book too..I don't know what happened to it..so I bought a recent vervion a few yrs ago..For the memories.

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    1. I have only seen that book once, in a friend's home. Thanks for joining us on this journey.

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  3. Who doesn't love a good loaf of white bread? I think it resonates with everyone as a childhood favorite! And since Saskatchewan is "the bread basket of the world" it's the perfect addition to this project! Thanks for sharing!

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  4. Your post brings back memories of the fresh baked bread my baba always had!

    Whenever she would slice into a load and find a space where there had be a large air bubble she would joke that there had been a mouse who stole that part of the loaf.

    Fantastic memories indeed.

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  5. Great post Sarah. My greatest memory of my gran's place was bread too. That smell. I still love it. Her bread had milk in it. I still make it once in a while and think of her and my childhood in her enormous kitchen (10' ceilings and acres of glass-fronted cabinets... oh I wish I had that kitchen now!).

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  6. Sarah,
    Did your mom die young? That is so sad to hear your mom was ill most of your life. And the Matrimonial Cake (where is its origin?) was certainly a favourite of my mom and dad, as was the lemon pie! Homemade bread was such a treat, but made in the country all of the time. My mom did make it, though, and I love making it. It is interesting to note, that I do believe my mom's recipe for her dinner buns is unique to the Canadian Prairies. They are not crusty. They are rubbed with butter and are delicious - a little more dense, and definitely unique... but I have tasted them in other homes throughout the province, so thank you for sharing this old fashioned recipe!
    :)
    Valerie

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    1. No, Valerie, my mom suffered with mental illness. It was sad. She has now passed on. As far as I know Matrimonial Cake is a prairie recipe. It was called Matrimonial Cake because during the Great Depression, brides could not afford a traditional wedding cake and made this. Other places call it date squares.

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  7. I learn something new with each contribution to this project I read! I didn't know that is why they called it matrimonial cake, I only know my grandmother loved it.Your bread is the bread I grew up with. It looks beautiful.

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  8. Your neighbor's cooking sounds wonderful - simple and satisfying. This bread looks great; butter always makes such a beautiful crust!

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