Cipâte aux Bluets (Deep Dish Blueberry Pie)

 

2 unbaked pie shells
5 cups blueberries
1 ¼ cups sugar
2 tablespoons butter

1. Heat oven to 350º F. Pour half of blueberries into deep dish casserole. Sprinkle with half of sugar and cover with a pie crust; trim crust to fit into dish.

2. Cover crust with the other half of blueberries, sprinkle with remaining sugar and dot with butter. Cover with top crust and trim edge to fit border of casserole. Cut a 2 inch hole in center of pie; this will allow steam to escape.

3. Bake for about two hours or until crust is light brown. Cool until lukewarm, and serve with pouring cream if desired.

 

 

©2016 Linda Sullivan – Simpson
The Past Whispers
All Rights Reserved

Creton

 

Creton (kind of sounds like "KrrrAW-tohn" or "GAH-taw") is a food most people with Quebecois parents or grandparents may remember growing up in my area. It is a mildly spiced pork paté spread that used to be popular and via nostalgia is gaining in popularity again. It is used at breakfast on toast and with mustard in sandwiches for lunch. Some people will use it with breadcrumbs to stuff a turkey and I'm sure there are other uses.

 

Creton

1 pound ground pork
2 Tbs bacon fat
1 medium onion chopped
1 clove garlic chopped
1/8 tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp cloves
1 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
beef stock or whole milk

Place an appropriately-sized sauce pan over medium heat.

When pan is hot, add 1 Tbs bacon fat and gently fry the ground pork until cooked through. While the pork cooks use a fork to keep crumbling it.

Add the onion, garlic, spices, salt and pepper and continue to cook, stirring occasionally, until the onions and garlic are soft and translucent.

Lower the heat to a low simmer and continue to cook for about an hour.

If mixture starts to dry out add beef stock or milk to keep it at a very-thick-sauce consistency.

Remove from heat and allow mixture to cool.

If needed add beef stock or whole milk so the mixture seems just spreadable.

Put the mixture in a food processor and process until fine and granular but not pasty.

Place the mixture into a glass or ceramic container and add a small layer of bacon fat over the top to seal and add extra flavor.
Refrigerate until needed. Serve on crackers as a snack, toast for a hearty breakfast or with mustard as a sandwich for lunch.

 

©2016 Linda Sullivan – Simpson
The Past Whispers
All Rights Reserved

Charles Smallwood, meteorologist and founder of the McGill Observatory

 

Born in Birmingham, England, in 1812, Charles Smallwood arrived in Canada in 1833 and was licensed to practice medicine in 1834. A few years later, around 1840, he established his residence at Saint-Martin in Isle-Jésus. In addition to practicing medicine, he had a strong interest for meteorology. In order to conduct experiments, Smallwood built a weather observatory on his property. It was a small wooden building equipped with several instruments, such as barometers, thermometers, a 7-inch telescope and rain and snow gauges. For example, he gathered data about the ozone, dew and evaporation, atmospheric electricity and bird migrations.

In 1856, Smallwood became the first professor of meteorology at the McGill University. In 1863, he moved his equipment from his observatory in Saint-Martin to a stone structure at the McGill University, thus founding the ''McGill Observatory''. The observatory stayed in the same building until 1962, and it is still in operation today in the Macdonald Physics Building.

 

©2016 Linda Sullivan – Simpson
The Past Whispers
All Rights Reserved

The mysteries of Michigan's Cemetery Island

 

ISLE ROYALE, MI - More than a few kayakers who've skirted the shoreline of Isle Royale have had this experience: You're paddling through a light mist around one of Michigan's most remote places only to see the nearby Cemetery Island rise out of the water, just off the mainland.

Contained inside this small island are at least nine marked or partially-marked graves that hark back to the 1850s - an era when the nation's copper rush stretched past the northern reaches of the Upper Peninsula.

Many of the graves likely are associated with the area's copper mines. At least one was dug for an infant. And there is island lore that perhaps ties others to the 1885 loss of the steamer Algoma, the deadliest shipwreck in Lake Superior's maritime history.

"It's special because it definitely captures the interest of island visitors. You can see the mystique," said Seth DePasqual, an archeologist and cultural resources manager for the National Park Service, who has looked at some of Cemetery Island's archived material….more

 

©2016 Linda Sullivan – Simpson
The Past Whispers
All Rights Reserved

The Search for Missing Friends

 

I found a book called The Search for Missing Friends, Vol. I I think the price was $3, it’s a fat book, over 600 pages compiling the advertisments placed in the Boston Pilot of Irish immigrants looking for friends and loved ones. Now I see Boston College has inventoried these listings and have placed them in a searchable database.

“THERE WAS A TIDAL WAVE of Irish immigration to North America in the nineteenth and early twentieth century. Some came to escape political upheaval, famine, and poverty, while others simply hoped to start a better life in the new world. During this time, formal communication was by the written word, but an international postal system was just emerging, making it difficult for those who had immigrated to keep in touch with those they had left behind. The result was that many of those in Ireland had no idea where their relatives and friends might be. Many new Irish Americans simply became “lost” to those who cared for them.”

You may view the database here.

©2016 Linda Sullivan – Simpson
The Past Whispers
All Rights Reserved

Burnside House

 

No house in Montreal's history has been the object of so much struggle and the subject of so many unfulfilled aspirations as Burnside house, which once stood on McGill College Avenue just up from Maisonneuve.

Like many fur traders who had made their fortunes and wished to settle down, James McGill purchased a farm on the side of Mount Royal. He called it Burnside after the stream ("burn" in Scots) running through it. The property was about 46 acres, and featured orchards and fields, as well as a "very commodious country house…with a most excellent garden." McGill's diary accounts of growing hay, apples, melons, cucumbers, peaches and grapes all reinforce the image of a comfortably retired gentleman. Having no children of his own, and knowing his wife's sons from a former marriage were well taken care of, McGill willed the Burnside estate to the newly-formed Royal Institution for the Advancement of Learning in hopes that this paragovernmental body would establish a college on the estate - what eventually became McGill University.

James McGill died in 1813. While the Royal Institution was getting its act together, McGill's stepson decided he had rights to Burnside, and a legal battle ensued. In was only in 1829 that the Royal Institution was able to occupy the estate, and the first principal, the Reverend George Mountain, could preside over the college's official opening at Burnside house. But after the court case there were no funds left to hire professors, so the house and estate were leased to farmers for several years. Mountain, moreover, lived in Quebec City, so a local man to replace him as principal was found in 1835: the Reverend John Bethune. Bethune decided that Burnside house should be the principal's official residence, and moved in - quite against the wishes of the Royal Institution. Bethune promoted the construction of what became known as the Arts Building higher up the hill on another part of the estate. When it opened, in 1843, teaching could at last begin - although in the first year there were only three students.

Having decided that it would fund the running of the new college by renting the lower part of the estate, the Royal Institution asked Bethune to vacate the house, which he did only after a great deal of protest. He also took the entirely inappropriate step of personally engaging a real estate agent, Joshua Pelton, to subdivide the lower part of McGill's estate as building lots, with rent money going directly into the principal's hands. Furthermore, this arrangement was made in such a way that Pelton was able to claim he was now the owner of the land. Pelton leased the house and gardens to a market gardener, Neil McIntosh, who at one point had the Royal Institution, Pelton, and the college bursar, Joseph Abbott (father of the future prime minister), all asking him for rent. McIntosh eventually left in confusion, but it was not until 1847 that the Royal Institution was able to force Pelton out and reassert its ownership. By that time the economy was sluggish, so the Royal Institution secretary, William Burrage, was allowed to occupy the house for four years, while local farmers used the grounds for pasture. On occasion, the Montreal Cricket Club was allowed to practice in the Burnside fields.

Attempts to sell bits of the estate to raise money were not very successful even after the economy began to revive, but in 1852 the Royal Institution decided it could profitably generate income by leasing the house. The new occupants were the Birks family, whose son Henry would later found a famous jewellery store. The gardens, as well as part of the basement and one of the outdoor privies, were leased to market gardener William Riley. Within a few years, lot sales did pick up, and a new street was laid out running straight up to the college: appropriately, it was called McGill College Avenue. By 1857 lots along this new street were purchased by builders who put up elegant terraced houses. Burnside house, which straddled lots 74 and 75, soon looked rather drab in the midst of this new fashionable neighbourhood. Nevertheless, the enterprising Riley bought both lots and moved in for several years.

In 1863 Riley rented the house (but stayed on as the gardener, apparently living in part of the basement) to Isabella and Annabella McIntosh (daughters of former Burnside tenant Neil McIntosh), who operated a ladies academy there. A few years later, the McIntosh academy (renamed Bute House School) moved up to the corner of Sherbrooke Street and other private schools occupied Burnside house until it was in such need of repair that Riley sold it and it was torn down. Once fought over, James McGill's old home was now an embarrassment next to the mansions around it and the shining university thriving just above it.

 

©2016 Linda Sullivan – Simpson
The Past Whispers
All Rights Reserved

Vive la différence!

 

While you are all familiar with such Christmas staple songs as Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Holy Night, Jingle Bells and Winter Wonderland, you may not be aware that we sing the same songs in French, only with translated lyrics. Sometimes the French lyrics are very similar to the English ones (Sleigh Ride is about a, well, sleigh ride in both languages, for instance). But quite often, only the melody is retained and the whole theme of the song changes entirely. Most often it’s because the new theme allows the French version to use words that fit the music better. Other times, it’s because the song would make cultural references that wouldn’t be as familiar.

One of the most different songs when translated is Jingle Bells. The original English song is about riding in a one-horse sleigh on a bright winter day. The French version, however, becomes Vive le vent and is all about the cold winter wind and how it brings an old man memories of his childhood winters.

Almost as different is Holy Night, the song about Jesus’ birth, which becomes Minuit, chrétiens, a reference to the Catholic midnight mass so popular in Québec. One of the starkest differences is the translation of the verse, “Fall on your knees! Oh hear the angel voices!”, which in French becomes, “Peuple à genoux! Attend ta délivrance!” (Kneeling people, await thy deliverance!)

It’s rather interesting that the English version is an exhortation to kneel in worship of the newborn King of Kings, while the French version addresses an already kneeling people, telling them that they will need kneel no longer when Jesus brings about their deliverance.

It’s not only the Christmas carols that are reworked. Sometimes a concept is simply given a little tweak to fit in better with the French culture. You may remember old Canadian Tire commercials featuring the character of Scrooge. The concept was well summed-up with the chain’s Christmas slogan: “Give like Santa and save like Scrooge!”

While Scrooge is known in Québec thanks to the translated Dickens work and of course its numerous adaptations, he’s just not traditionally a part of the lore. He’s more of a British creation. So when Canadian Tire produced French versions of the commercial, they kept the concept of the penny-pinching miser, but Scrooge instead became “Gratteux” (a French slang term for a spendthrift or a cheapskate), Santa’s accountant elf. The character’s costume remained the same and he was simply played by a French-Canadian actor.

courtesy – Chez Seb

 

©2016 Linda Sullivan – Simpson
The Past Whispers
All Rights Reserved