This delightful 450-page book by Alice Morse Earle was a warm-fuzzy bookstore find. By the by, it’s still available via Amazon.

The entire book was a fascinating read but I’ll share this with you from the chapter titled, Meat and Drink.

“Potatoes were known to New Englanders but were rare and when referred to were probably sweet potatoes…but they were not immediately liked. A fashionable way of cooking them was with butter, sugar and grape juice, then mixed with dates, lemons and mace; then seasoned with cinnamon, nutmeg and pepper….and then frosted with sugar.”

“Apple Pie is used through the whole year and when fresh apples are no longer to be had, dried ones are used. It is the evening meal of children. House-pie, in country places, is made of apples neither peeled nor freed from their cores, and its crust is not broken if a wagon wheel goes over it.” 

“Milk became a very important part of the food of families in the 18th century. The usual breakfast and supper was bread and milk. As the family prospered, milk and hasty pudding, milk and stewed pumpkin, milk and baked apples, milk and berries were variations. It was said that children were usually very fond it this.”

“Housewives pickled samphire (asparagus like), fennel, purple cabbage, nasturtium buds, green walnuts, lemons, radish pods, barberries, parsley, mushrooms, asparagus, and many kinds of fish and fruit. They candied fruits and nuts and made many marmalades and a vast number of fruit wines and cordials.” 

“They collared and potted many kinds of fish and game. Salted meat was eaten and very little fresh meat for there was no means of keeping meat after it was killed. Every well-to-do family had a “powdering-tub” which was a tub in which meat was salted and pickled. Many families had a smoke house in which beef, ham and bacon were smoked.”

Rummaging in a basket at a thrift store, I found a small tourist pamphlet dated 1902 touting Calgary. Published by the Board of Trade, City Council of Calgary, the little 30-page brochure was such a fun read!

“The country surrounding Calgary has been especially favored by nature in more ways than one.” Then all the wonders of nature were extolled. 

“It may be safely said, for the meterological records amply prove it, that there is no place in the western hemisphere that enjoys more bright sunshine the year around than Central and Southern Alberta.”

“Free homesteads may be secured within from 3 to 20 miles of the city, and improved farms and ranches can be purchased at reasonable prices.”

“The capitalist will find in Calgary an interesting and profitable field for investment; the existing channels for investment are legion.”

“The Calgary district offers high wages to good domestic servants. In the city of Calgary, $10 and $12 per month is the common wage for household work.”

“The invalid will find in Calgary a gracing and pleasant climate to recuperate his health. The virtues of its invigorating ozone and almost continual sunshine are becoming universally extolled.” 

Prices: “Butter, 18cents per pound; potatoes, 1penny per pound; eggs, 15cents per dozen; poultry, 12cents per pound; pork, 6cents per pound; beef, 2 cents per pound.” 

No wonder “936 homesteads were taken up and 41,000 acres of Canadian Pacific Railroad Lands purchased during the year of 1901.” (The land was purchased for $3.00 per acre.)

Did your ancestor settle permanently or temporarily in Calgary?? Sounds like a wonderful place, no?