Transcript (Full episode)

Olivia Hayward:

Hello and welcome to Episode One of “Culinary Milestones of Canadian Cooking”, I'm Olivia Hayward and I'm with Abby Purches. We are both third year History majors of the University Of Guelph where this interview is being recorded. Today is November 24th 2023, and we're delighted to be joined by Elizabeth Baird, who is joining us from Toronto. In 2013 Elizabeth was inducted into the Taste Canada Hall of Fame for her significant contributions to the culinary arts. Elizabeth has been writing cookbooks since 1974 and was a major contributor to Canadian Living Magazine. You may know her from her cooking show on the food network “Canadian Living Cooks”, or from one of her many cookbooks. Welcome Elizabeth, It's an honor to meet you!

Olivia Hayward:

Okay, what are some traditional Canadian recipes that you think are important to preserve for future generations?

Elizabeth Baird:

Um, I well I think um, a tortière is one and obviously poutine is something – it's such a crazy dish but it means what it means a lot. Because it comes from a part of Quebec where the making of the squeaky cheese curds is high science and you can and the freshness is vital to it and then with you know, gravy and fries. I mean it, It has a lot of meaning around it and the fact that everybody's arguing about where it actually began. Um, so, I think it definitely and I would say that would be something, um, that you have to do. I think the apple pie, and all the pies, fruit pies, especially the kind of Dutch – what my mother called Dutch apple pies, um, it's the big chunks of northern spy apples with cream and a streusel kind of topping. It's like the most divine pie and it's up my mother made it with, ah, peaches as well. Which were really really good. The blueberry pies one. It's real blueberries that.

 They call them wild but they're cultivated but they are the low, the low Bush blueberries. Not these big blue things that um, they're not as good but on one hand, others are terribly expensive now.

I Think um corn on the cob, um, or any kind of cornmeal thing like good cornbread is also something you want to keep. Ah, I would think salmon on the barbecue is one of those things that you see a lot in the west.

 And oysters and not – nothing on them. They're so delicious on their own. They don't need anything, no cooking. They are so yeah, right? There's the 3 sisters soup with corn, beans, and squash. Ah… something that we should keep um, ah… egg salad.

Abigail Purches and Olivia Hayward:

I like egg salad.

Elizabeth Baird:

Um, with onions. It has to have some onion. Yeah, yeah, ribs! Ribs that you can get in and around Kitchener and Waterloo, ribs I think that… that's a bit of heaven in your mouth.