Transcript (Full Episode)

00:00.916
mollyvandekraats
Hello and welcome to episode episode 4 of culinary milestones of Canadian cooking I'm Molly Van De Kraats a fourth year history major at the University Of Guelph. Today is the twenty second of November Two Thousand and twenty three I'm delighted to be talking to. Dr. Natalie Cook who is joining us from Montreal Dr. Natalie Cook is a professor in the english department at McGill University she received her piece ph d at the University Of Toronto she's a founding editor of the journal cuisine. She has worked on projects such as Catherine Parrtrail's the female immigrant side to cooking with a Canadian classic. Dr. Cook worked on Canadian literary fair which pays heed to food voices in various Canadian works. She has received a silver in the cuisine Canada book awards for what's eat. Welcome Natalie and it is an honour to meet you.

00:48.209
Cooke
Nice to meet you too.

00:50.703
mollyvandekraats
First of all, why did you agree to this interview?

00:54.830
Cooke
Candidly because I'm a friend of Melissa Mcafee's and I was doing her a favour.

00:59.320
mollyvandekraats
So would you be willing to tell me a little bit about your background and how this led you to becoming interested in culinary history?

01:07.936
Cooke
Sure So I'm actually I started my life at University as an English professor I was actually a math teacher before that. Um, but my specialty was women's writing and women's life writing so the stories they told about themselves. Um, and it became really obvious as I was looking at fictional works. Um, that explored women's lives and the dailyness of women's lives that there hadn't been a lot of work done at that time on Women's life writing in cookbooks or in what we're now calling food texts and so I switched from from working on poetry and fiction to actually looking at um food writing and life writing in particular and once I started that I started exploring Canadian cookbooks.

02:00.227
Cooke
Um, and then got really interested in ephemera so things like um recipe cards or letters or correspondence or notes that were hidden in in cookbooks and books and so I've started to turn my attention more to things that are are loose leaf. Pieces of paper rather than published volumes and so I've um, I've edited Um I've been um so I'm I'm distracted by. Um, pieces of information about everyday life and what that can tell us about the women and the food that they're eating on a regular basis and on a special basis are.

02:44.218
mollyvandekraats
In some of your work. You've talked about mindful eating would you be willing to describe what mindful eating is and what the idea of mindful eating. Means to you.

02:54.467
Cooke
Sure I mean I think in contemporary parlance mindful eating means to um, be it pay attention. Not only to the quality of the food that you're eating and how it contributes to your health but also to its sourcing So you know.

03:11.937
Cooke
To think about food sustainability to think about the ethics of the kinds of food we're eating and and the ethics of its sourcing. Um I would argue that mindful eating also means that we should pay attention to the history. Of those topics as well and so it it would be egotistical of us to think that we're the first people who started to think about sustainable food sourcing and um and the health-giving properties of food and so one of the things that food history can show us. Is how those concerns that seem so timely and so now and so twenty first century actually date back. You know thousands of years so you know we in Canada know about um the indigenous peoples and how they were so careful with food. Food sustainability I'm talking to you and Guelph and you know think about the area that you're living in you have evidence of that in the um, you know the wild rice around you for example, so so mindful eating I think for me means not only paying attention to the food on my plate now.

04:25.261
Cooke
But thinking about where it came from and the kinds of um, the etymology of the terms. We use to describe it. But also the genealogy of the particular dishes and foods we eat.

04:40.590
mollyvandekraats
You are involved with the Journal cuisine. Um, would you like to talk about how you got involved cuisine and how the journal came about.

04:50.672
Cooke
Sure, Um, it was a long time ago now. Um in one year I I published ah an edited volume called um, ah entrees into Canadian food history. You know.

05:06.621
Cooke
Um, and that was published by McGill Queen's press. It took us a good 2 years to edit those particular papers and you know take it through the peer review process. Um, and it's it's done. Well I mean it's sold well and it it is a standard of um. The bookshelf if you're looking at Canadian food history. But realistically, it's an academic book. So it only reaches a certain audience and it's an audience of people who are willing to look at academic articles without too many pictures. Um in book form and pay a relatively hefty fee for that book. Or go to an academic library and pull it out. Right?

05:48.299
mollyvandekraats
Right.

05:48.662
Cooke
and so we wanted to um, you know we wanted to get the word out that people were interested in Canadian food history and what's called social food studies in Canada. Um.And I looked around for places for us to publish and it was really clear. There wasn't anything um and we we scratched our head and we tried we played chicken with one another to see who was going to actually do it and start the Journal Um, and eventually I had a ah very energetic graduate student at that point.

06:20.091
Cooke
Um, and I had a colleague who used to run the mccord museum and then the Michael and the human rights museum and she said Natalie just go ahead and do it get on with it. Um, and so we decided at the same time as we published the book we we launched the journal.

06:37.959
Cooke
And the journal was open access born digital. So it meant that there what there weren't paper paper copies online was it um and there were no fees to access it. So the McGill library put up some money to support that erudite at Université de Montréal published it. Um, and I can't remember I think um by Twenty Eleven I think we were reaching something like 12000 readers a year which you know if you compare that to an academic book is really quite different. Um.

07:10.295
Cooke
And so if you want to access a Cuizine the article now. Essentially you just Google it if you can remember the name of the author or you couldn't remember some keywords you can get these or or articles. So the traction for the open access]s was incredible and. It was liked so it was an experiment. You know how do we have articles that publish cutting-edge thinking and make them accessible and what are the different ways of doing it and so it was a ah comparison between. Traditional academic print publishing and um born digital open access scholarly work.

07:53.742
mollyvandekraats
Some of your work talks about Nineteenth Century medical recipes. Um, would you be willing to tell us why you decided to write about these nineteenth century medical recipes and what. Drew you to that area of interest.

08:06.984
Cooke
Um, if you work in food history and you look at old cookbooks. Especially if you go back to the second half of the nineteenth century. Let's say um, those cookbooks contain medicinal receipts.

08:22.766
Cooke
Um, just by necessity. In fact, I think if if you looked at your mother's and your grandmother's recipe books I bet they would have something as well. So you know how would you treat a sore throat I bet there's something about honey and lemon and you know, crushed aspirin or something you know so. These old cookbooks contained a lot of different remedies. Um and recipes not only for remedies but recipes for the Sickroom so um people convalesced for a very long time so you know there were 2 things that happened prior to um. The turn of the twentieth century. The first was um, people didn't know where illness came from so you're talking to me in November in a pretty cold area of Canada right? We're entering flu season and so. I Don't know about you but a lot of my colleagues and friends are you know, staying home because of coals and flu and all the rest of it. We know where it comes from. We know it's germs so we know that the the culprit is that person sneezing on the Subway or the bus beside us.

19:32.744
Cooke
But prior to 1900 and prior to the germ theories of disease which really emerged in the early nineteen hundreds um nobody knew where illness came from right and so you read about myasma so people were quite rightly they wanted to open windows get air flowing. And actually in hindsight they were right? Um, but they really didn't like swamps and they really didn't like you know damp damp places like that because they knew there was something unhealthy and unsafe about them and so the cookbooks and those old.

10:11.338
Cooke
Works of writing were the best way for women to share knowledge about different ways of treating illness and also the ones that I Love best Um, tell you stories about how they worked and so for example, um.

10:27.438
Cooke
A lot of the old cookbooks have ah a remedy for the bite of a mad dog right? Well you and I have pretty much eradicated this problem Thanks to a rabies shot an injection. But prior to rabies injections mad dogs were pretty frightening and so these remedies vary in lots of different ways. Um and the women who try them tell us on the whole that they're about 50% Successful right? Well the answer is. Only 50% of the dogs really had rabies but there are all these different remedies for bite of a mad dog. So There's an example and it it makes lots of sense that these women were trying different remedies. So My favourite book and one that I published as a facsimile.

11:18.141
Cooke
Actually is held in the geulph library. It's called and I like it's called Mrs. Johnson's cookbook. It's a manuscript. Um, and what caught my attention was there was a remedy in there for essentially fourth stage cancer breast cancer. Um, and.

11:37.007
Cooke
Gruesome horrible description of the open open abscess on the woman's breast. Um and their cure is actually to put. Ah I think it was frogs not toads but live frogs to suck on the abscess. Can you imagine and it.

11:54.512
mollyvandekraats
Oh my.

11:55.601
Cooke
It describes in very vivid terms the way these um the way they sucked and fell off with shrieks of Agony you know after they'd ingested the poison. We never hear if the woman lived I assume she didn't but.

12:13.469
Cooke
When I was doing some presentations on that book. Um, there was cutting edge research coming out of Australia and New Zealand about a particular kind of tree frog with um, a chemical in its skin that they thought was going to be a clue to treating cancer. So. You know these these folk remedies. Um, you know we dismiss them but back in the day that was the way that women were able to get some ideas and also just hear what their neighbours thought when they tried out these remedies I mean. If you give somebody opium. How much do you give them and when will they keel over and not wake up again. You know.

12:56.871
mollyvandekraats
what do you believe is the real importance about sustainability in cook and how can we improve that.

13:03.625
Cooke
Ah, um, I'm going to pass on that one because that's that's actually not my expertise that would be um.

13:10.975
Cooke
That would be some combination of a nutritionist and anthropologist I mean I can I could give you an answer but it wouldn't be an educated answer.

13:21.723
mollyvandekraats
So you do write um or work with a lot of works about identity and Canadian cooking. So how would you define what Canadian cooking is.

13:31.247
Cooke
Well I can give you the um, the answers that we have rehearsed in our food literature which says that um Canadian cuisine and I say cuisine not cooking by the way. Um. Cuisine being

13:46.712
Cooke
which involves the writing down and the recording of various cooking practices. Um that Canadian cuisine evolves from local food products local or regional food products distinctive food practices. So um. maple syrup would be an example of that. We've learned how to you know, boil the sap down so as to make maple syrup and make it you know functional for us. Um, whereas local products would be things like um, Winnipeg gold eye or you know, um.

14:23.311
Cooke
Oysters from P.E.I. those kinds of things things that have ah an an unofficial or an official appellation controlé in in Canada so shell au voie lamb. Um Brom Lake Duck you know some of those very very regional things right. Um, and the other one. The third one then would be iconic foods so foods that through the food texts or literature or stories have developed a kind of identity in and of themselves as being associated with Canada so um. An example, there would be tortiere. Ah meat pies are eaten all over the world. Um, and when ah tortiere became identified with Quebec actually the um, the meat was a tort um, it was actually a pigeon so it was a bird pie. Um, and it was only when the cart the pigeons essentially became extinct in 1904 that um the meat became predominantly pork. So that's evolved over time so it changes but the notion of tortiere has become iconic and associated with. Quebec um, arguably I would I would prefer not to argue it but arguably Poutine has become associated with Quebec for example, um, ah, something like salmon cooked in a Brentwood box ticks all the boxes.

15:57.868
Cooke
So The salmon could be sourced from the Pacific It could be cooked in a Brentwood box like buried in the sand in a wooden box cooked over coals which would be a distinctive preparation technique that we've inherited from the indigenous peoples. Um. And salmon probably in maple syrup or in some kind of um, ah pine needle concoction would become an iconic food so that we would think of that as an iconic pleat Canadian food. So That's that's the um. Standard answer. Okay, um, the answer I would give you from looking from the last book we did and from looking at the literature is a much more depressing one. Um, ah that food the tourist literature and food writing talks about. The abundance of food in Canada and the diversity. Um, what our our literary writers do because they can explore things in much greater depth is they they shed light on food insecurity. The lack of sustainability in food ways. Um, poverty hunger. Um, and they point to some other kinds of foods that are indeed iconic and associated with Canada but reveal a very very different story. Um, and so we have long chapters in our book about mac and cheese.

17:29.161
Cooke
Um, Canada consumes more Kd than any other country in the world. Um, so we have a chapter on Kd. We have a chapter on pemmican because of the over um and the over ah ah shouldn't be farming but essentially the eradication of the bison. Which led to the pemican wars and the difficulty of finding Pemican um, and so and and just our our novels and our fiction and our poetry focus on foods that aren't romantic and that are very much foods that one eats to fill your to fill. Bellies that are hungry. Yeah.

18:11.202
mollyvandekraats
A little bit ago. You talked about how you said poutine was are arguably related to Montreal would you like to expand on that

18:18.549
Cooke
I didn't say it was related to Montreal

18:20.816
Mollyvandekraats
or Quebec sorry.

18:22.086
Cooke
I said arguably Putin is an iconic food. Um, and the reason you could argue it in the affirmative is that there's a ah literature that's developed around it.

18:34.687
Cooke
So you can look at some very a New Yorker article by I think it was Adam Gopnik was it. Um, you know who talks about Putin as ah, affiliated with originating from Quebec and and expanding beyond. Um, and that makes it iconic because it's been treated in different. Different kinds of literature.

18:55.601
mollyvandekraats
Um, so how do you think Canadian cuisine has changed since world war 2?

19:01.270
Cooke
If you did a quick Google search the argument you would find is that the soldiers returning from world war ii brought with them much more diverse food tastes having sampled you know the the wonderful offerings of Italy and France and Europe and. You know that they they the um soldiers who who were um homeboys and had never traveled very far afield had suddenly been exposed to the wondrous diversity of the world. It's probably true. The other thing that happened after world war ii is there was ah an economic boon. So um, you know the money was around and people were able to afford new foods. So as soon as food rationing came off in 1947 I mean you can imagine it we we just went through 2 years of covid.

19:54.830
Cooke
And think about how exciting it was to go to a restaurant in person you know right? So think about um, you know 5 6 years of your um, your lifestyle being thwarted and your ability and your freedom having been.

20:10.658
Cooke
Curtailed. So I mean there was a kind of explosion of excitement about food and food ways and being with other people and socializing and there was an excitement in the air. Um, there was a lot of building. So ah, you know returning soldiers had their own houses and so. Um, they were able to participate in in the wealth. The wealth of a newly middle class. So That's one argument the other argument I would give is it is ah one that interests me more.

20:47.027
Cooke
Um, and that is that we see the rise of ethnic cuisine. Perhaps as a function of world war 2 but we have an increasing um comfort with immigrant populations and ethnic populations to articulate their. Story through food. So as soon as the Chinese exclusion act is eliminated um, essentially after 1947 we have the elimination of food rationing and the elimination of exclusion acts suddenly in these ubiquitous Chinese restaurants all across Canada. Are not just serving chop suey cuisine. They're actually starting to distinguish their cuisines as cantonese or as you know, very specific regional of you know Fujian that we have these regional cuisines starting to be distinguished. Um, and so there's an explosion if you look at the? um. Yellow pages of different cities in larger cities in Canada you'll see a finely grained nuance in those ethnic restaurants. So instead of just having the Chinese restaurant in every city in Canada. We started to to distinguish between what a Japanese restaurant might be and a Chinese restaurant might be and um Indian restaurants and you know we start to see that kind of level of nuance which becomes really interesting.

22:12.789
mollyvandekraats
ah so how has. The evolution of the Canadian wine industry affected cooking and dining in Canada.

22:19.864
Cooke
Um, um, you're not gonna like my answer

22:22.118
mollyvandekraats
Okay, then.

22:23.175
Cooke
more because I mean obviously obviously the way it's affected um, cooking and dining is that we enjoy Canadian wines much more than we did previously. The quality of the wines has increased greatly um and a lot of the viticultural work that's been done actually in the states you know in the Northeast states has allowed the Canadian producers to fine-tune their product in in. Exciting and really interesting ways. Um, but the reason you won't like it is the price point of Canadian wines is not less is not necessary necessarily lower than the price point of wines from elsewhere and so um for the restaurant industry which is very focused. Naturally on price point. Um, if they do decide to use Canadian wine exclusively. It's as ah, it's for branding reasons and for marketing reasons. Um, but the availability of wines from elsewhere in the world I think makes it very tempting. To use wines from across the world. Um, and then the next and the next part of that is you know I'm not an expert on liquor trends. But there've been different trends. You know, think about the spiked.

23:46.939
Cooke
I Don't know what you call them even the spiked lemonades and things that are in the liquor stores that you know suddenly hard liquor is back in vogue it went out of vogue. Um, for quite some time so there was ah an excitement about Wine. That's been eclipsed with the younger generation which is starting to venture into hard liquor as of about it was pre covid so probably 2008 I would say so I'm not an expert on that. But but that's the other thing that would impact the restaurant industry.

24:21.497
mollyvandekraats
So Melissa has told me that you like green drinks she would like to know why you have green drinks.

24:27.075
Cooke
When you I generally to be honest I don't drink alcohol and I generally um, drink water or tea or this is actually teazan and I'm drinking. It looks like beer but it's not um so. When I go out to a meal if everybody is drinking something that's very exciting. Um, you seem very dull if you have water I can make it hot water but it's still pretty dull. So when I was actually with Melissa there's ah um, it was ah a healthy green smoothie that that was um. You know, just just a combination of vegetables. You know with with a kind of a celery base. So the answer is I think Green Green Symbolizes healthy foods for us doesn't it and doesn't mean they are.

25:14.750
Cooke
But I think it's a shortcut signpost in our culture for if you say I'm going to eat green I think it means I'm going to eat healthy I'm going to eat salads I'm going to eat something that's healthy for me if you if you say that you're driving green with a green license plate. The same kind of um, signal isn't it I'm driving Mindfully I'm I'm I'm eating my drinking my pot Mindfully this is not a coke. It's something else.

25:48.073
mollyvandekraats
So Melissa does say you like to travel when you were traveling abroad is there any particular Canadian food you miss or Canadian foods?

25:56.916
Cooke
Sure, Um, again, not the kind of answer you were expecting when when I go to the states I Really miss Canadian portions.

26:07.574
mollyvandekraats
Portions. Yes.

26:08.844
Cooke
right? Um, and I really miss. Um. The availability of healthy food choices. You know. So for example, if you're traveling on the road. Um, it's very difficult to get food that isn't overly salted and that doesn't have tons of bread you know and I think you know what I mean by stodge.

26:32.971
Cooke
You know? So it's not that I pursue. Ah um, a south beach diet diet but I I do try and eat quite a lot of protein. So I do have ah a high protein diet and it's quite difficult. Depending on what kinds of cities you're in in the states to be able to actually source um a Mediterranean diet for three meals a day. So I do miss that and you can do it in Canada even in small towns. You know.

27:10.794
Cooke
Can I suggest a question like we're running out of time here I see can.

37:14.195
mollyvandekraats
Oh yeah.

27:15.011
Cooke
I suggest a question because you come from Geulph right? You come from the heart of Butter Tart territory. You know this?

27:25.624
Mollyvandekraats
No. I did not.

27:27.619
Cooke
okay.So one of the most iconic Canadian foods is the butter tart and it was one of it's a very ugly little tart which you should try by the way. Um, and it was chosen because of its iconic status for a Canadian stamp

27:44.082
mollyvandekraats
oh.

27:44.807
Cooke
one of I think it was 11 foods. You know, including the nanaimo bar and the butter tart. Um, but the question for you is the butter tart originates from many places from Scotland and France and England and if you Google you can get a couple of quite fun articles on butter tarts and where they came from right.

28:05.351
Cooke
It's not hard to find but it's probably 1 of the best stories about how the Canadians Canadians decided to champion a particular food and make it their own so nobody would argue that a butter tart is anything other than Canadian.

28:24.082
Cooke
Right? It's absolutely Canadian which is not at all true it it originates from everywhere else and Canada did very little to make it Canadian except create these stories and create a tourism industry around it. So in Ontario now that you know, um. Keep your eyes open for this little thing called Buttertart and you'll be amazed. It's a multimillion dollar tourist industry. So it's sort of an interesting story about how um food history can be rewritten and co-opted for.

29:01.428
Cooke
Useful branding purposes.

29:05.306
mollyvandekraats
Um, you just mentioned that Canadians have sometimes taken foods and co-opted them promoted them as Canadians You have an example other than a butter tart.

29:16.871
Cooke
Um, people from Vermont would argue with it. We did that with maple syrup for example?

29:21.270
mollyvandekraats
Oh Yeah.

29:22.177
Cooke
right? um. Yeah I mean that there are a lot of examples. Um the meat pie I gave you one with tortiere right? As 1 example, um. Ah, when you say co co-opted. During the war um certain regional products were rebranded as Canadian so pemeal bacon for example, became Canadian bacon. Um, so there was sort of a. Ah, renaming that took place and that was a version of co-opting it and it was a function of trying to promote nationalist sentiments after the war so that would be 1 interesting example I think.

30:07.120
mollyvandekraats
Okay so I just have 1 final question for you. What is your favorite flavor of ice cream.

30:12.653
Cooke
Oh very easy, very obvious vanilla like everyone's right by far the the favorite the favorite flavor of ice cream. Although I was reading a book last night about Queen Victoria's food ways. And it talked about the different kinds of ices that were served in her palace during her reign. Um, which was very extravagant right because ice had to be if it couldn't be sourced in England it was actually imported from north America can you imagine on boats.

30:44.354
mollyvandekraats
Importing ice.

30:45.896
Cooke
Importing ice from North America on a boat to be kept in you know, very carefully sealed ice houses in Britain so during Victoria's reign if you were served ice not ice cream ice. Um. Sorry you know in the we'd think of it as sorbet. The flavors were outrageous. They were absolutely crazy flavors and one of them was actually curry.

31:12.290
mollyvandekraats
Curry.

31:15.193
Cooke
Yeah, so it's not my favourite ice cream by a long shot. But it's definitely the one that tickled my fancy.In my recent reading.

31:21.361
mollyvandekraats
So is there anything that we've discussed that you would like to elaborate on or anything you'd like to address that wasn't covered.

31:28.889
Cooke
No I I don't think so and and I'm afraid I actually do have to go at ten forty five. so I'm watching time a bit. Yeah.

31:32.426
mollyvandekraats
Okay, okay, so thank you for having this interview with us and thank you for everyone else who has helped with this interview and thank you for listening to the Culinary Milestones of Canadian cooking and we hope to see you again.