At the Table: Food and Family around the World - Ken Albala (2016)

Canada

Judy Corser

Arlene, age 67, a retired social worker, moved from Canada’s East Coast to Vancouver, British Columbia, on Canada’s west coast eight years ago to be near her daughter and her family. Arlene bought a three-story duplex in the city’s vibrant Commercial Drive area and lives alone, renting out her lower level to vacationers to supplement her income.

The Drive, as it is affectionately known, is still lined with mom-and-pop shops, some of which have been there since the 1960s, including coffee roasters, pasta makers, Italian bakeries and cheese shops, a Polish butcher and charcuterie maker, a food co-operative, various vegetarian bakeries and cafés, greengrocers, and many ethnic restaurants from Salvadorean to Ethiopian to Algerian to Vietnamese, reflecting Vancouver’s multiethnic population. Locals are proud that there are 25 coffee shops in a 12-block stretch, and until recently, the neighborhood has resisted chains moving in. Today, there are 2: a Tim Hortons and a Starbucks.

Albala

Arlene’s large “family,” composed of friends and relations, including two, sometimes three, children and a dog, meets every Sunday at her house for a sit-down family dinner. As Arlene says, “It’s a chance to have everyone assembled around the table at least once a week. It’s something for the kids to remember.” (Courtesy of Julia E. Dykstra)

The Drive residents, formerly mainly artists, musicians, and students along with a core population of Italians and Portuguese, were drawn to the working-class neighborhood because of its relative cheapness and abundance of large houses broken up into rental suites and rooms. Commercial Drive was once home to industrialists and merchants whose fine old multistory frame houses overlooked the port and industrial area on Burrard Inlet, to the north, while their workers’ houses were built on the lower ground, nearer the tracks that run through to the western terminus of the Canadian Pacific Railway in the center of Vancouver.

Today, many of those earlier residents can no longer afford the higher rents and gentrification brought about by the general trendiness of the area in the past decade, much of it pressure from better-off West Side residents selling their houses and moving to The Drive for the ambience. There are homeless folks, and the area has its share of drug users and petty criminals, but The Drive seems to embrace even these residents as part of their eclectic world. As one woman, who often buys a panhandler a burger and fries at Vera’s, says, “Yes, we have bums, but they are OUR bums.” The Polish butcher regularly hands out sliced meat from his refrigerator case to those who come in and say they are hungry.

Arlene, an only child, was raised by her mother after her parents divorced when she was 11, and she was strongly motivated to institute family food customs with her own family, her daughter, son-in-law, and their two young children and her son, who lives in a nearby city. She began having regular Sunday dinners. Her “family” expanded to people she or her daughter had met in, say, a theater lineup or an extension college class or even the left-behind girlfriends or boyfriends of acquaintances after the relationships broke up.

Arlene met Victor, from Brazil, in a theater lineup. He and his partner, Robert, born in Singapore, became regular weekly dinner guests, and when Victor got a job traveling throughout Asia, Robert continued coming to Arlene’s for dinner. Victor attends when he is in town. They are now godparents to Arlene’s granddaughter.

Vanessa, age 27, is a relation, somewhat—she is the daughter of Arlene’s ex-husband and his second wife. Vanessa brings her boyfriend Marcus, age 26, to the weekly dinners. Both Vanessa and Marcus are recent university graduates and are currently unemployed. Occasionally Vanessa’s nephew, age 2, her brother’s son, comes to dinner with Vanessa just to give his single mom some time to herself.

These details illustrate the kind of diversity that is often seen at Canadian dinner tables. Canada is a country of immigrants along with First Nations people, and there are many, many “typical” dinner tables throughout the country. It is as “Canadian” for a Dutch-background young woman and her brother to get together regularly with their divorced father, pick up Indian takeout, and sit in the living room watching a hockey game, eating naan bread and butter chicken out of cartons as it is for, say, a traveling salesman in a small Manitoba town to stop in at a local hardware store around noon—often called “dinnertime” in rural areas—and be taken home and invited to pull up a chair at the family meal. With long distances between towns and villages and a still-living rural memory, Canadian families were always prepared for an extra unexpected guest for a meal.

Dining Tables

It is hard to imagine, but dining tables are a fairly recent invention, as is a separate space for dining itself. In the past people might eat at an all-purpose worktable with benches, or the wealthy might set up a board on trestles in the main hall, a private room, or even outside, weather permitting. It was only in the 19th century that it became common to have a separate space devoted solely to meals. Interestingly, with the growing informality of American meals and living space, another separate breakfast nook or eating space adjacent to the kitchen replaced the formal dining space for most meals and even informal dinners. For many people around the world, there simply isn’t enough space for a separate dining table or room devoted to eating, so the couch or another makeshift arrangement in the living room suffices. Actually, of all rooms in the home, the dining room is probably the easiest to dispense with when space is limited.

Today, the small nephew is not present. However, Arlene’s daughter Caroline, age 42, a real estate agent, and her husband John, age 44, a lawyer, are present along with their children, Ruby, age 6, and Oliver, age 9. The 1950s-style mahogany table, a secondhand find, can sit 10 or 12 with three extensible leaves, but today Arlene has left one extension out: she is expecting 8. A regular, George, has called to say he is unwell and cannot come.

“I really do this to have everyone around the table,” says Arlene, providing a little background to her regular Sunday dinners. “It’s a gift to Caroline, who does all the cooking at her house; it’s a break for her. And it’s a chance to have everyone assembled around the table at least once a week. It’s something for the kids to remember.”

Robert, who lives about a mile away, drives to Arlene’s house. Everyone else walks, as they all live in the neighborhood.

Arlene does all the shopping, preparing, and cooking, usually the Friday or Saturday beforehand. Except for this meal she rarely cooks for herself, relying on prepared and frozen food that can be easily heated in a toaster oven or microwave. Robert always brings dessert with the exception of today, as it is his birthday, and Caroline will bring a cake, purchased at a big-box supermarket, Great Canadian Superstore, a division of Loblaw Foods.

“I listen to CBC Radio while I prepare the meal,” Arlene says. “It’s just me and Michael Enright [a Sunday morning radio talk show host]. I am not a good cook. I don’t really enjoy it. I am good at following a recipe, but I hate confusion, and in my kitchen people stand around and talk to me while I am cooking, which I hate. So I make sure I have everything ready ahead of time, and there is no last-minute preparation beyond putting dressing on the salad and cooking the rice.”

Today Arlene has made a recipe from a Canadian cookbook, a simplified Moroccan recipe, Charmoula Chicken (Baird 2011, 115), adapted to the Crockpot (the brand name of a heavy ceramic pot inside a metal casing, heated by an electric element) and now simmering away on a counter in her kitchen. The salad—“I always make a big green salad with lots of things in it”—is in a large serving bowl in the refrigerator, covered with plastic wrap. On the stove waiting to be steamed are prepared sugar snap peas, topped and tailed. Arlene will put on a half-half mixture of brown rice and a blend of wild rice and quinoa to cook when people arrive. She expects everyone by 6:00 p.m.

Wild rice (Zizania palustris) is a Canadian Great Lakes plant, not a true rice but a member of the grass family that has a long heritage with First Nations people in Ontario, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan. It also grows in U.S. states south of the border (Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Michigan). Quinoa, of course, is the cereal of the moment everywhere, it seems.

“We eat chicken quite often. Everyone loves meatloaf, and when it’s someone’s birthday, they get to choose the meal. George always chooses meatloaf.” Next week when Victor returns from his business travels in Thailand, they will have ham and scalloped potatoes. Arlene has a recipe for the scalloped potatoes (layered sliced raw potatoes interspersed with sliced onions and a white sauce, similar to pommes de terre à la Lyonnaise, sometimes topped with cheese and frequently served with ham) that is a slow-cooker version. And the ham, which she mentions several times? “It is because it is a roast,” she explains. “A roast is special, and that’s why we are having it, because Victor will be here, and he’s been away for a long time.”

The first person to arrive usually sets the table. Caroline and her daughter Ruby arrive at 5:40 p.m., and Caroline pours herself a glass of wine from the bottle on the kitchen island and sits in the living room to talk to her mother. Vanessa and her boyfriend arrive five minutes later and immediately start laying out place mats, a set of hand-sewn, fish-shaped colorful cotton mats purchased at an artisan shop in Halifax, Nova Scotia, on one of Arlene’s twice-annual trips to the east coast. Ruby helps. She puts special place mats on the table for her and her brother, large plasticized paper drawings done by the children when they were younger. Plates are laid out at each chair, and cutlery is added—fork, knife, and spoon. Vanessa and Marcus are clearly very comfortable with this task and know where everything is. They follow a routine. “We have two sets, pink and mauve cloth napkins, for every meal except for Christmas, Easter and Thanksgiving,” Arlene says. “Then we have a white tablecloth and white napkins.”

Arlene rinses the rice under the tap in a sieve and places it, along with sufficient water, in a pot on the stove. At the last minute, she adds a half cup extra of brown rice and sets a timer. “I always worry there won’t be enough food. Leftovers are great, but I want enough food on the table so people get as much as they want.” No salt? “No, I never do. I think we eat too much salt. There is salt on the table if anyone wants it.” Arlene doesn’t eat white rice. She doesn’t think it is nutritious, and besides, she heard somewhere that there was arsenic residue in it. Arlene seems concerned about food safety and health. She recently learned from an American friend how to cook turkey and gravy a day ahead of Christmas or Thanksgiving (in Canada, Thanksgiving is a harvest celebration and is the second Sunday of October). “It’s too stressful cooking it the same day,” she says. “A turkey is too much work. Besides, I always worry that it won’t be done and will kill us all, or it will be overdone and end up jerky.” (Jerky is dried salt-preserved raw beef or bison, thinly sliced and chewy. It dates back to the prairies in pioneer days and was an old-time outdoorsman staple food.)

Although Arlene has poured herself a glass of red wine earlier, she does not mention wine or appetizers as people arrive. “I pour out the first glass and put it on the counter for people to take if they wish,” Arlene explains. “And that’s that. If anyone wants more, they help themselves. I don’t pour. I cook; I don’t serve. I don’t do cleanup either. George usually does that, but he’s not here today, so someone else will.” The dishes, when they are cleared from the table later, will go into the dishwasher with the exception of her $10 Riedel glasses. “Last time someone put them in the dishwasher, I lost $20 worth of glasses!” The wine on her counter—two bottles (she usually provides one) are both red. One is an Okanagan merlot (the Okanagan is a wine-producing valley in the interior of British Columbia) with the hockey legend “Wayne Gretzky” label, and the other a merlot-syrah blend from the Barossa region of Australia. They used to have “appies” (appetizers) but dropped the habit, as the children gorged and then weren’t hungry for their dinner. Although the children are older now, the practice was never reinstated.

The wine is from Canada and Australia. The sugar snap peas are from Mexico. The Texas brown rice has been purchased in bulk. The chicken is from Costco, a big-box store; the tzatziki (Greek cucumber-yogurt sauce) was purchased; and the quinoa-wild rice is a prepackaged blend. “At this time of year, I buy the vegetables at the store,” Arlene says. “In the summer I go to the Trout Lake farmers’ market, and whatever looks good, that’s what we eat. I buy meat usually at the organic beef store on The Drive.” The butcher is a family-run retail outlet for the family’s ranch at 100 Mile House in the interior of British Columbia and sells beef, pork, and lamb. Organic meat is more expensive and is a special treat for the family dinners. The farmers’ market is about 15 blocks away and closes in the winter.

By now the rest of the family has arrived, John and Oliver along with their dog, Nola, and Robert, age 55, a software engineer. Nola quickly checks out the floor for scraps. When the 2-year-old is included, there is always plenty of dropped food near his chair. “That’s what dogs do,” Arlene says approvingly, observing Nola sniffing around the floor. “She’s just doing her job.”

People greet each other warmly, remove their shoes at the door, and hang up their own coats in the hall closet. Arlene busies herself with putting the rice into a serving bowl, the chicken into another serving bowl, and the sauce in a pitcher on the side. There is a bowl of tzatziki sauce, and the salad comes out of the fridge and is carefully dressed with some special olive oil and grapefruit-flavored balsamico from Halifax. (Balsamico is a northern Italian product made since the Middle Ages from Trebbiano and Lambrusca grapes in Modena and Reggio Emilia. Many flavored so-called balsamic vinegars are produced in North America.) Arlene pours oil over the green salad—which is laden with sunflower seeds, dried cranberries, pieces of orange, and toasted almonds—followed by the balsamic vinegar. Salt and pepper are left to the diners to add on their own, to taste.

Dishes of food are placed in the middle of the table, with several people helping to carry the dishes. Robert puts glasses of ice water at each place. Everyone gets their own beverage, some taking wine to the table with them; Vanessa takes a can of San Pellegrino limonata. The two children have plastic glasses. As everyone comes to the table, little Ruby calls out, as she usually does, to everyone’s amusement, “Places, please!”

Arlene sits at the head of the table, with her daughter Caroline opposite. Vanessa and Marcus face each other at one end, and John and Robert face each other at the other end, with a child in the middle on each side. Oliver’s plate is the same as the adults’, while Ruby has a luncheon-size plate. She gets up and down several times over the course of the meal to play with toys in the living room or to disappear upstairs for a few moments but always returns, unremarked, and finishes her meal in relays. “We used to insist that the children stay at the table,” Arlene says, “John, especially, being English. But we just realized it was easier not to fuss, and in the end it all works out. Oliver sits and listens and even adds his own comments from time to time. He gets the adult humor now, at nine; Ruby doesn’t.” (There is acknowledgment that allowances should be made for John’s background, English, which may include stricter manners at the table.)

By 6:20 p.m., the meal is under way. Conversation is wide-ranging: someone has been to a fine-dining restaurant lately and reports on that experience, they discuss Robert’s birthday, and Oliver talks about playing soccer with some friends that morning. “We don’t discuss politics or religion,” Arlene says. Too divisive? “No, because we all agree!”

Vanessa asks if the meal is chicken; she says she can’t tolerate any spices except cinnamon and especially can’t eat fennel or caraway. Arlene assures her the chicken is not spicy at all. John, perhaps with a more English palate, gets up and retrieves hot chili sauce from the fridge, which he spoons out onto his plate, as does Robert, who grew up in Singapore. The chili jar remains on the table.

John checks his cell phone, somewhat shielded by the edge of the table. Marcus half-stands to reach something on the other side of the table, but generally the serving dishes are passed hand to hand and people serve themselves, casually and unconsciously. Vanessa dishes up food for Ruby. As Oliver dislikes cucumber, his father picks it out of the boy’s salad and puts it on his own plate. There are compliments to the cook, and Arlene reiterates that she is not much of a cook but can follow a recipe. (Such modesty is commonly seen among Canadian women regarding their cooking skills, particularly among former generations.) The slow cooker is extolled as a time-saver in the kitchen, and Caroline says that she buys cheap cuts of meat at Supervalu (a supermarket chain) to put in her slow cooker in the morning, along with some vegetables “so we come home at the end of the day to a nice meal.” John, Oliver, and Marcus (who is from Ontario) all eat English style, that is, with a knife in the right hand and a fork in the left hand, tines down, holding the utensils throughout the meal. The rest all eat Canadian or North American style, only using the knife (in the right hand) to cut food and then resting the knife on the edge of the plate and transferring the fork to the right hand, tines up, to eat. Ruby uses a fork sometimes and her fingers other times.

Conversation continues and includes discussion of hiking equipment, a family trip to the country, backpacks for dogs available at a local store, battery-operated camping cookers, and a Chinese dance performance someone had seen that week. Robert takes second helpings of rice, chicken, and sauce; Marcus has seconds and then thirds of salad; and Vanessa helps herself to seconds of sugar snap peas. When they are finished, knives and forks are set across the plate, parallel, to indicate that the meal is over. Marcus begins to clear the plates, helped by Oliver. Marcus shows the boy how to scrape the debris into the garbage and load the plates in the dishwasher. Vanessa helps. While the table is cleared, Caroline shares some cat videos on her cell phone with Robert, both of whom remain seated.

Arlene refrigerates leftover food in covered containers and makes up a plate for the absent George. The plate is piled high with chicken, rice, sauce (no vegetables, as Arlene says that George doesn’t care for vegetables), and plenty of the dessert—birthday cake and Nanaimo bars (see recipe) left from last week’s dinner. Caroline volunteers to take the meal to George on her way home.

The family returns to the table for dessert—Robert’s birthday cake, a sort of flower-shaped cake made from chocolate cupcakes. Ruby has put six candles on the cake with Arlene’s help, who counts “Un, deux, trois, …” She is in grade one in French immersion school (Canada has two official languages, French and English). Oliver hands Robert a clownlike hat to put on, and everyone sings a humorous version of “Happy Birthday” accompanied by a birthday card with a musical insert that plays Handel’s “Halleluljah Chorus” when opened. Although the extended family do not practice any religious rituals at table (such as saying grace or asking a blessing, still a habit with a minority of Canadian families, particularly older generations), they do have their own traditions and rituals: a stylized birthday song and hat as well as a musical card accompaniment used for every birthday; special place mats for the children; established positions at the table, with whoever has a birthday choosing the menu; special food—a roast—to mark a special event; and different table linens used for ordinary meals and for celebration meals.

At 7:20 p.m., Vanessa begins to clear the dessert plates. Robert removes the remaining glasses and cutlery and puts them in the dishwasher. Arlene’s prized Riedel wineglasses are taken to the counter near the sink, to be washed later by hand. Robert stacks the place mats neatly, placing the soiled napkins on top. Arlene will later take them up to the second-floor laundry.

By 7:45 p.m. everyone has left, Marcus taking home the remaining salad in a plastic disposable container. Arlene wipes the table again and replaces the everyday cloth runner and table decorations. The weekly Sunday dinner is over.

Albala

A Moroccan-style “Chicken Charmoula,” green salad, steamed sugar snap peas, and a wild rice-quinoa mixture are served on fish-shaped cloth placemats made in Halifax, Nova Scotia. (Courtesy of Julia E. Dykstra)

Nanaimo Bars

Generally thought to be Canadian because of the name, this dessert (“bar” or “square” in most of Canada, “slice” in Maritime Eastern Canada and the United States) was supposedly included in care packages from Britain to coal miners in Nanaimo, British Columbia. It doesn’t seem a very likely story but is one of the legends behind the origin of the squares. The Bird’s Custard Powder is definitely a British link, as the custard powder was developed by the Birmingham chemist (druggist) Alfred Bird in 1837 for his wife, as she could not tolerate eggs. It was one of the first industrial food products and is still sold today. Fry’s Cocoa, a Cadbury brand, is also originally a British product.

½ cup butter or margarine

¼ cup sugar

1 egg

½ teaspoon vanilla

5 tablespoons Fry’s cocoa powder

2 cups graham wafer crumbs

1 cup flaked coconut

½ cup chopped nuts

¼ cup butter

3 tablespoons canned milk

2 tablespoons Bird’s Custard Powder

2 cups sifted confectioner’s sugar

4 squares semisweet chocolate

1 tablespoon butter

1.Combine ½ cup butter or margarine, sugar, egg, vanilla, and Fry’s cocoa powder in the top of double boiler and cook, stirring, over boiling water until the consistency of custard.

2.Add graham wafer crumbs, flaked coconut, and chopped nuts and blend well.

3.Spread in 9-inch square pan and press down firmly. Refrigerate.

4.Cream ¼ cup butter, canned milk, Bird’s Custard Powder, and sifted confectioner’s sugar and spread the mixture in the pan on top of the refrigerated coconut-cocoa layer.

5.Melt semisweet chocolate, add 1 tablespoon butter, and spread over the custard layer.

6.Refrigerate. Makes 16 squares.