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Original Vintage Recipe: 1 cup brown sugar ½ cup butter 2 eggs beaten separately 4 tablespoons sweet milk 2 teaspoons baking powder 1 ¼ cup flour ½ teaspoon vanilla 1 teaspoon almond flavouring Beat well together then fold in lightly 4 cups of Kellogg’s toasted corn flakes, drop on buttered pan. Recipe from Miss. Parker. August 26th, 1923. Our first recipe comes from Miss Parker, Etta Blakely’s daughter, and transports us to her kitchen in 1923. Oh, how things must have changed in 98 years … the types of stoves, kitchen appliances, electricity, and places to get ingredients. Can you imagine milking your cow for milk, churning your butter, or chasing after your chickens to get eggs, all to make some dang cookies! One of the items that has remained the same is Kellogg’s Corn Flakes. This cereal first arrived in Canada in 1914 and continues to appear on families' breakfast tables today. We thought there was no better way than to start off this blog by using this mainstay ingredient. So, let’s get baking… This quick and easy recipe for macaroon cookies will no doubt become an essential part of your own home cookbooks. Since the required ingredients are everyday kitchen staples, all you have to do is dump everything into a bowl. We would recommend that when “dropping” them on to the baking sheet, like Miss Parker explains, you use spoons to help yourself out. I used my hands and … well it got pretty messy. Oops! Since the recipe doesn’t specify exactly how long to bake them for, we experimented with the bake time. I felt like a little kid again, sitting in front of the oven, and peaking in with excitement while expectantly waiting on the treats we just made. We determined that, like most cookies, baking at 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes seemed to be the sweet spot. So, how did they turn out … Although the recipe is simple, both in terms of taste and preparation, the Kellogg’s Toasted Corn Flake Macaroons are delicious! Both Lauren and I agreed that they would be lovely with a nice cup of tea. The Corn Flakes become crunchy on the outer edges but maintained a nice chewy texture in the center. The almond flavour gives them a simultaneous sweet yet savoury and nutty taste. It also made our kitchen smell heavenly (the best bonus of baking!) and Lauren noted that the scent of these cookies was absolutely made for old wooden stoves. We would definitely serve this recipe on Our Vintage Table. - Danielle

Vintage Recipe: Fudge (Made from packaged pudding powder) 1 pkg. cook-and-serve pudding powder, any flavour preferred (Do not use instant pudding!) 1 cup sugar ⅓ cup milk 2 tbsp. butter Combine pudding package, sugar, and milk. Boil slowly until it forms a soft ball in cold water. Remove from heat and add 2 tbsp. of butter. Beat till thick. Pour on buttered pan and score in to squares. Mrs. T.H. Jackman’s Fudge I remember as a kid, Valentines Day was filled with construction paper crafts, mailboxes for cards from class, and candy, lots and lots of candy! So this week’s recipe is all about eating sweets and making a gift for your Valentine… or yourself! This easy fudge recipe is great for the amateur candy maker (Hi, that’s me!), it is quick to make and only calls for 3 ingredients. This simple recipe uses a cook-and-serve pudding package, a nice nod to 50’s cooking, and takes the usual stress of fudge making away. We used butterscotch here, but choose whatever flavour is your favourite! When you combine the ingredients and start the boiling process remember to go LOW and SLOW. It took about 15 minutes to boil the mixture to the right temperature and consistency. When adding the butter at the end, remember to mix vigorously…but don’t lose your spoon in the pot like we did! We recommend using a standard loaf pan lined with parchment paper for easy portioning and removal. Mrs. T.H. Jackman, who provided this recipe in the Farm Women’s Union of Alberta cookbook, first settled with her family in the Ardrossan area in 1902. The family were integral to the formation of both the United Farmers of Alberta (UFA) and United Farm Woman of Alberta (UFWA). Mrs. Jackman and her family have made multiple contributions to the community of Strathcona County for generations. We can see why Mrs. Jackman shared her fudge recipe with the UFWA - a quick indulgent treat for the family. Making a smooth fudge takes practice, and we would be lying if we said our first batches turned out well. But once we got it right it was an excellent treat, especially to share with your Valentine. We would serve this on Our Vintage Table…if made correctly, haha! - Lauren

Hey everyone, Danielle here! You’ve asked to learn a little bit about the people behind this blog so we are happily sharing! A little about me… I am always cold… like, hands are basically icicles. I thrive in 25+ weather which does not bode well considering I live in a place which has 8 months of winter. Bones and skeletons fascinate me. My first degree is in Anthropology and I focused on biological anthropology and archaeology. I am itching to go on another archaeological dig somewhere! I love to learn. Whether that be from school, lectures, museums, articles, books, or physically doing something. I’m a big nerd what can I say… there is something comforting to me knowing that there is something new I can learn. What do you love about food…? The memories associated with food. Some of my happiest memories of my family and friends are intertwined with food. My grandpa (aka Gogo) cooking bacon at the lake when I was little, planting my grandmas garden every spring, Christmas dinners, endless chats over coffee, or wine and cheese in a small Italian town. Food is meant to be shared with loved ones! What is one of your favourite activities…? One of my favourite activities to do is to go to markets. I love to browse and people watch (in a non-creepy way), and markets are the perfect venue for both! There is something special about a hot summer’s day, eating fresh produce, and looking at beautiful pieces. I have made it a point on my travels that I go to a local market! What is one thing you have learned / discovered while working on Our Vintage Table…? How much food rationing affected the daily lives of people. Learning about the ingenuity, sense of community, and how everyone helped each other during these times has been one of the most eye opening experiences. Funny story … I frequently ask my grandparents questions about projects I am working on at the Strathma. One day I asked what cookies they made or ate around the holidays when they were little (late 1930’s/during WWII). My grandma briskly answered, “We didn’t have cookies, we were poor!” Mmm yep, fair enough haha at least she was honest. Danielle's Table Talk Interview

Vintage Recipe: Porcupine Meatballs 1 ½ lbs. beef (ground steak is ideal but hamburger serves very well) ½ cup rice 1 medium onion, chopped 1 tsp salt ½ tsp pepper 1 can tomato soup ½ cup water Wash rice thoroughly. Combine meat, rice, onion and seasonings. Shape into small balls, and place in baking dish or pressure cooker. Pour the soup and water over the meat balls and bake for 1 ½ hours in 350 ֯ F oven, basting with soup mixture frequently, or cook 10 minutes in pressure cooker at 15 lbs. pressure. Being economically savvy was essential for Albertan households during the Dirty 30’s. Using what they had, families created meals that would both nourish and sustain themselves during hard times. One recipe that came from this era was Porcupine Meatballs. This dish combines all the major food groups… meat, grains, vegetables (can you consider tomato soup a vegetable?) into one neat meal. It has an added ‘fun’ factor as the grains of rice poke out from the meatball making it look spikey, hence the name porcupine. This recipe with its everyday ingredients became a family favourite and has graced tables long after the Depression. Families residing in Strathcona County were not spared from the effects of the depression. With a farming economy focusing on wheat and dairy, many families struggled to make ends meet. It is truly amazing how resilient these families were, using and reusing what little they had. We can appreciate women’s ingenuity by trying to feed their families wholesome meals, like porcupine meatballs. The Strathma team sampled the recipe and it was interesting how the dish caused a similar reaction from all of us. We all compared it to our own family’s traditional meatball recipe. Comments were made about what extra seasoning we would add… paprika, garlic, parsley, cumin, or some type of vegetable. But no matter what we exclaimed, it took us to a place of nostalgia. Sitting around mom’s kitchen table sharing a simple meal with the family. It never ceases to amaze me how food can invoke those special memories. We would serve this on Our Vintage Table … BUT make sure to zhuzh it up and make it your own, add some spice!!

Vintage Recipe: Tomatoes, Fried, Green Cut six large green tomatoes in slices one-eighth of an inch in thickness. Beat the yolk of an egg with a tablespoonful of cold water, sprinkle salt and pepper over the tomatoes. Dip first in the egg, then in fine bread crumbs. Fry in butter brown on both sides, and serve with a gravy made as follows. Rub one tablespoonful of flour with two tablespoonfuls of butter. When well creamed brown in a pan, add one-half pint of boiling milk, stir steadily till it begins to thicken, then add teaspoonful of salt and pour over the tomatoes. ____________________________________________________________________________________________ Gardens. Throughout history, gardening and the ability to grow one’s food has been essential to family survival. When settlers first travelled out West, they did so quickly and with little information on survival techniques. Gardening was essential to families, as accessing food was limited, especially prior to the development of the railroad. Families would attempt to grow a variety of food in the hopes that they would have enough produce to last them throughout Canada’s harsh winters. If they planned accordingly and the weather was in their favour, families would be lucky to eat more than just potatoes and bread for eight months straight. For many of our residents, large gardens and canning were very common. As Sheila and Bill Kilford described, “[Bill] We had a big garden, and I do mean a big garden, and we had… [Sheila] Tons of asparagus. We raised asparagus and picked it until we looked like asparagus.” Gardening has never been an easy job, but families relied on them. In most cases, everyone contributed to the maintenance of the garden, including children. As Raymond Sheers recalled, “[Mother] always had a big garden cause half our living come out of the garden, and there was always a lot of work to be done, hoeing and pulling weeds and that sort of thing which we had to help her.” So, what’s the point? Here at Strathma, we strive to learn more about settler life, specifically what life was like for our residents. Since food is such a big part of life, what better way to learn more about settlers than to grow and prepare the food they would have eaten? So, we’ve decided to start the Strathma Patch, which will allow us to grow some of the common foods Strathcona County residents would have grown and continue to grow today. For Strathma Patch’s first season, we’ve decided to grow and learn more about the following vegetables: -Beets -Bush Beans -Cabbage -Carrots -Lettuce -Peas -Potatoes -Tomatoes -Zucchini As you start your gardens this spring, we hope this Fried Green Tomatoes recipe becomes useful. This recipe allows you to start enjoying your garden produce a little earlier than usual. We look forward to providing you with updates throughout the summer about our garden, including why we planted certain vegetables together, things we found to be beneficial, and things that were not. We’d love to hear from you about your experiences with gardening in the County. Thank you for joining us on this journey to learn more about Strathcona County! ~Adele Thank you to the following sponsors for making the Strathma Patch possible: Home Hardware on Wye, Salisbury Greenhouse, Hasting Lake Gardens, South Cooking Lake Greenhouses, and Livestock Equipment Canada