Galiano Club Blog

They are all from The Interviews!

The students at Galiano Community School were responsible for all but three of the interviews. Wreford Miller, who designed and set up this blog, came to Cathy Buttery’s class and taught an interview workshop in which students learned the techniques of writing and conducting interviews. The students then collaborated on a standard interview format, and recorded practise interviews with each other and with Elder, Margaret Edgar, who had volunteered to help out in the workshop.

Appointments were set up and each Elder came to the school to record their interview. Wherever possible, students interviewed their own grandparent. The arduous process of transcribing the interviews came next, and finally, the fun part – selecting quotes and matching them to recipes. Scroll down the blog postings and read the interview transcripts.

Here is a list of the Elders and the Students who interviewed them: Lloyd Baines interviewed by Bailey Baines Elizabeth Bosher interviewed by Brennan Taylor Betty Brannon interviewed by Rowan Oakley-Uyenaka Lennis Campbell interviewed by Taylor Pattison Margaret Edgar interviewed by Noal Balint Jane Edwards interviewed by Lily Kingscote Dora Fitzgerald interviewed by Carol Guin Margaret Griffiths interviewed by Carol Guin Margaret Head interviewed by Carol Guin Ena Hooley interviewed by Mana Lief Paul LeBlond interviewed by Cody Clayton Dave Morgan interviewed by Tina Basarab Gloria Olson interviewed by Rhiannon Silver Kate Parfitt interviewed by Jacob Parfitt Ivan Peterson interviewed by Cody Clayton Jean Ripley and Sheila Tully interviewed by Mana Lief and Juna Onofrio Carol Robson interviewed by Tia Clayton Lorna Shields interviewed by Brogan Renwick-Shields Mary Wilson interviewed by Arthur Georgeson

Mother’s recipes were partly in Pitman’s shorthand and I couldn’t read them

Family loved canned Venison: Put pieces of meat firmly in jars,add salt (1/2-1tsp/pint), seal and pressure cook at 10lbs for 90 minutes or for 4 hours in a boiling water bath.

Out diet was fish or venison or venison or fish.

Island deer tastes more like veal. It is best medium rare or brazed,never cook venison passed medium! (bear has to be well cooked-no pink showing).

We used to have wild game dinners at the Rod and Gun Club-elk, moose, bear, cougar or whatever was available.

Some old recipes used to have you boil vegetables for 1/2hour, until they were mush. I remember my father getting spring peas, cooking them a short time in a little water and then giving me the water to drink. Was it ever good!

We also talked about the importance of 4-H Clubs, the planting,growing,harvesting, raising animals for food, etc.

During the war I was in uniform and so didn’t cook and when I came out not much to cook with.

When I came to Canada there was all this food and I didn’t know how to cook it!

To grow locally is an excellent idea as is to cook more simply.

As children we ate a lot of candy and boiled sweets.

Got sugar in cubes – for putting into tea. Asked people if they wanted one cube or two and used sugar tongs to put the cubes into the tea. Coffee sugar in a bowl, didn’t much like it. Tea was served in a silver tea pot,didn’t make as good a tea made in a brown betty.

Mother made cafe au lait by putting a silver coffee pot in one hand and a silver tea pot in the other and then pouring into a tea cup so there was equal amounts of coffee and milk. When I was in France they drank cafe au lait out of a soup bowl.

I remember once, in France, drinking cafe au lait with red wine. My stomach didn’t like it and I had a hard time sitting through a movie.

There was no refrigeration in houses but there were the larders -cold dark places with shelves to storage things, probably got it’s name from setting lard and keeping it cold.

Mother used to make tongue,cook it and put inside a tin with weights to weigh it down,when flat would slice it to eat.

I liked every kind of vegtables,I wasn’t into meats. Loved mashed potatoes with gravy. We bought locally grown vegtables and cleaned them of dirt when we got home. We bought food as needed.

When I was little I remember having bread and milk for supper;bread broken up and sugar added.

Loved Yorkshire pudding,we put it in a long tin and put in under the roase to get the drippings-it was crisp around the edges and moist in the middle and served with onion gravey after being cut into squares. We used a Yorkshire Range;it was an oven high to the left of the fireplace and it got its heat from the fireplace.

My uncle had a bakery and got the oven going during the week to bake bread. On Sunday people used his oven to cook their roasts while they were in church.

When you were a child, how did you get your food?

We grew a small garden, we had a cherry tree, an apple tree, a pear tree and a plum tree, that’s where we got a lot of food, and where we bought our groceries in those years was at a corner store. We had to walk to the corner store and carry all our groceries home, we didn’t have a car. My mother had a garden, and I helped in the garden.

When you were young, how did you keep your food?

We had a pantry, it was a small room off the kitchen where we kept all the food stored, and my mother made applesauce out of the apples,canned the fruit and the vegetables. We had an outdoor cooler with a screen door on it. We didn’t have fridges.

How was getting food different when you were a kid?

Well, in those days we didn’t have cars, so we went to little corner stores, we had to pack our groceries home, so we might go there a couple of times a day, and we could run an account there. You didn’t have to pay right away, you could pay at the end of the month, which made it easier for families.

What is your favorite local food?

I would say it was the fresh fruit and vegetables that we would get. My favorite would be the peas or beans out of the garden, fresh.

Tell me about a favorite food memories from when you were a child.

There were six of us. We had a coal and wood stove, and when we had corn on the cob my mother would put a big boiler on the stove and put in a dozen cobs of corn. That was our favorite. On Sunday my mother always made a pie, different kinds of pie.

What seasonal foods do you eat?

Pretty well anything that comes out of the garden at the time of season. Lettuce, tomatoes, any of the green foods.

How do you overwinter your food?

I do some canning and some freezing.

Where do you shop?

In a Safeway at Coquitlam.

Why did you choose the macaroni recipe?

Well, it just seemed to be a food that was…a comfort food, they call it? It was a family favourite.

What foods make you think of spring?

New potatoes, and carrots, and peas off the vine, because they’re fresh, and we don’t have them all winter.

What foods make you think of summer?

Vegetables that you’ve grown, and are ready to pick.

What foods make you think of fall?

The fruits that are getting ripe on the trees, because I just love them!

What foods make you think of winter?

Well, we have the vegetables like cabbage, and carrots, the winter vegetables, because they keep you warm, they keep your body warm.

When you were a child, how did you get your food?

Mostly from the garden, or from neighboring farmers. We lived in the country, on what used to be a farm. And also, there weren’t supermarkets where I lived, I think there were very few supermarkets anyway, even in the big cities. And tradesmen came to you, you didn’t have to go out much. But the bread man came, and the fish, the butcher and people came to you, and you bought at the door.

When you were young, how did you keep your food?

Well, in the first house I remember, we didn’t have electricity, it was a very comfortable little old farmhouse, and the most important place for keeping food was a north-facing little very cool room with thick walls, slate shelves, so stone shelves, a small window, and very closely screened so no flies could get in and food was kept on either the cold stone floor or the cold stone shelves, and we had fly screens for everything. One of the things we did was make little net covers, little net rounds weighted and the edge with beads, and if you had a milk jug or something, you would put that over to keep any flies or bugs out, or dust. All food was covered; there were screens, small screens and big screens, and dish covers, and keeping food cold was the main aim of this little pantry, as it was called.

How is getting food different now from when you were a kid?

Well, today you have the supermarket, the big store, and rather than getting the food brought to the door, you go to the store, walk up and down the aisles, pick out what you want, and take it home with you! Also, in those days very few people had cars. We didn’t have a car, so that it would have been a big problem, unless you had a pony and trap, which of course I uses to have on Galiano. It was a problem going and getting your food, so that’s not how it worked. Food came to you.

What is your favorite local food?

I think I’d probably have to say salmon.

Tell me about a food memory you have from childhood.

I think my mother’s spaghetti. She wouldn’t cook the pasta very much, not squishy. I’m afraid most English people overcook their food, but she was a very good cook. She would make this delicious tomato sauce, and then grated cheese on that, and then, the finishing touch, this is what made all the difference, she would put a fair little handful of chopped mint in the sauce at the last minute and stir it around. And then, when you served the spaghetti, the sauce, the white cheese, she would top it all off with some roughly chopped raw dandelion, and I do that to this day. The contrast in taste is absolutely delicious and I loved it even when I was a little kid. It’s pretty too. And very Italian. You know the Italian flag is green and red and white.

What seasonal foods so you eat?

As much as possible I do, and as the year goes round, the first is nettles, in February, and going through the spring, the wild greens, and I get all excited when the asparagus comes in, the strawberries are coming in now, and I won’t eat tomatoes out of season, because they’re mostly not worth eating. I wait until our own local tomatoes are here, and then they’re worth eating. So I go through the year like that, and in the fall I hope to get some deer meat. I don’t always, but it’s really nice. And in the very brief herring season, one of my favorite Galiano foods is if I’m able to get a bucket of herring and salt them down, or make pickled herring. So I would have to give you a long, tiresome list. And there’s mushrooms. There’s all the wild greens, and I think there’s another category for that, so we won’t go into it, but all the garden food,s I try to wait till the proper season and not buy then brought in from out of province, I try to get foods grown here.

How do you overwinter your food?

I don’t do much now. When I lived on my little farm, yes, I would make sauerkraut, and well, I still freeze quite a lot, it was mostly freezing and bottling, and preserving in that way. When I needed to I borrowed a dehydrator, that is a great help. You can make excellent things with dried food. You could dry your beans without any particular fuss, just lay them out in a flat basket.

How and where do you shop for your food?

Well, now Mrs. Krebs takes me out in the car and we go shopping once a week and we only shop on the island, unless there is something needed that is not carried on the island, and neither Mike not Daniel can bring it in, but that doesn’t often happen. So I go to the three stores on the island, the Market, the Garage, and the Corner Store once a week, and that’s how I do my shopping.

How did obtaining your food change when you moved to Galiano?

That was an excellent change. I slowly bit by bit got into gardening. I started out with a little patch about as big as this table with potatoes and onions, and it grew from there till it was quite a big garden, and I was very proud of it. Until I got too ill to go on, I had not bought any vegetables for thirty years. And I raised rabbits, and sheep, and had hens for eggs, and when they got too old to lay they went into soup. So I didn’t spend an awful lot on food till I had to move here. But that was the big change moving to Galiano and it was such fun doing it, I really enjoyed it.

What foods make you think of spring, and why?

Greens! The fun of finding the very first little nettles peeking up in February, and then the Siberian lettuce, and fiddleheads, not everybody like fiddleheads, but I love them. The sheep sorrel, and dandelions. It’s the wild food that make me think of spring.

What foods make you think of summer? Why?

Strawberries! Asparagus! Tomatoes! Those are wonderful foods of summer that you don’t eat any other time, and it’s such a treat. A tomato picked warm right off the plant and chomped right there is one of the delights of life.

What foods make you think of fall?

My very favorite used to be corn, corn on the cob. Have you ever eaten corn raw? This is a treat, let me tell you, even better than eating peas out of the pod. On a nice warm fall morning, strip a perfect ear off, peel it down to where you can get at it and sit there in the sun and chomp raw corn. It’s so good! That is delicious!

What food make you think of winter and why?

Good solid British food, I’d have to say. Steak and Kidney pie. Plum pudding for Christmas. Love it! That is, as far as I’m concerned, British pemmican. Take a good slice, wrap it up and put it in your pocket, and go for a long cold winter ride. That’ll really keep you going!

When you were a child how did you get your food?

Well, my mother and dad provided it for me, and my four brothers and sisters. My dad grew all our vegetables throughout the whole year. Sometimes he’d be out there at six o’clock in the morning digging and hoeing and cultivating before he went off to work, just to keep the vegetable garden going. We had lots of apple trees, we had plum trees, we had a peach tree,and so that’s how we were fed .My mother made our own bread, and did baking, sometimes she would buy cookies I guess,but she bought the ingredients from the grocery store, and so that’s how we were fed, and we were fed very well.

How did you keep your food?

Well, we didn’t have a fridge until, I think, I was quite grown up, in fact I don’t know if we ever had one while I was living at home, I left home when I was eighteen, but on the back porch, which was on the north side of the house, we had a cooler, which was basically like a cupboard with holes cut out of the back of it and covered with screen so the cool air could get in, and when it was hot in the summer we just didn’t try to keep food that would go bad. My mother preserved a lot of food, she canned fruit and made jam and various other ways. I remember once she had a big crock. You know what a crock is, it’s like a big earthenware pot. We also had chickens and she had learned that if you put this..I don’t know what it was she put into the crock… it would preserve the eggs. I just remembered that.

Where did you grow up?

In Sidney, B.C.

How was getting food different when you were a kid?

Well, all of what I’ve just explained, but also, I remember that my mother could phone the grocery store and give them a list of the groceries she wanted, all the ingredients for baking and extra things,and the store would deliver them to her in a truck. We also had a milkman who had a dairy farm and he brought milk every morning. Do I dare tell you the first one I remember..delivered it in a horse and carriage And then we had one named Mr. Corser who delivered it in a truck every morning except weekends, maybe.

What is your favorite local food?

Well, local food…one of them is my own plum tree, I brought a picture of harvesting my prune plums. Because my dad grew all our own food when I got my own place I wanted to do that too. I never did it as well as he did! When I bought the property on Warbler road I planted an Italian prune plum tree, which produces masses of prune plums every year. I think there was only one year when I didn’t get very many. Here’s a picture of all the prune plums, in 1992 I think. I love them, they’re good to eat raw, I bottle some and make jam and I freeze some in my little freezer. But I also like fresh salmon, I don’t like shellfish but I certainly like fresh fish, sometimes we can go down to the wharf and buy it from the fisher people.

Tell me about a food memory you have from childhood.

Does it have to be a good memory? Can it be a bad one? Well of course all the fresh fruit and fresh vegetables that my dad grew. But as a child I hated Brussels sprouts. I like them now, but I hated Brussels sprouts and whenever we had Brussels sprouts for dinner i just couldn’t get myself to eat them and so I would be sent to the sink with my plate and dinner I’d have to stay there until I had eaten my Brussels sprouts while the rest of the family all had pie for dessert, because my grandmother always made pie for us every Sunday. I don’t mind Brussels sprouts now. I think maybe I found a little green worm in one once, because it was fresh from the garden.

What seasonal foods do you eat?

Well, I try to just eat foods that are in season. I try not to buy lettuce in the winter, because we don’t grow it here. I love fresh tomatoes out of the garden and fresh vegetables in season, in the spring and summer.

How do you overwinter your food?

I do canning. I bottle fruit, my own plums, applesauce sometimes, and I make jam, and the rest I put in my little freezer.

How and where do you shop for your food?

I shop in Sidney for large items like sacks of flour, but I buy food locally too, mostly down at the garage store, because I can walk there. So I buy both locally and off-island.

Why did you choose this recipe?

I guess you’re referring to a recipe that I have brought? Because I have the plums, I brought a plum and apple crumble recipe, because I can use my own plums, and I can use them when I’ve already frozen them, I can take them out of the freezer and put them in the casserole, and use that recipe, so that’s why I brought that. Here’s another one, it’s different, it involves using Bisquick and that kind of thing, but it also uses Italian prune plums.

How did obtaining food change when you moved to Galiano?

Well, I joined the food co-op, which was a group of people who got together once a month and ordered food, usually they liked us to order it by the case, or large quantities, and then Loney would take his truck and go to Delta or somewhere, and bought it I guess at wholesale prices and would bring it back to the island, and then what I remember was going down to Primal Point where Willow, particularly Willow, and Johanna, would sort it all out .so that was inexpensive for me because I didn’t have work when I first came. I guess when I got a full-time job at the school in ’76 I probably stopped doing that.

What food makes you think of spring?

Well, I guess fresh peas. Lettuce, and fresh beans and nettle soup, which I’m going to make today when I get home..because that’s what out there! And also those fresh green vegetables are very full of vitamins, they’re very good for you! I even like spinach now!

What foods make you think of summer?

Well I guess fresh tomatoes start .there’s nothing like them right off the vine..and things like zucchini, and I guess ice cream, which I don’t grow, I’d like to but I haven’t found the secret.

Which foods make you think of fall?

I have a wonderful pumpkin soup recipe which I brought from Australia…when we went to Australia it was March, but it was their fall, and everywhere we went they served us pumpkin soup! I don’t like pumpkin pie. I don’t like pie.

What foods make you think of winter?

Probably the food that I’ve either bottled or made into jam, and then of course turkey and Christmas dinner. Not much grows in winter, so it’s usually preserved food.