HANDWRITTEN RECIPE COLLECTION FOR MUSKOKA, ONTARIO, AND CANADA
SO WHAT’S THE BIG DEAL ABOUT HANDWRITTEN RECIPES? IS IT IMPORTANT ENOUGH, IN THE GRAND SCHEME OF WORLD HISTORY, IN COOKERY HERITAGE AS A WHOLE, THAT IT WARRANTS ITS OWN WEB SITE? WELL, READ ON AND DECIDE FOR YOURSELF!
HANDWRITTEN RECIPE COLLECTION FOR MUSKOKA, ONTARIO, AND CANADA
SO WHAT’S THE BIG DEAL ABOUT HANDWRITTEN RECIPES? IS IT IMPORTANT ENOUGH, IN THE GRAND SCHEME OF WORLD HISTORY, IN COOKERY HERITAGE AS A WHOLE, THAT IT WARRANTS ITS OWN WEB SITE? WELL, READ ON AND DECIDE FOR YOURSELF!
Note: An eleven issue exclusive feature series, on cookery heritage, will be published in the Ontario travel and tourism magazine, "Curious: The Tourist Guide," from February 2010 to December 2010). The editorial material is different than what appears on this website.
By Ted Currie with technical assistance and photography by Robert Currie, both of Muskoka History Resources, Gravenhurst, Ontario.
"I can remember as a rookie reporter, suffering dearly for my craft back in the late 1970's, driving hundreds of miles on assignments in the West Muskoka area for our newspaper, The Georgian Bay-Muskoka Lakes Beacon, in MacTier. In the winter, while it was as picturesque as any place on earth, with an illuminated mantle of snow on the evergreen woodlands, the demands of driving were extreme. The conditions often times more than just a tad dangerous. Even though I was a pretty experienced driver, some of the conditions warranted turning back and waiting for the snowplow to clear the way first," Ted Currie wrote in a recent journal about his memories of being a cub reporter for the lolocal press. "The editor had a deadline to meet so there wasn’t a lot of flexibility. I got stuck a lot!
"Traveling the country lanes of Muskoka, particularly in the early evening, just as the moonlight had begun its winter haunting over the old farmhouses, I used to occupy myself by imagining what was going on in these rural kitchens that I, a hungry reporter, might sincerely enjoy if by chance, invited to stop over. I still do this today when Suzanne and I are out on an antiquing adventure. It’s the dinner hour that always fascinates me. Just as it did when I was a lonely single, working through dinner, and driving past these historic, friendly looking abodes with their twinkling lights, visible candles and oil lamps engaged on the tables. I imagined the wonderful cuisine being prepared in that farm kitchen, and I suppose it was, as a writer, the catalyst for many kitchen related feature articles from that point.....and from that perspective; the passerby looking in and wishing that instead of driving past, I might instead, and as a real treat, be invited to partake of the evening’s cuisine.
"While putting most concentration on the state of the open road, I kept myself awake with this kitchen fare curiosity. I could so vividly imagine grand harvest tables with a crispy, brown, sage covered old Tom Turkey sitting there all hot and buttered, awaiting the carver’s first cut. I could visualize the sideboard loaded with pickles and sweet relishes, a bowl of steaming dressing, and big vessels of squash or turnip. It was a case when imagination was my best advantage, as in a lot of these motor trips, I was pretty much broke and heading home to a somewhat empty cupboard. It was the way many reporters operated in my day, the printed word being far more important than contented tummies. We sacrificed for our craft. I wasn’t much of a cook anyway. But imagining such wonderful fare was within my creative licence anyway, and it didn’t cost me a cent.
"There were times however, that I arrived to do a story on an anniversary couple, for example, in time for tea and treats. The kind folks of West Muskoka always fed the hungry reporter. I was fed at many events I covered, and for a hungry, lonely guy, many of these get-togethers were more fun than work. I’d get the story, the photograph, and a plate of roast beef courtesy the local Lions Club or a recreation group hosting a fundraiser. I was food-conscious as a writer and I guess it was a natural progression then to wrap-up my years in journalism, composing websites about recipes and dining traditions here in Muskoka.
"Imagining what was going on in these farm kitchens wasn’t too much of a stretch for me, as I visited many houses of friends with my parents, during my formative years, and watched as hosts of events prepared their food. I wasn’t satisfied with just eating the local fare but I wanted to see how it came about. I can remember looking in the kitchens and seeing the chaos of preparation, and saw clear evidence of handwritten recipes strewn on the counter-tops, as if they had been both the first and last defense of a really good dinner party. I loved all the hub-bub associated with kitchens......a fetish? I don’t think so but it has been a pretty powerful and life-long addiction to the culture of the kitchen.
The author in me was fascinated by both what I could see, and could not (and had to imagine instead), in these warm kitchen windows, in the farmhouses and neat little homesteads and cottages, I passed quickly by on my reporting jags through the Ontario hinterland. I would love to have visited each one, and experienced not only the food but the family aura that made the kitchens such fabulous places to hole-up; especially when all else in the daily routine became tiresome and oppressive. I felt like that a lot. Alas, when I got home, well, there was just something missing. A partner for one. I had just recently been dumped by a long time girlfriend, and admittedly I was a wee bit despondent about this sudden change of life. As part of the settlement of the relationship, she got the friends, and kitchen gatherings of old mates became pretty thin after this. It was pretty much my cat "Animal," a few hockey mates who dropped over for beer when they heard I had a few, and small social events that were not quite culinary extravaganzas. I did give it the old college try but there always seemed to be something missing. I knew I had to make some changes because this wasn’t my concept of a good life. A good life was having a home where people wanted to visit; and an abode that had the kind of kitchen that would attract a country fiddler at the same time as comforting a poet philosopher, a political wannabe, an out of work store clerk, a maiden in distress, a bartender with a night off, or a flutist looking to entertain. I wanted my place to be a safe haven, where over a good feast the problems of the world would be debated and resolved.
"It is wrong and sexist for me to say it was my partner Suzanne who made all the difference. As a home economist by profession, it’s true, she made me cease eating potato chip and oyster sauce sandwiches, (a lowly reporter’s quick fix before another meeting) and turned me against processed food in return for lemon chicken, casseroles to die for, roast beef that melted in my mouth.....and desserts that were heavenly. Suzanne helped me refine my kitchen fantasies. I begged her to allow me to participate in food preparation......even if that meant being offered a seat to watch. I am a pretty fair cook of basic foods now, thanks to her tutorship for all these years. And it brought to our combined home, here at Birch Hollow, a true joy for time spent in preparation of food, as much as in its ceremonial consumption as the glorious end to the cooking adventure.
When I’m out on a winter junket now, I still can’t help looking longingly into the distant windows of old cheerfully appointed farmhouses, and those neat little bungalows tucked into the snowy landscape, bathed with the moonlight’s milky glow, and wonder about the respective dinner fare being served to the eager inhabitants tonight. What time tested recipes might have been employed to make these hot dishes, and the cake under glass on the oak sideboard? An idealist? A Rockwelian hold-out? A spirit encased in sentiment? You bet! When I come upon these handwritten recipes, some more than a century old, well folks, I just can’t help myself....I just get lost in time and tradition but I always return in time for dinner."
(The following was written by Ted Currie in early 2000, as part of a cookery heritage feature series he was working on for the local Muskoka press)
JUST A PIECE OF CRUMPLED PAPER WITH CHOCOLATE FINGERPRINTS!
If you have never before had the time honored pleasure, of sitting in that soot-ingrained pine rocker, at hearthside, and beyond the comforting cadence of rocker on wooden floor, heard the snapping of dry cedar, and inhaled good and long the vapors of a simmering country stew, then you have missed a wondrous part of social-cultural, and yes, culinary history. Within that iron workhorse of the farmstead kitchen, the roar of fire is what kept mankind going on this rugged frontier of Upper Canada....known for its rock and forests, short seasons, and isolation in those pioneer years of the 1850's onward. It was that fire the farmers, the loggers, the travellers, the young and old came home to, out of the storm, to be caressed by its permeating heat, tantalized to near intoxication by the aroma of meat and gravy, newly harvested carrots and potatoes; while modest in portion but appointed with the good graces of a fine cook and a firm hand with ladle. The homestead cook made do with what was available and conserved from the past harvest. It was creative cookery at its root. It was filling and sustaining to a strained body, forced to labor on another day, another year, another decade for modest harvests. The old cookstove evokes so many recollections of the simple pleasures of the gathering place...... the kitchen, where a day’s chores were rewarded, adventures regaled, stories told and retold, kin and friends held steadfast by food, hot drink and warmth of hearth. If you’ve had the pleasure of sitting in such a room in the company of an old cookstove, a fire within, then you will find this web site a nostalgic reflection of old kitchen values and traditions.......and the provenance of the old handwritten recipes that your grandmother, or mother kept folded for safe keeping in the cupboard above the cluttered counter. The old and gnarled piece of paper, with the beautiful handwriting, that after all these years, still carries the aroma of the spices she gently dispensed into the yellow mixing bowl with the rest of the Christmas pudding in creation. Welcome to our humble and modestly appointed website, on the subject of handwritten heirloom recipes, from the historians of Birch Hollow Antiques, and Muskoka History Resources of Gravenhurst, Ontario. Just use your imagination, and settle down for a wee respite, in that accommodating old fireside rocker. Hope you enjoy your visit!
My Start as a Collector
In 1974 I began collecting old bottles. It’s what I could afford at the time. My investment was what you might call "sweat equity." I did all the work, and there were a few tangible rewards at the end of the dig. I dug-out old glass and pottery remnants from the depths of long grown-over dumpsites, throughout the Muskoka region. I had an insatiable appetite for discovery, and there was a real adrenalin rush when a torpedo soda bottle or an intact cobalt-blue vessel poked through the debris of the ages. It was hard work and you could cut yourself badly if you weren’t careful in these debris fields. I liked to work alone and it was amazing how a day would fly by when it seemed only a few hours spent on-site.
While still studying history at University, in Toronto, and on a baloney and mustard diet, the starvation budget students know well, I found that in heart I was willing to sacrifice food money to invest in history. I went on to collect oil lamps and although I couldn’t afford a bullseye lamp or a nice vintage blue or green lamp base, there was no shame on this student’s budget, to acquire a nicely conserved farm lamp, at auction......., that was made for utility not decoration. I’m still this way today, when I chase down antiques and collectibles that were critical homestead pieces, versus items that were pretty much for decorative purposes moreso than critical function. I still have about fifty old lamps in operation, and this November I’ve been heating our kitchen, livingroom and two bedrooms upstairs with only five lamps, employed for six or so hours a day. In fairness it hasn’t been too cold yet but I could ramp it up to six lamps if needed. This is slightly off topic of course, which I’m famous for!
I’ve collected chairs, quilts, photographs, books, old paper, cameras, old glass, hockey cards, nostalgia and just about anything else that reminds me of times past. As an antique dealer, who occasionally puts profit ahead of acquisition, my collecting and selling has always been influenced by supply, demand, and the competition in my ballywick.... which at present is more aggressive than I can remember since opening my first antique venture in Bracebridge back in 1977, shortly after graduating from York University. I took that degree in Canadian history and applied it to antiques and collectibles.......when truthfully, sensibly and for profit, I should have used it as a ledge to reach for a teaching degree. I gave up job security for a career in adventure and speculation. My business and life partner Suzanne is a teacher, so I live vicariously through her classroom situations. Alas, for my own constitution and impatience, I think I made a good career choice. I would far sooner be out on the hustings, hunting through flea markets and antique shops, than lecturing disinterested students on something they don’t care about. I was a terrible student, and I hated to be confined. It was the making of a career hunter-gatherer!
As a result of fierce competition out on the antique trail, I’ve had to change disciplines many times in order to meet the needs of both business and budget. I’ve simply had to divert my attention away from quilts and furniture, oil lamps, vintage glass, and books due to price increases, and general shortages of supply. In part of course, caused by too many dealers and collectors fishing from a small pond. There were many, many more auctions when I began my business than there are today. I have always found auctions to be more fruitful than the cross-region antique sweep. I could fill a van with auction finds but come home with only a few found items even after a several hundred mile buying trip.
The paper trail I hadn’t expected
As a book dealer, who frequently purchased upwards of twenty or more full boxes at estate auctions, it was typical to quadruple my investment when all was said and done. Not only could I find a dozen big money books but there were other treasures within. It was common to be able to find historic documents, photographs and war-time letters that I could sell over and above the books themselves. This was the buyer’s bonus. I used to find lots of paper collectibles and nostalgia tucked neatly into the texts, put there for safekeeping over the many decades they belonged to the family. (I have returned many documents to family that should not have been included in these job-lot acquisitions, and I have donated other important found articles to museums). Suzanne reminds me that we’ve often made more money selling the found pieces, old movie and sports programs, hockey and baseball cards, war letters, postcards, and stamps than from the books themselves. In the case of old cookbooks we found jammed into the boxes, it wasn’t uncommon to come upon a selection of gnarled handwritten recipes. Sometimes we’d find up to a hundred jammed between the pages of the larger cookbooks. There really wasn’t much of a market for them but I decided to set them aside until we could figure out what to do with the small collection. Our pile of these cookery relics started to get pretty impressive and interesting, and curiously the more we found, the more attention we paid to cookery heritage. A general eagerness to seek them out at sales initiated an unanticipated momentum that has led to this current research project. Many collectors can attest to this manifestation of interest that can happen quite by accident, changing an otherwise steadfast collecting mission in favor of another....which could be a complete opposite from anything you’ve pursued previously. As my wife and I were both fond of kitchen collectibles to begin with, and knew how to market paper nostalgia, it wasn’t a far stretch to then realign ourselves to old recipes. As a collector you’re always in a wee bit of a quandary, as to why it took so long to adopt a collecting interest that seemed so naturally suited.
Every year we add several hundred more finds to the pile and most recently we decided it was time to invite others into our handwritten recipe adventures. So here it is. What began as "old paper with sundry fingerprints, leftover icing, chocolate, scented of spice and sugars, tumbling out of old books into our laps, has become one of the most interesting collecting ventures we’ve ever enjoyed." It is a fascinating study of ethnicity, religion, cultural and social traditions, regionalism, nationalism and everything in between. While many take little notice of these handwritten treasures, once you understand the provenance attached, and appreciate the heart, soul, and necessities of the specific writer (cook), they clearly become important links in culinary history.
What seems to be a deficiency of condition to most collectors, who consider the world begins and ends with everything being in "pristine" condition, a pile of beat-up, torn, water and ingredient contaminated pieces of paper wouldn’t, by appearance, seem worth much to anyone.....even the household cook. Well, that’s where my history degree finally kicked in, and my experience with museums commanded a more in-depth investigation of their potential work as culinary heritage items. To say they have been undervalued at large, is a huge and glaring understatement. These important social, cultural heirlooms, tell us a great deal about times past, and it pains us to think about how many thousands handwritten recipes, dating back centuries, have been destroyed because they were considered totally valueless......when in fact it was the opposite that held true.
So What Makes Them Relevant Historical Items?
After attending a fundraising flea market, several years ago (2007), at a local branch of the Royal Canadian Legion, in Bracebridge, Ontario, and having purchased many boxes of old books, we came home and (with that sense of adventure for discovery) sat out on our verandah looking through the mix of hardcover and softcover texts. There was even a full box of old recipe booklets, our pride and joy, and we had soon made quite a substantial pile of handwritten recipes of all shapes and sizes, and on all kinds of varied surfaces. We came upon one completely hand done recipe binder dating from the 1930's. Tucked into these pages were dozens of folded-up recipes and when we started to add them to the pile of others, Suzanne reminded me that we were, in this case, upsetting the provenance of the book, and that we should, as curators of this collection, keep the recipes together because this is how they were found. We didn’t hold the same reservation about recipes in published cookbooks unless there was provenance attached...such as a name, address, and relevance to a region, such as with a church or community cookbook often used as a fundraiser. As much as possible it was important to know somewhat where these recipes came from, and who had passed them down through the ages.
One of most interesting acquisitions came long before we had even considered collecting handwritten recipes for fun or profit. Suzanne and I purchased a large volume of cookbooks from a Windermere (Lake Rosseau) estate; a well known woman who loved to cook and asked for, and received, many recipes from others in the community over a half century or more. When we started to take a more thorough look through the amazing collection of recipes, it was a truly remarkable entry into a culinary time machine. Suzanne even recognized some of her own mother’s recipes that had been given to the woman, so she could quickly attest as to how good each one tasted. (My wife Suzanne was raised in Windermere, Ontario). Some from this collection came from the late 1800's, and we are confident the woman had acquired these from local church rummage sales over the years, as they seemed to go well beyond what we recognized as her family connections (roots) in the region. There were names penned onto the tops of about twenty of the oldest recipes that confirmed our suspicions. There was a lot to be garnered from these neatly folded recipes from another century.
There were many recipes from this local collection that got us thinking about the patina of household, farmstead and homestead cookery. It was seeing fingerprints of smudged chocolate, residue of cocoa, icing sugar, cinnamon, cloves, sage, cranberry juice trails, the tell-tale droplets of chicken and turkey grease, touches of farm fresh butter, cream, and vegetable imprints from falling ingredients between stove, pan, pot, bowl and plate. In some cases, and despite years of being folded-up in old cookbooks, you could still smell the culinary heritage they represented. We thought this was absolutely marvelous. We could imagine so many wonderful occasions from open fireplace cookery.....Irish stew steaming in suspended iron pots, to simmering soups upon the great iron horses of the kitchen....the old cookstoves. It gave us reason to imagine the dire straits of the home cook, to make a meal of substance from a few ingredients, during the hard years of war and Depression. It allowed us to wander in thought back to the harvest canning that went on in so many houses in this country, in preparation for long winters and poor economy. What appeared to be worthless pieces of paper from another era, contained more than just good culinary advice and instruction. If the soul of any good home is the kitchen, we had a lot of soul survivors imprinted on these ragged old recipes pages. They did talk to us in that subtle way history repeats for those willing to pay attention.
Long before there were compilations of recipes, which of course dates back many centuries, advise on cookery when not orally passed from cook to cook, was imprinted in some fashion on some article suited for permanent record. Compilations had to come from some place, and it was thusly in the form of these passed-on and passed-down records (recipes in written form) that eventually made it to such bound editions for eventual public consumption. Although we are a long way from cookery historians, and make no challenge to the authority and record that exists, it would have been hard to have any compilation, any recipe book, without an abundant and re-generating source, which obviously could be both oral and written. Once the compilation cookbook took individual recipes and lumped them together for the meals of the day, (standby fare recorded from popular roadhouses, hotels and taverns to homestead mainstays) the lowly handwritten pieces became immediately irrelevant.....except if you couldn’t afford the cookbooks. And even when these inaugural compilations were published, they were unlikely, due to limited supply and expense, to make the required reading lists of the general population.....the cooks in these household units still very much depending on their humble and plain collections of heirloom recipes. In fact, they had been so relied-on for so many centuries, that they were folded up and otherwise inserted in the cookbooks that were published and cheaply obtained......clear evidence that they were still a trusted and relied-upon kitchen helper regardless of being ripped, stained, gnarled and greasy. And afterall, you didn’t dare throw out Grandma’s special recipe for Christmas cake or pudding, because everyone in the family knew full well.......it was a seasonal milestone revered by the generations; certainly not to be equaled regardless of another parallel recipe‘s prestige stature, even if gayly bound between fancy cover stock, in the very next blockbuster cookbook to make the rounds. That’s why we can still find hundreds of recipes folded into published cookbooks.......obviously showing this reluctance to adopt the new without consultation with the old, tried and tested.
When you study the handwritten recipes, on cards, backs of calender sheets, reverse sides of product labels, cardboard, invoices etc., you wonder about all the important life events and milestones passed, that these cookery helpers assisted in the cause of sustenance. How many family gatherings were fed with the assistance of these same dog-eared remnants of cookery once. How many daughters and grand-daughters were ecstatic to receive these hand-made recipe compilations, in loose-leaf binders and other ramshackle coverings from cloth to board, from mothers and grandmothers in the name of good and healthy housekeeping. These compilations were considered precious survival necessities, back a few decades......heirlooms of generations in respective family histories. They were coveted. Loved, adored, and called upon constantly to sort out a good meal to suite an occasion.....the selection of a main course to feed the masses, to honor the special person of the day, and engage the festival of the season. With the kind of food that inspires full and total consumption with nary a morsel leftover. How many times had that cookery bible been open at stove-side to save the day?
We have found recipes written in beautiful script, the penmanship flawless, dating back to the mid 1800's, to the hastily scribbled notes made on the back of brochures, tickets and maps, by travelers, having exchanged recipes on layovers or in hiatus calms, after, for example a fine dining experience, when a charitable cook shared a guarded family recipe. We have found recipes written on newspaper margins of published recipes cut from broadsheets and magazines, recipes penned onto menus scoffed from restaurants, cookery notes on memo pads, appointment cards, cereal box cardboard, hydro, water and telephone invoices, cash register receipts, and many others actually written on the inside cover pages of published cookbooks.
We have discovered artist sketches with recipes on the back, the reverse side of store coupons, legal notices, photographs and greeting cards, that we suppose were just handy open spaces to write upon when a recipe somehow, or from someone, came into conversation. We can find many advertising message sheets that have recipes scribbled onto them, from phone conversations between culinary artists. We have examples of recipes written onto the corners of otherwise full letters, and so many other misshapen box lids, torn paper and newspaper sheets that were used in emergency circumstances to jot down the ingredients of a hastily passed-along recipe.....maybe between riders on a streetcar, written down between stops. Recipes were so important, they needed to be conserved by any means possible it seems. And that makes them fascinating to us who collect them.
While we have, over the years, attempted to confine our collection of handwritten recipes to ones found in Muskoka, it really wasn’t as practical generally, if we were only thinking of the local culinary culture.....because right from the homesteading commencement of our region in the 1850's, the recipes were international anyway. The settlers in Muskoka brought with them culinary customs and creations from Scotland, England, Ireland, Iceland, Norway, Germany, Holland, Sweden and the Ukraine. It was one thing to protect the provenance of a particularly antiquated cookbook, with all of its interesting inserts, but far more difficult to find a truly inspired Muskoka cuisine adapted specifically by use of the local fare, eg. wild game......and as we have found in research, like the rest of the settlers from the wider Europe, recipes were modified from the old country to the new frontier’s realities.....with some minor exceptions such as cooking animals killed in hunting ventures that weren’t abundant or common in other parts of the world; and that the recipe collection trundled overseas didn’t adequately address. Such as possibly Muskoka bear stew etc. Still a meat that was accessible in the old country version, would serve as the framework of a good meal with new ingredients. Obviously there were Muskoka inspired recipes that utilized locally harvested berries and fish that did necessitate a few profound changes to recipes of yore. Much of the heirloom recipes however, have that old world flavor yet of old England for example, and if made to the precise measure and ingredients, would satisfy even the staunchest critic of traditional British fare. Yet you just know that the recipe has been tweaked many times by the generations to serve the taste of the family.....maybe the addition of more rum instead of less in the old plum pudding, to help fend off the Muskoka winter chill!
At first this collection of old paper relics of a cookery half forgotten, given away and discarded, seems more of a burden to house than its combined weight is worth to the modern world. And yet with the faint scent of cinnamon and ginger, sprinkled accidentally upon the paper more than a hundred years previous, there is most definitely a reason to ponder a wee bit more about just what they represent in the social-cultural, cookery advancements of us all......throughout our respective family histories. For every kid who has sat patiently at the kitchen table, watching the big pot of stew simmering hour after hour on a cold winter’s eve, the scent of the most succulent gravy, the most tender beef and fresh carrots comes forth with grand invigoration of the senses. A vision restored by the slightest, most subtle sensation that a ghost of kitchens’ past, has wafted across the harvest table like the scent of freshly baked cookies......and at once you recall the old frayed book mom used to pull out from the cupboard above the drying rack that must have contained the secrets to all the delectable food that fed us all of those years. Seeing that book again can’t help but stir the proverbial stew pot.......making you wish you had bowl in hand now to accept the very next ladle-full sent around the dining room table. How can you not cherish those moments.....those warm and comforting vigils around the rolling year?
Where this collector first found his inspiration for kitchen culture
When I was growing up as the typically unrepentantly precocious, demanding, Denis-The-Menace type kid, gad-abouting in the Town of Burlington, Ontario (circa late 1950's, early 60's), my parents had to leave me with a babysitter in order to work at their respective jobs in Hamilton and Toronto. Anne Nagy was the Brigadier-General of babysitters.....she had already raised her family and with husband Alec, owned the apartment we lived in up on Harris Crescent, a short hike to the shore of Lake Ontario where the deep bellow of fog-horns haunted me through childhood. Anne ran a tight ship and I wasn’t the only wee one she tended during the day, and
it was made crystal clear her rules were not to be circumvented, bypassed, ignored or debated as I love to do. If she set the bounds, well, we colored between the lines you might say. And while she was strict and that was okay, she allowed me one privilege the others couldn’t have cared less about. She’d allow me to watch and assist in her day’s culinary adventures.
Anne Nagy was a fabulous cook. Of Hungarian stock, I believe, she brought the old world to my world which was pretty much Irish-English, Canadian fare. From her tiny apartment kitchen she whipped up meals, desserts, preserves that would make you blind with anticipation.....she was so kind as to give me samples along the way to dinner time. Her pies were incredible and she started my life-long passion for cabbage rolls. When we sat down to eat one of her famous soup creations, that you really could stand a spoon upright in, Alec would cut a huge slab of still steaming bread, smack on a chunk of fresh butter, and hand it to me with clear intent. While I held the bread in my tiny hand, watching what my partner was going to do next, Alec winked and let his chuck hit the soup with full vigor. It sopped up the broth like a sponge, and he took a bite out of the bread the size of my outstretched fingers. After his first mouthful, and a look of sheer delight, he looked me straight in the eye and said with conviction, "Teddy, this is how we eat our food in this house....go ahead....dunk that bread and enjoy the best soup in the world." Or something like that. And I followed suit and had nary a regret. I did have a lot of soup on my shirt and on the table, and of course dripping off my chin. Alec seemed quite pleased with my full endorsement of his good wife’s culinary enterprise. We had many grand lunches together over the years of my childhood, and it made me a kitchen-lover from then to now.....when I still love to be a part of whatever culinary delight is in preparation......and whether it is the handiwork of my partner Suzanne, a fabulous cook, or the fine food preparation by our rising star chef, son Robert, who can make a gourmet hamburger that truly tastes "out of this world."
Anne Nagy never chased me out of the kitchen. She allowed me to watch and learn....and sample. My favorite was to be awarded the apple peelings when she was making a pie. The locally grown apples were beautiful, even the peels. I was allowed to stir pots of simmering sauces, add ingredients, measure liquids, and roll dough for pie crusts. She may have treated me as a kid when I acted like one but it was her welcoming actions in culinary arts that gave me a heads-up about the wonderful adventures of life and times yet to come. I knew that in my house, the kitchen would be its soul.....always inviting, nurturing, and practical. And it would always have a sentimental aura to it, in part, from the rumpled old folder of handwritten recipes, like the one Anne Nagy used to have opened on the counter during those memorable and enchanting sessions.....my introduction to passed down traditions, good food, and lasting friendships. In the kitchen, every event was a festival of creation. The outcome.....well, you tell me what could be finer for a wee lad than a fresh-from-the-oven chocolate-chip cookie on a bitterly cold day.....with a cup of hot chocolate as a chaser. I had it good. Real good. When I see some of these old and dear recipes, so elegantly handwritten and with the provenance of sugar and spice, it’s hard not to get a little teary eyed about the good old days.
We have not created a thorough or conclusive study of handwritten recipes, or provided a complete and reliable history. It is our own perspective offered here not to be confused with a multi-year thesis based on thousands of hours of painstaking research on the subject. This is just a reminder-site so to speak, that hopefully will make you give a little consideration to those old recipe books and handwritten pieces you inherit, purchase or otherwise find while out antiquing, and the importance of conserving this kitchen lore for future generations. They are museum pieces by all means but darn it all.....they’re not meant to be housed in a glass showcase. They were meant to be utilized and enjoyed. And so they should. We have tried many of our found recipes and with exception of measurement conversions, where admittedly we have erred on occasion, most have turned out wonderfully. Keep in mind that some recipes, handwritten or printed in books can be wrong by the fact of simple accidental exclusion, so it pays to have parallel recipes on hand for comparison purposes.
We have selected a cross section of vintage handwritten recipes, penned onto a variety of materials, in a wide array of shapes and sizes, all of which we have found in the Muskoka region of Ontario. We have included some of our oldest and most interesting for your examination.
They have not all been tested so we strongly suggest you don’t follow them as such, to avoid the disappointment of a failed attempt.
Feel free to contact us about our collecting interest, and please feel free to share your observations and opinions on the subject. We will be adding to this site regularly with more information gathered, and stories collected while on our regional travels in Ontario, and will present any new handwritten recipe finds for readers’ benefit.
Published below is a small sampling from our thousands of handwritten recipes, most collected within the past ten years from the District of Muskoka, Ontario. Our major acquisitions so far have come from Windermere, Port Carling, Huntsville, Gravenhurst, and Bracebridge.
You can contact us at the email address birch_hollow@sympatico.ca. You can do an online search of our other Muskoka websites and blogs. Thanks for visiting our kitchen heritage website.
WHAT THESE HANDED-DOWN RELICS TELL US ABOUT THE PAST
It was the 1960's in our Burlington, Ontario apartment. Every Sunday, with the exception of Sundays that fell on Christmas, Easter or Thanksgiving, our family had a roast beef dinner. Otherwise it was turkey or ham. It topped off a day of "family togetherness," my mother Merle used to kid. Well it was like this..... when there was a sports event on television, on a Sunday afternoon, it was the Currie family definition of togetherness. All three of us watching hockey, football, baseball or golf, and the crowning grace of God’s day as I knew it, was a fine roast beef dinner with Yorkshire Pudding, and the best gravy in town; with leftovers for the next three days. And for years after that the only significant change was that my dad Ed, took over the cooking, while mother Merle sat and watched them slug it out on the grid-iron. My father loves to cook to this day, and he has been responsible for every major holiday meal for decades. His own cookery notes are treasures to him, and poke out of the pages of all his favorite kitchen-side books. Most of us can remember seeing those tell-tale single sheet recipes, awkwardly jutting out from cook books whether at grandmother’s house, or our great-aunt’s abode, at the homes of friends and neighbors who maintained a private stock of tried, tested and proven recipes handed down to them over the decades from family hands.
When we are out on the old book hustings, chasing down elusive titles for customers, and attempting to find the holy grail hidden in a trillion hardcovers, I always get a little emotional when all of a sudden, I find a cookbook at the bottom of a box, or buried on a shelf in a second hand shop that looks like the one my dad owns, or one I can remember grandmother having in her jam-packed kitchen in Toronto. As soon as you open these books, the assorted loose recipes begin falling out, and scattering over the floor, just as they did for the main cook for time and time, almost as if a cookery tradition itself. I can instantly smell the foods this book was around, and detect traces of icing sugar, spices, particularly cloves and cinnamon that can linger for years. There may be handwritten recipes for Christmas cake or pudding, a tuna casserole, cranberry muffins, grandma’s fudge, or a souffle; an angel cake, chocolate chip cookies or blueberry pie.
I think then what a shame there was no one else in this family who would have appreciated the provenance of this wonderful book, with all its margin notes, clippings and inserted recipes, written by family and others sent from friends; to be included in the cookery rotation of good food prepared in the humble household kitchen. Like a cast-off family photo album, which I buy when available, Suzanne and I come to the rescue, and give this particular cookbook or recipe folio a new and appreciative home. We adore looking through the recipes while imagining the person(s) who spent so many hours compiling these directions....asking questions of friends and neighbors, and adding ingredients in side margins when a recipe may not have worked as transcribed.....and needed a little tweaking to make perfect. The very sight of a chocolate or jam coated fingerprint, on one of these recipes, makes us want to start baking in tribute to this tantalizing cookery heritage. All the time pondering who it was who penned this recipe, to be passed along through the decades. We’d think it okay if a ghost of a cook past, came with the recipe. We think we’ve got a half dozen kitchen ghosts already. We love the company!
I’ve been to many modern homes with amazing state of the art kitchens. Just as many seem cold, unfriendly, and quite uninviting. While it’s true that they are more efficient than trying to bake on an old belching cookstove, with a log snapping with sparks in the box, the very fact you can’t find a single handwritten recipe protruding from one of the neatly lined-up cookbooks, on a tightly budgeted shelf, is evidence to me of a soul-less environs. If I can’t find a stove-side rocker either, or an old gnarled cat curled up at its base, a kitten staring out the kitchen window, and a stack of askew, almost cover-less cookbooks, I’m not likely to stay long. I like haunted kitchens, and that doesn’t mean they can’t be new either. I like old utensils, copper pots and pans all over the place, sealer jars full of colorful preserves from the last harvest, big wooden ladles in enormous stew pots, steam wafting with the aroma of beef and gravy, and Yorkshire puddings spilling up and out of their trays, as anxious as I am for dinner. I want traces of flour on the counter and cookie cutters prepared for Christmas baking. Most of all, I want an open cookbook with a half dozen hand written recipes cluttering the work space, foretelling of food preparation yet to come. Call it a writer’s creative licence but this is what makes a kitchen the best place in a house. It’s the accumulated provenance of family and togetherness, and yes indeed it reminds me of my own childhood. It reminds me of going to my grandmother’s house where a pot of soup or stew was always simmering on the stove, ready at a moment’s notice, to be used to feed a hungry throng......something she had learned from the War and Depression years, when she helped neighbors and travelers down on their luck. No one was turned away from my grandparents doorstep without getting sustenance. If you were a stranger, a few minutes in her kitchen and you were kin. It was that simple, that gracious and wonderful. That was as much a healing place as it was for securing nourishment. A sanctuary for sipping a hot brew and warming from the cold.....a chilled glass of lemonade as refreshment on a hot summer day.
Our home kitchen here at Birch Hollow is modest in proportion, and jammed to capacity with everything we love as cookery traditionalists. It sometimes has a rocker within unless we’re running short of floor space at the time. There is always a cat or two nestled somewhere by the china cupboard and the back door. There are cookery antiques and collectibles, preserves on shelves and big yellow mixing bowls awaiting the next assignment. There are many, many cookbooks, with a wide array of recipes and notes protruding that have just as much importance in our kitchen today, as they did in my wife’s great-grandmother’s house a century ago. We wouldn’t think of tidying these relics up, or stacking them neatly away to keep up with some new order of things....some attempt at neatness for appearances. This room is a working kitchen....not as big as my grandmothers, or Suzanne’s family’s, but our boys found it just big enough, when it came to watching mom make gingerbread men for Christmas, chocolate bunnies at Easter, and pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving. Just now she has taken out a steaming hot pan of brownies, and as an old man.....I am instantly a child again. Clear evidence there is a heaven on earth!
Enjoy cookery heritage.
THE VALUES OF HANDWRITTEN RECIPES
Inevitably the monetary value of these handwritten recipes becomes an issue to those seeking out resources and information, regarding the dynamics of collecting them......, individually or in lots, as they say for fun or profit. There is a market for these handwritten heirlooms and there are some established values, as for example bundles of recipes frequently sold on ebay. As averages, seeing as we don’t purchase recipes from outside the region, we can only suggest that you will have to do your homework by studying the online offerings, and tracking the outcomes....the final sale prices attained.
As regional collectors there is generally a price increase in the area they represent.....as Muskoka District collectors, we would market any pieces that have significant local provenance
to our collector friends, who have a strong bias toward locally attached collectibles. There would be a substantial value-added to a collection of handwritten recipes, for example, which came from a former cook at a well known historic resort on the Muskoka Lakes, or Lake of Bays. One such example would be Bigwin Inn on Lake of Bays. Not only would a bundle of these recipes attract the attention of collectors generally, who admire handwritten pieces, but the added significance of having been used to feed many important guests to the resort over decades, would increase the value substantially for local watchers.
As well, a collection of recipes from a known celebrity, politician, writer, musician, the list goes on and on, can be expected to attract an added audience of potential bidders / buyers because of association with a primary career. Just imagine if you could get a hold of handwritten recipes from the artistic hand of Canadian painter Tom Thomson.....now that would be "value-added." Thomson, by the way, was said to be a fabulous cook of basic cuisine, and was known to make a very tasty blueberry pie, baked in a handmade portable convection oven he built to suit campfires, while on painting adventures in Ontario’s Algonquin Park. He was also well known, and revered for his on-shore lunches, when he grilled up the catch of the day. He was an accomplished angler, so pan frying fish was normal fare.
As antique dealers we didn’t in any way, begin collecting handwritten recipes for profit.....not even long term profit, because frankly we didn’t think of them having a monetary side. Well of course they do, but it doesn’t influence us at least at this stage. We began gathering these gems of culinary heritage because they came in the cookbooks we did buy for re-sale. We would tidy up the books and remove the keepsakes from within (only ones that were not important to the integrity of the book, as no name was associated), and over many years, achieved a large inventory simply by placing new finds from auction and estate sales in a catch-all file box. Of course, the more we found, the more we became interested in their own heritage, and over years of contemplation, it led us to this presentation. Still, we’re a long way from being able to attach a responsible value on a collection that is written on stained, ripped, gnarled, dog-eared, and otherwise damaged pieces of scrap paper. None of them are even close to being pristine, and none of them were penned by movie stars, former presidents, prime ministers or even a humble ambassador to somewhere or other. If we did frankly, own pieces with such provenance, I can tell you honestly we would hold them in the same high regard as all the other handwritten recipes that belonged to hard working, creative, resilient homemakers, who provided sustenance for their families through decades of war, depression, recession and restraint......and cheerfully went about the time honored mission of feeding the masses.....at some times on only the most meager provisions. Each one of these handwritten recipes is special in its own way, and a reminder of home and good neighbors, in a good old town.
One of the first major finds, for my wife Suzanne and I, of handwritten recipes, came from the Ewing Farm near Bracebridge, Ontario, back in the mid-1980's. It was a beautiful old farmstead tucked into the rolling hills of the Muskoka Lakes district, surrounded by an array of softwoods and evergreens, wreathing the hillside and valley where the farm buildings fit so perfectly into the landscape. It was one of those horrendous, memorable times, being an antique dealer as well as an historian, that being broke was more than just an acquisition nightmare; it was heartbreaking to have to choose between thousands of historic items going for rock bottom prices, and what was really necessary.
I was forced by this glaring shortfall of funds, to go after the hundreds of boxed books as this was our business staple. The books weren’t in great condition but there were some treasures tucked into the boxes and in the books themselves, which to those who buy auction joblots, can be what makes the purchase profitable. I have found many historic papers in old books that have, on many similar occasions, been worth ten times more than the books within. So having a limited budget that particular day, I had little choice but to focus on the boxes of old books and the treasures within. What I found in those books certainly helped us on the way to collecting handwritten recipes.
The big find, other than some notebooks with recipes, was a mid 1800's farmer’s helper, entitled "The Farmer’s Everyday Book," and by itself, it was a treasure trove of remedies, solutions to farm problems, economic advice, cooking instruction and many, many tips on keeping one’s good health and a close-knit family. It was the hundreds of folded up recipes, a majority handwritten, that most intrigued us with the book. We found many important records of what the homestead meals consisted of, and the economy by which these were created. And while there was no great value attached, other than its social / cultural heritage, it was the place to start a meaningful collection of these handwritten heirloom pieces. In retrospect, I wish I had possessed the money to buy all the kitchen collectibles sold that day, to go with the recipes found in the book. It would have been the foundation of a museum of Muskoka’s homestead cookery.
Like anglers the world over, antique dealers never forget the ones that got away!
WAS THERE A LITTLE DISHONESTY WITH RECIPES OLD GIVEN?
It’s hard to believe there wasn’t a wee bit of skullduggery at play, when some of the handwritten recipes were passed off as a kind gesture between homestead kitchens, to unsuspecting and grateful friends and neighbors. The theme of recipe tampering has found its way onto the script pages of numerous movies and sitcoms dating back to the 1950's but there was a valid point being made none the less. It is known that closely guarded recipes were altered somewhat in the passing-down and passing-along of instructions. Not to intentionally sabotage a recipe but to make it less than the perfect concoction of ingredients and precise preparation. An ingredient with-held? A secret tradition of preparation absent from the list of baking or cooking instructions? Why?
It still goes on today or everybody would be having chicken with the Colonel’s precise recipe. There are guarded secrets on the huge commercial scale and in the home kitchen. It was anticipated that while a recipe would be passed on to a friend or neighbor, what made the recipe particularly delicious could well have been the everso slight deviation made by the home chef. While the recipe still held up without the secret ingredients, it didn’t have the "special something," the cook’s family had enjoyed for generations. So the historian must forgive the cooks of the day for doing what they still do today......maintain a few basic secrets for posterity.
It’s the reason why it’s always a good idea, when making a handwritten recipe that has been untested, that you find a parallel published recipe that has been cleared of miscalculation; and figure out where the deviations or additions enter the mix. There may be only a few tweaks, nothing serious. Or it might be a much larger omission that can have a nasty end result. Remember, if it’s possible to have a widely published error in a cookbook recipe, it is most certainly possible an error could have also occurred, when the ingredients were being transcribed initially. Intentionally or not!
Recipes handed down in a family are usually without the same problems simply because most of them are indeed the originals. Here’s the exception of course, and that is in the case of grandmother having received numerous recipes from friends and neighbors, containing errors or purposely missing notations on preparation. Friends passed recipes constantly, a tradition still in active practice today. If it’s in your grandmother’s handwriting, and a recipe you saw her make, well, you’ve done your due diligence. It’s pretty unlikely that a family member would want to with-hold a secret in the case of a traditional recipe. If on the other hand, a mother passes a recipe on to a less favored daughter-in-law, well, stranger things have happened.
Like Aunt Bea, from the 1960's television series, "Andy of Mayberry," an award winning preserve recipe was worth its weight in gold trophy! And in the county fair circuit, getting an award for cooking / baking / preserving excellence, was a peak of good and prosperous citizenship. I suppose we should forgive those who have guarded these precious handed-down recipes for all these decades. Of all the family secrets afterall, these were the best of the best!
FROM LOGGING CAMP COOKERY TO THE HOMESTEAD KITCHEN
One of the finds I hope to make some day, is to secure, with established provenance of course, a collection of handwritten recipes once used in a Muskoka, Algonquin, Haliburton, or Parry Sound logging camp.
I have researched the earliest logging operations in our region of Ontario, Canada, and have been particularly attracted to the "stick to the bones" creations that were baked, boiled, fried and simmered in those rustic camp kitchens. From the famous baked beans set in iron pots (with lids) beneath the hot ash of open fire pits (to simmer and flavor with ash through the day), to the huge pots of stew and soup on the camp stove......from lamb, beef, pork, chicken, venison and fish to fresh, golden brown bread, delicious pies, cakes, and maple syrup enhancements, all day, every day from the smoky camp kitchens, and outdoor ovens and fires.
It has often been noted, in various late 1800's journals I have read, that in order for a logging camp to keep its workers, the food had to be well above average. There were lots of camps operating in this period in rural Ontario, and word got around about which company was providing the best meals to their loggers. It wasn’t uncommon to have women from nearby homesteads, baking an assortment of breads, cakes and pies to transport to the camps, usually by sleigh; as the winter season was the period of the main cut of timber, and the late season haul across the snow to the shores of rivers and lakes for transport to mills; when the waterways of course were free of ice. Many camps did have outside bake ovens for bread. You can imagine what the scent of freshly baked bread and simmering beans would do to a logger with a budding appetite, invigorated for many long hours by sub zero weather conditions.
Lunches were provided to the men out on the cutting sites and while it held them over until their traditionally late dinner, it was a pretty impatient lot that arrived in the oil-lamp adorned dining hall, after a grueling day of cutting and hauling. A number of loggers, who penned journals, noted that in the stews and soups there was often more fat than anything else....and in the morning, if you were to see the large and deep covering of solidified fat on the surface of the cold remains, it might well make you feel nauseous. One observer noted that the fat was not always skimmed off the stew but rather stirred in for the next day’s offering. At that time it was thought the fat content would help the men better deal with the cold and rigors of the outdoor work. As for heart disease amongst loggers, well, there’s very little evidence of coronary problems. You simply had more chance of being killed, or seriously injured by a felled tree than death due to high fat content from the camp fare. From a long term perspective, you’re quite right to ponder if the shorter lives then, had something to do with excesses from the cooks of the day. What happened in the camps generally happened in the homesteads as well, so yes, fat was part of the nourishment considered a dietary requirement to help one survive between meals.
Most camps did keep up a pretty fair regimen of weekly deliveries to maintain vegetable and dairy supplies. So that unless the weather turned particularly violent for a long period, the camp kitchen received regular loads of that autumn’s garden harvest from a variety of suppliers in the closest communities. Homesteaders might have been able to provide meat and fresh eggs but probably didn’t have the vegetable volume to feed a logging camp. They might have sold the camp an array of preserves, jams, pickled items, cranberries etc. Camps used to have a limited pen of livestock to serve immediate needs of meat supply in particular, and it was common for a group of loggers to take to the field, on free weekends, to hunt and fish where possible, bringing back the catch for the benefit of mates and the camp cook.
I have only read one or two entirely negative stories about the culinary shortfalls of these logging camp kitchens. Most of the overviews straddle the line between good and acceptable, and the truth is, when you’re hungry.....as these folks were at the end of a hard day in the cold, culinary excellence would probably be wasted on the inmates anyway. There is particular attention however, at the deserts made for the loggers, and by most accounts, the freshly baked pies were fit for any fine restaurant the world over. All were baked humbly in wood-fired stoves in less than ideal conditions.
Bones were in plentiful supply, and nothing was thrown out until every last molecule of fat, marrow and flavor was drained out for the soup of the day....a hearty mixture of leftovers and filler. There was talk of deceased horses winding up in the brew, as many fell in the line of duty hauling logs, and were, as a rule, used as an available food resource, to make up any particular shortfall in dietary requirements. I’ve only ever read several of these claims but it certainly isn’t far fetched, and in fact makes perfect sense, to utilize every resource in the isolated circumstances these camps were often situated within. While some camps were close to habitations and suppliers, others were far more remote and needed large shipments of supplies instead of the smaller, frequent ones, for those operations near established villages and homesteads.
The most common negative associated with the logging camps and cookery, was the invasive scent of loggers without benefit of daily, weekly or monthly showers. There did seem to be a balance however, between the pungent aroma of workers and the scent of coal oil lamps, woodsmoke from the belching old stove, and the unmistakable smell of wet wool.....from the array of woolen-wear, coats and pants, hanging up to dry. Then there was the welcome permeation of steaming tea and strong coffee. After awhile, it all became irrelevant, except for the wafting aroma of hot food, which always found an eager appetite despite all the other intrusions of life in a logging camp.
Although I have a number of handwritten recipes that came from families who had kin involved in the logging camps of yore, I can’t say with any assurance these baked beans and stew recipes were once in the hands of the camp cook. One thing’s for sure, the camp cooks must have been a stalwart bunch to have endured the rough comments and reactions of so many critics throughout the day, who always had the company of a good and sharp axe should a complaint need to be registered. I have minor evidence of this fear of real and emotional distress, as camp cooks were changed suddenly to avoid camp revolt. There are other instances that the loggers themselves feared the scorn of the cook, and treated them with great respect and spirits (snuck into the camp) if they were available after hours. Heaven knows what a perturbed cook might add to the recipe if aggravated. It was a tough job regardless and turn over was high in some of the larger camps.
It would be a treasure indeed, to one day come upon a handwritten diary, kept by one of these lumber camp chefs, with an assortment of the daily fare that kept loggers well nourished.
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