In the Gender, Sexuality, Feminist, and Social Justice Studies (GSFS) 401 Winter 2020 semester class on Food, Gender, and Environment taught by Dr. Alex Ketchum, students are analyzing the ways that food accessibility and environmental threats are gendered, sexualized, and racialized within the global context. As part of the course, students visited McGill’s archives and special collections to have a hands on experience with historical cookbooks (more on that here: http://www.historicalcookingproject.com/2020/02/field-trip-to-mcgill-rare-books-and.html). The Special Series of Student Posts is a collection of student reflections on what information we can glean from cookbooks.
As a kid, I remember my favourite dishes were mostly those that my grandma prepared. Nothing against my parents, my grandma is just a fantastic cook. She lived in a big farmhouse in rural Ontario; her recipes included fresh eggs from the chickens and vegetables straight from her garden. From her kitchen window you could look out onto the chicken coop, herb garden, and farther from the house, the long neat rows of asparagus, carrots and potatoes. When my grandma cooked, every meal came with dessert and most with extras to take home later in efficiently packed tupperware. Every Christmas, my grandma would make each family a batch of shortbread cookies, all delicately wrapped in parchment paper and set neatly into tin boxes. I absolutely loved those cookies. They would crunch when you bit into them but immediately melt in your mouth, resulting in a sugary, buttery heaven. Convinced that the magic of these cookies lay in my grandmother’s baking abilities, even after moving out and becoming an avid cook I never tried to make them myself. My grandparents started spending their Christmases in warmer climates, so it’s been a few years since I’ve brought home a neatly wrapped shortbread tin after Christmas dinner. Even though it isn’t currently the holiday season, this recipe project gives me the perfect opportunity to revisit my grandma’s cookies and try to recreate their delicate taste on my own.
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Shortbread cookies are traditional Scottish cookies, originating from the medieval “biscuit bread” (Johnson). The recipes began as a dough left overnight in the oven to dry and become a flaky biscuit. The bread-based ingredients were slowly replaced to include those of modern shortbread cookies. According to my great-grandmother Alice’s recipe card, see Figure 1, these ingredients include; 1 cup butter, 1 tbsp lard (my grandma corrected that her mom would always use Crisco), ½ cup icing sugar, 1 tbsp brown sugar, pinch salt, and 2 cups bread flour. My great grandmother didn’t note any cooking instructions on the card. On a call with my grandma she explained that in her mother’s time everyone just knew how to make basic recipes like cookies or bread. Overtime, she noted, we’ve moved away from passing down these baking skills and instead rely on cookbooks. And so, needing some instruction, she walked me through the process herself; mixing the fat and sugars together with a wooden spoon before adding the salt and flour, only a ⅓ cup at a time. After laying the dough flat in a baking dish, poke it with a fork and sprinkle over granulated sugar before baking for 15 minutes at 325 degrees Fahrenheit. In order to make them the real Scottish way, I was instructed by my grandma to leave them in the oven overnight, just like the medieval ‘biscuit bread’.
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My grandmother’s family immigrated to Canada in 1832 from Pittenweem Scotland. Among these family members was Alice Elder, who my great-grandmother, my grandma and I are all named after. In many ways, I am honoured to carry a name that has been passed down in my family for so long. However, amplified by recent reflections of Indigenous histories and sovereignty, this history also reminds me of my own direct connection to ongoing settler colonialism in Canada. I’m named after one of the first of my family to settle on stolen land. I have no sense of how my family directly interacted with Indigenous peoples when they arrived in 1832, but even without direct contact, my family was inevitably involved in the settling and colonizing of the space. Family traditions, like making shortbread, lead me to reflect on how these practices are contextualized today compared to the past. Food has been used historically in colonization as a tool to systematically erase Indigenous realities and histories (Robidoux & Mason). Even if only one recipe, these shortbread cookies stand in context to a mass normalization of European cuisine on Indigenous land. In an abstract sense, this recipe has seen the history of my family’s settlement in Canada. And so, when I make shortbread to reflect on my direct and distance familial history, I think it is important to also take up what was in between. Who else has this recipe nourished? How did they interact with their world, with those around them, with the process of establishing colonial structures?
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On a Friday morning I finally have all the ingredients to make the cookies. I bought Tenderflake instead of Crisco and organic cream and butter. I ran out of icing sugar so I blended granulated sugar and cornstarch together to substitute. At first, I followed my grandma’s instructions carefully and mixed together all the ingredients with a long wooden spoon. I was surprised at how physically straining this action was, and eventually put down the spoon to massage the dough with my hands instead. I was delighted to feel the buttery dough stick to my fingers until enough flour was added and it came together into a ball. I pressed the dough into the buttered baking pan and thought about all the other Alices making these cookies. I wondered what they thought about when they were baking; if my grandma thought about the family coming up for Christmas; if my great-grandmother thought about how many cookies to make for her four daughters; and if Alice Elder would make these cookies in nostalgia for her past home. I think about what other stories lay beside my family’s history: what other recipes have been passed down in families since the 1830s, and what recipes might have been lost.
Growing up, my grandma taught me to see the story in everything. Now, I take from that how important it is to reflect on our own stories. Even something as seemingly simple as cookies come with an entire history. Recipes passed down through generations indicate lineage, indicate belonging and indicate movement within the family. It’s important to reflect on these stories and position ourselves within them. After pulling the cookies out of the oven the next morning, I felt a sense of autonomy, in making something that had previously brought me so much joy as a child, and nostalgia. I felt connected to my grandma, and also connected to other Alices in my family who might have experienced that same moment of having created something so delicately (and simply) delicious for the first time. At the same time, I reflect on what these minute details and intricacies my own family lineage can indicate about colonial history in Canada.
References
Johnson, Ben. “The History of Scottish Shortbread.” Historic UK, Historic UK Ltd., www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofScotland/Scottish-Shortbread/.
A Land Not Forgotten : Indigenous Food Security and Land-Based Practices in Northern Ontario, edited by Michael A. Robidoux, and Courtney W. Mason, University of Manitoba Press, 2017. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/mcgill/detail.action?docID=5219769.
Recipes Tell History: Making my Great-Grandmother’s ‘Short Bread’
by Astrid Mohr
As a kid, I remember my favourite dishes were mostly those that my grandma prepared. Nothing against my parents, my grandma is just a fantastic cook. She lived in a big farmhouse in rural Ontario; her recipes included fresh eggs from the chickens and vegetables straight from her garden. From her kitchen window you could look out onto the chicken coop, herb garden, and farther from the house, the long neat rows of asparagus, carrots and potatoes. When my grandma cooked, every meal came with dessert and most with extras to take home later in efficiently packed tupperware. Every Christmas, my grandma would make each family a batch of shortbread cookies, all delicately wrapped in parchment paper and set neatly into tin boxes. I absolutely loved those cookies. They would crunch when you bit into them but immediately melt in your mouth, resulting in a sugary, buttery heaven. Convinced that the magic of these cookies lay in my grandmother’s baking abilities, even after moving out and becoming an avid cook I never tried to make them myself. My grandparents started spending their Christmases in warmer climates, so it’s been a few years since I’ve brought home a neatly wrapped shortbread tin after Christmas dinner. Even though it isn’t currently the holiday season, this recipe project gives me the perfect opportunity to revisit my grandma’s cookies and try to recreate their delicate taste on my own.
Shortbread cookies are traditional Scottish cookies, originating from the medieval “biscuit bread” (Johnson). The recipes began as a dough left overnight in the oven to dry and become a flaky biscuit. The bread-based ingredients were slowly replaced to include those of modern shortbread cookies. According to my great-grandmother Alice’s recipe card, see Figure 1, these ingredients include; 1 cup butter, 1 tbsp lard (my grandma corrected that her mom would always use Crisco), ½ cup icing sugar, 1 tbsp brown sugar, pinch salt, and 2 cups bread flour. My great grandmother didn’t note any cooking instructions on the card. On a call with my grandma she explained that in her mother’s time everyone just knew how to make basic recipes like cookies or bread. Overtime, she noted, we’ve moved away from passing down these baking skills and instead rely on cookbooks. And so, needing some instruction, she walked me through the process herself; mixing the fat and sugars together with a wooden spoon before adding the salt and flour, only a ⅓ cup at a time. After laying the dough flat in a baking dish, poke it with a fork and sprinkle over granulated sugar before baking for 15 minutes at 325 degrees Fahrenheit. In order to make them the real Scottish way, I was instructed by my grandma to leave them in the oven overnight, just like the medieval ‘biscuit bread’.
My grandmother’s family immigrated to Canada in 1832 from Pittenweem Scotland. Among these family members was Alice Elder, who my great-grandmother, my grandma and I are all named after. In many ways, I am honoured to carry a name that has been passed down in my family for so long. However, amplified by recent reflections of Indigenous histories and sovereignty, this history also reminds me of my own direct connection to ongoing settler colonialism in Canada. I’m named after one of the first of my family to settle on stolen land. I have no sense of how my family directly interacted with Indigenous peoples when they arrived in 1832, but even without direct contact, my family was inevitably involved in the settling and colonizing of the space. Family traditions, like making shortbread, lead me to reflect on how these practices are contextualized today compared to the past. Food has been used historically in colonization as a tool to systematically erase Indigenous realities and histories (Robidoux & Mason). Even if only one recipe, these shortbread cookies stand in context to a mass normalization of European cuisine on Indigenous land. In an abstract sense, this recipe has seen the history of my family’s settlement in Canada. And so, when I make shortbread to reflect on my direct and distance familial history, I think it is important to also take up what was in between. Who else has this recipe nourished? How did they interact with their world, with those around them, with the process of establishing colonial structures?
On a Friday morning I finally have all the ingredients to make the cookies. I bought Tenderflake instead of Crisco and organic cream and butter. I ran out of icing sugar so I blended granulated sugar and cornstarch together to substitute. At first, I followed my grandma’s instructions carefully and mixed together all the ingredients with a long wooden spoon. I was surprised at how physically straining this action was, and eventually put down the spoon to massage the dough with my hands instead. I was delighted to feel the buttery dough stick to my fingers until enough flour was added and it came together into a ball. I pressed the dough into the buttered baking pan and thought about all the other Alices making these cookies. I wondered what they thought about when they were baking; if my grandma thought about the family coming up for Christmas; if my great-grandmother thought about how many cookies to make for her four daughters; and if Alice Elder would make these cookies in nostalgia for her past home. I think about what other stories lay beside my family’s history: what other recipes have been passed down in families since the 1830s, and what recipes might have been lost.
Growing up, my grandma taught me to see the story in everything. Now, I take from that how important it is to reflect on our own stories. Even something as seemingly simple as cookies come with an entire history. Recipes passed down through generations indicate lineage, indicate belonging and indicate movement within the family. It’s important to reflect on these stories and position ourselves within them. After pulling the cookies out of the oven the next morning, I felt a sense of autonomy, in making something that had previously brought me so much joy as a child, and nostalgia. I felt connected to my grandma, and also connected to other Alices in my family who might have experienced that same moment of having created something so delicately (and simply) delicious for the first time. At the same time, I reflect on what these minute details and intricacies my own family lineage can indicate about colonial history in Canada.
References
Johnson, Ben. “The History of Scottish Shortbread.” Historic UK, Historic UK Ltd., www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofScotland/Scottish-Shortbread/.
A Land Not Forgotten : Indigenous Food Security and Land-Based Practices in Northern Ontario, edited by Michael A. Robidoux, and Courtney W. Mason, University of Manitoba Press, 2017. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/mcgill/detail.action?docID=5219769.