Category Archives: Special Topics

Easter, Seasonal

Easter Sunday

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The food commonly eaten on Easter Sunday is rich in symbolism.  The ingredients and dishes are rooted in two traditions: the Jewish Passover dinner, or Seder, and the pagan springtime festival of renewal and fertility.  Easter food shows how these two traditions have combined to form our current concept of the holiday.

Bread and Wine

Growing up, Easter Sundays began with a church service that re-enacts the last supper of Christ, which was a Seder.  The first “meal” that we ate on Easter Sunday was therefore a meager one: the sacrament of communion, an unleavened wafer and a sip of red wine.
It is said that when the pharaoh freed the Hebrews, they fled Egypt so abruptly that they didn’t … Continue reading.

Seasonal, St. Patrick's Day

St. Patrick’s Day

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St. Patrick’s Day, now one of the kitschier holidays we celebrate, has been completely divorced from its origin.  March 17 is actually the Catholic feast day for St. Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland.  The details of St. Patrick’s life are often debated, but for my purposes the popular traditions and stories are more important than the historical facts.  It’s the legend of St. Patrick that has informed the beliefs and practices of Catholics for more than a thousand years, so in a sense the legend is truer than whatever the truth is.[1]

Patrick was probably born in Scotland, but at a young age he was captured by pirates and sold into slavery to an Irish chieftain. He escaped, … Continue reading.

Easter, Seasonal

Ash Wednesday

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As I mentioned in my description of Lent, a 1966 papal decree changed Catholic fasting practices, but when my mom was little Fridays were still fast days.  Meat was forbidden, but fish was allowed.  This is why in 1963 McDonald’s added the Filet O’ Fish to their menu – so that Catholics could eat there seven days a week.[1]

There aren’t any McDonald’s in Webbwood, Ontario, so in my mom’s house, Friday dinner was always macaroni and cheese, usually with fish cakes. Her family observed these meatless Fridays for decades after 1966. In fact when I was growing up, I had macaroni and cheese for dinner every Friday.  We also had this meal on Ash Wednesday.  No food … Continue reading.

Seasonal

Pancake Tuesday

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The time before Lent has always been given to feasting and revelry.  Variously celebrated as Carnival, Mardi Gras, and Shrovetide, it represents the last chance for Catholics to indulge in meat, alcohol, and other decadent foods until Easter. The festivities have given rise to several food traditions.  Obviously meat and pastry are common, but since the celebrations often include a parade, many types of street food are made.  Venetian fritoles (fritters) are an example.

For Canadian Catholics the day before the start of Lent is called Pancake Tuesday. While they are masquerading in Venice and dancing in Rio, we are sitting down with our families to have breakfast for dinner. Apparently the tradition started as a way to use up … Continue reading.

Easter, Seasonal

Lent

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A Primer, for the Uninitiated

What is Lent?

Lent is the Christian season of repentance and self-denial preceding Easter. It is commonly said to represent the forty days and nights that Jesus spent fasting in the desert. Until the 1960s, the Catholic Church had strict laws about what food could be eaten during Lent: all animal products, whether meat, eggs, butter, or cream, were forbidden.

Historically, this “meatless fast” was observed not only during Lent, but on every Friday of the year, as well as certain solemn holidays like Ash Wednesday. This played an important role in European history. It was a major point of contention between Rome (where olive oil was common) and northern Europe (where animal fats like … Continue reading.

Canadian, Pie and Pastry, Québécoise, Sweets

Tarte au Sucre – Sugar Pie

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Tarte au sucre, or sugar pieIf you are unfamiliar with this dish, let me introduce you by way of an aimless personal anecdote. If you are familiar with the dish, you can skip the next paragraph.

My father’s family lives near Ottawa, my mother’s near Sudbury. When I was little my family would sometimes drive between these two sets of relatives, following the Ottawa River valley, where there are lots of French communities, even on the Ontarian side of the border. Along the way we would always stop at a diner called Valois in the French town of Mattawa. For dessert they offered “sugar pie,” a tidy translation of tarte au sucre. While some versions of sugar pie are made with corn syrup or … Continue reading.

Pork, Seasonal

Button Soup Pork Dinner

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a-pol-o-gy
noun, plural -gies

1. a written or spoken expression of one’s regret, remorse, or sorrow for having insulted, failed, injured, or wronged another
2. a defense or justification in speech or writing, as for a cause or doctrine

Button Soup Pork Dinner

In February 2011 Button Soup hosted a dinner was based around the least desirable cuts from two hogs, namely:

  • two heads,
  • two tails, and
  • four hind trotters.

These cuts contain pounds (pounds!) of good meat and fat that usually end up in the garbage. With a little effort, they made a dinner for six guests, with lots of leftovers.

A Quick Apology, in the second sense of the word.

The cooking that I was taught in … Continue reading.

Beer, Burns Supper, Cheese

Rarebit

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A plate of rarebit, hot cheese and beer on toastThis dish is most commonly called either “Welsh rarebit” or “Welsh rabbit.” “Rabbit” is the original name, though no one knows the origin of the term. Some say it was originally derogatory, suggesting that if a Welshman went out to hunt rabbit, he would end up eating cheese for dinner.  The dish is currently experiencing a revival, and modern authors and cooks prefer to use the corruption “rarebit,” as it avoids the obvious confusion with the hopping mammal.

At its heart, rabbit is hot cheese on toast. The best versions also include beer.  I borrowed a technique from Fergus Henderson’s book The Whole Beast. He makes a roux, then whisks his beer into it, creating what is essentially a beer … Continue reading.

Burns Supper, Sweets

Posset

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…I have drugg’d their possets
That death and nature do contend about them
Whether they live or die.

-Lady MacBeth, in the Scottish play (fitting, no?)

 

Dark shortbread cookie and rich eating-posset

Posset is an old British drink of cream curdled with sack (fortified wine) or ale.  Nowadays the term usually refers to sweetened cream curdled so that it sets like a custard.

During the years in which the liquid version was declining in popularity and the solid version was rising, the term “posset” on its own was ambiguous.  Qualifiers were added for clarity, resulting in terms like “rich eating posset.”

Anyways, this is one of the simplest desserts to make.  I often serve it at Burns Suppers with shortbread cookies. The idea is to … Continue reading.

Burns Supper, Lamb, Offal

Haggis and Clapshot

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Fair fa’ your honest, sonsie face,
Great chieftain o’ the puddin-race!

–Address to a Haggis, Robert Burns

 

A lamb's pluck: liver, heart, and lungsHaggis: unquestionably the king of the Scots kitchen. Rarely eaten, much maligned, completely misunderstood.

Haggis is made of a sheep’s pluck, which is a tidy term for the lungs, heart, and liver. Traditionally these parts would be boiled, ground, mixed with oats and onions, then stuffed into a cleansed sheep’s stomach, making what is essentially a large, round sausage.

Sheep are rarely brought to maturity in North America, so all the offal I used was from a lamb. Lamb bits are smaller and milder in flavour than sheep bits.

Most of the ingredients are easier to obtain than you might … Continue reading.