Nan's Cookbook: Tea and Talk

Recipe for Seven Cup Pudding, provided by Natalie Austin.
This recipe belonged to her grandmother on her mother's side,
 Lily Butt of Carbonear/Old Perlican. 

This past Friday the Intangible Cultural Heritage Office hosted  Nan's Cookbook: Tea and Talk at The Cupids Legacy Centre. It was a lovely afternoon where we invited people to bring out their favorite old cookbooks and recipes and share their memories of cooking and baking.

Along with Mary Ellen Wright, Professional Development and Outreach Officer with the Association of Newfoundland and Labrador Archives, we provided advice on scanning and preserving these documents for long term access and how to best preserve the original cookbooks and recipes, which for many are family heirlooms.

Spanish Cream Recipe provided by Linda Saunders.
This was her mother's recipe and Saunders notes,
 "We used to have this with fruit and jelly for dessert on Sundays."

-Nicole

A Lovely Cookbook Treat

Yesterday we had a lovely little visit from Sue Crichton, who reached out to ICH office after seeing our posting for the Nan's Cookbook: Tea and Talk event that is happening today. She had a few old cookbooks that belonged to her mother and mother in law (and likely their mothers as well!) that she didn't want anymore, and so donated them to us so we could share them at the event! They are some great looking cookbooks, and date between the 1920s and 1940s.

Sue's mother in law was Emma Angel, whose mother was a sister of Captain Bob Bartlett's, the well known navigator and Arctic explorer.

Sue's grandmother, Bertha Dicks, was a daughter of the Dixon family, and met her husband, Thomas Foot, after moving to Grand Banks. Thomas was a merchant before the market crashed in 1929, and is a brother of the J.B. Foot and Sons Company merchants from Grand Banks.

This was Nicole's favorite snippet from one of the books: how to make the perfect pot of tea!

The Tea and Talk is this afternoon, Friday March 21st, from 3-5pm at the Cupids Legacy Centre - it's free, and open to everyone! We would love if you joined us for a hot beverage, some baked treats, and had a chat about old cookbooks and recipes!

Thanks again to Sue who was sweet enough to drop these off for us to share at the tea today - they are beautiful books, have some interesting recipes in them, and I'm sure will be a great conversation piece this afternoon! We really appreciate it :)

-Sarah

What is Intangible Cultural Heritage, anyway?

Earlier today, I gave a guest talk for an intro to folklore undergraduate class taught by Mu Li, one of the PhD candidates in the Department of Folklore. My talk was about intangible cultural heritage (ICH) and what we are doing in Newfoundland and Labrador to safeguard it.

I deal often with ICH, so it isn't every day that I stop and think about what it means to people who've never heard the term before. So here are a few definitions.

The first is from UNESCO, and the 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage. The 2003 convention informs much of our safeguarding work in Newfoundland and Labrador, and this is how ICH is defined therein:

The “intangible cultural heritage” means the practices, representations, expressions, knowledge, skills – as well as the instruments, objects, artefacts and cultural spaces associated therewith – that communities, groups and, in some cases, individuals recognize as part of their cultural heritage. This intangible cultural heritage, transmitted from generation to generation, is constantly recreated by communities and groups in response to their environment, their interaction with nature and their history, and provides them with a sense of identity and continuity, thus promoting respect for cultural diversity and human creativity.

UNESCO has a detailed website with great info on the Convention and what has been listed and recognized as ICH around the world.

Closer to home, the Heritage Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador has been working on ICH issues since 2008, and in that year, we published a handy PDF booklet called "What is Intangible Cultural Heritage?" We also run, in cooperation with Memorial University, an ICH website with lots of resources and information about local intangible cultural heritage.  Here is how we define ICH in the booklet:

Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) or what some call “Living Heritage” encompasses many traditions, practices and customs. These include the stories we tell, the family events we celebrate, our community gatherings, the languages we speak, the songs we sing, knowledge of our natural spaces, our healing traditions, the foods we eat, our holidays, beliefs and cultural practices.

Fashion, alcohol, and religion in Regency Conception Bay, Newfoundland

A Tale of Two Houses: Fashion, Alcohol, Religion in Regency Conception Bay Townscapes

Wednesday, March 19, 2014

7:30pm

Benevolent Irish Society, Harvey Road.

Robert Pack—English Methodist Politician and Merchant—and William Innott—Irish Catholic Publican and Horse Breeder—shared the streets and social circles of their respective towns of Carbonear and Harbour Grace. Wealthy and prominent, they built summer dwellings away from their urban households and business interests. Constructed in the 1820s, the summer dwellings were part of the architectural fashion of villa and cottage—retreats from towns of noise, crime, prostitution, and wayward pigs. These juxtaposing houses become an entrée into the material, social, and aesthetic life of Regency Newfoundland townscapes.

Folklorist Dr. Gerald Pocius will present on Pack and Innott at the Annual General Meeting of the Newfoundland Historic Trust on Wednesday, March 19, 2014, at 7:30pm, at the Benevolent Irish Society on Harvey Road.

Pocius has researched and written on topics ranging from joke-telling and pop music, to tract housing and religious popular prints. He has worked on many aspects of Newfoundland folklore and popular culture, publishing studies of belief, religion, medicine, narrative, and music. His specialty has been material culture, and he has published widely on gravestones, cemeteries, textiles, folk art, architecture, furniture, and cultural landscapes. While working primarily in Newfoundland and Labrador, he has also conducted fieldwork in the United States, Great Britain, France, and Lithuania.

Nan's Cookbook: Tea and Talk

Nan’s Cookbook

Tea & Talk

Friday, March 21, 2014

3-5 p.m.

Cupids Legacy Centre

368 Seaforest Drive, Cupids

Do you have your nan’s recipe cards? Did your mother keep a scrapbook of her favourites? Do you reminisce about that old copy of the Cream of the West Cookbook with the comments and changes written all over its pages?  Bring your old recipe books and cards, and join us for some tea, buns, and memories of cookbooks and cooking.

Free event, please RSVP to Sarah

sarah@heritagefoundation.ca

1-888-739-1892 ex. 5

Dance to Your Heart’s Content - Dance Workshop March 22nd

A Workshop with the Mizzen Heritage Dancers

Memorial University’s Folklore Department is thrilled to present a public dance workshop with The Mizzen Heritage Dancers from Heart’s Content on March 22 from 1-3:30pm at the MMaP gallery in the St. John’s Arts & Culture Centre. This workshop is open to dancers of all ages and all skill levels. A panel discussion with the dancers will take place immediately following the workshop.

The Mizzen Heritage Dancers are a group of 12-14 residents of Heart’s Content who have enjoyed performing their regional square dancing tradition for the past 15 years. This group has offered dance workshops at schools and community centres across the Avalon in hopes of recruiting dancers who may like to share in their tradition. The Mizzen Heritage Dancers are proud to announce such a workshop will be held on March 22 for the people of St. John’s. Put on your dancing shoes and join them at the Arts & Culture Centre’s MMaP Gallery for an exciting foray into the tradition of Newfoundland square dancing.

Admission is $10 or $8 for students & seniors. Refreshments will be served courtesy of Starbucks and Sobeys. Free parking will be available.

Dr. Jillian Gould, provincial folklorist Dale Jarvis, and folklore/ethnomusicology graduate students of Memorial University have organized this workshop as part of a practical exercise in public programming and cultural presentation.

Space is limited! To register, please contact nicole@heritagefoundation.ca

or call 1-888-739-1892.

***
For all publicity inquiries:
Michelle Robertson – Memorial University, M.A.
michelle_robertson23@mac.com
709-764-5000

Youth Hoop Dance Workshop - March 15th

The St. John’s Native Friendship Centre and the Intangible Cultural Heritage office of Heritage Foundation of NL are co-sponsoring a Hoop Dance Workshop, with Beany John.

Crystal (Beany) John is Taino and Cree from Kehewin Alberta. At 22 years of age she is a champion Grass dancer and Hoop Dancer. She is one of two women in Canada given permission to be part of the Grass Dance Society and was initiated in 1998. Beany has been teaching Hoop Dance to youth in Alberta and Ontario since 2004. She has taught at the Centre for Indigenous Theatre, Anishnabe Health Youth program, Trent University, Toronto Native Canadian Centre youth program and the Kehewin First Nation.

Her mix of Hoop Dance and Hip Hop has been called “dynamic” and “exciting”. Her contemporary style, mixing traditional forms with circus skills and hip hop, is one of a kind and she has a following of young Native people throughout Canada and the United States.

Location: 3rd Floor Dance Rehearsal Space, St. John's Arts and Culture Centre

Date: Saturday, March 15th, 2014

Time: 10am to 1pm

Cost: $25

What to Bring: Participants are invited to wear comfortable clothing, nothing too loose so that it doesn't get caught up in the hoops. The room has a professional dance floor, so no outside footwear is permitted. Workshop is for participants age 8+

Registration is extremely limited, so participants MUST pay in advance either by cheque made payable to “Heritage Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador” or by email money transfer.

Registration mandatory. To register, contact Dale Jarvis at ich@heritagefoundation.ca or call 739-1892 ext 2.

Cable Avenue Heritage Meeting, Bay Roberts

Earlier tonight, I finished up a meeting with the heritage committee of the Town of Bay Roberts. We went over the commemorative text for the bronze plaque that will mark Cable Avenue as a Registered Heritage District. Last year, the Heritage Foundation of NL designated the avenue, and helped to celebrate its 100th anniversary; this year, we'll install a large bronze plaque to mark the avenue's historic and architectural significance.

We've tentatively set the first weekend of August for a formal plaque unveiling. Stay tuned for your invite!

Photo: Surveying site of superintendent's house, August, 1913. From The Cable Building Story.

Finding Folklore in Foxtrap

Today the ICH office visited Queen Elizabeth Regional High School in Foxtrap to talk about local folklore and supernatural belief. Dale and I visited with Lori-Ann Ash and Darrell Sneyd's grade ten English classes to discuss local superstitions, charms, ghost stories, fairy stories and urban legends. We also explored oral tradition, the transmission of folk belief and offered advice about collecting oral histories. To help the students out, we developed a one-page questionnaire for them to take home and use while interviewing parents, family members, friends, or neighbours.

During our visit the students told us some great stories of the supernatural. The following is an urban legend recalled by a female student:

In grade three or four the older girls at school would tease the younger girls about a monster in the toilet. The legend is that one stall, identified with a mark of red spray paint, has a creature living in the toilet and if you flush it, a green slimy hand reaches up, grabs you and pull you down. When I got to grade six, I realized this was made up but by that time we used it to scare the younger girls too, and kept it going. My younger sister goes to that school and that urban legend is still told today.

Another young woman, whose mother is from Denmark, told a Danish folktale about a man who was plaqued and tormented by the nisse, which are elves. The story the student told is as follows:

An old man was out in his garden, smoking his pipe and tending to his horses, when the nisse began to torment him. The nisse stole his pipe and used it to fill his home with smoke. The old man,thinking his house was on fire, called for help. Firemen arrived to put out the fire but they couldn't find any flames. When the old man suggested it was the nisse and that 'the fire was in his mind', the firemen promptly dowsed the man's head with a bucket of water.

We were also very excited to receive a little narrative regarding fairy belief in the area. According to one student, "in the elementary schoolyard there is a fence and we were told that if we went near the fence while wearing green, the fairies would take you away."

We are heading back to Queen Elizabeth Regional High School tomorrow afternoon to see what the students collected and to help them write up their folklore findings.

Here are the questions the students are using:

1. Is there a place in your community that people say is haunted? ....a haunted cemetery, a haunted walkway, a haunted cliff or rock, a house, or other building? What are the ghostly stories connected to these places?
2. When you were growing up, were there any places you were told not to go because the fairies would get you? Where was this and what are the stories you were told?
3. What are the local stories about shipwrecks? ...buried treasures? What about ghost or weather lights seen on the water?
4. Are there any people who are believed to be witches in the community? Why do people think this? What kind of powers does this person have? 
5. Have you ever had a visit from the Old Hag while you were sleeping? What happened and do you believe that this experience was real or just a dream?
6. Do you know of any special charms, superstitions, cures or remedies that are used in your community?

Teachers, librarians or museums: you can download a pdf of these questions right here.