Favourite Recipes from Old New Brunswick Kitchens

Janet Arnett is the former campus manager of adult education at Ontario’s Georgian College. She is the author of Antiques and Collectibles: Starting Small, The Grange at Knock, and 673 Ways to Save Money.

Mildred and Stuart Trueman have collaborated on this rather unappetizing
mix of recipes and remedies. Stuart Trueman, a winner of the Stephen
Leacock Medal for Humour, takes credit for the Victorian and folk
recipes for medicines, cosmetics, and household hints that are used as
fillers throughout. These “granny’s cures,” as he calls them, may
yield the occasional smile, but many are repulsive. Why, for example,
feature directions for inducing vomiting among the soup recipes?

The reader who still has an interest in looking at food recipes after
such disincentives will be equally baffled by Mildred Trueman’s share
of the work. The title promises recipes that are both “old” and from
New Brunswick. Yet only a few have a date of origin or other indication
of age. When the ingredients include such items as Rice Krispies and
canned soup, any claim to historical character is suspect.

Certainly some of the dishes and ingredients suggest New
Brunswick—fiddleheads, samphere greens, molasses pie, oyster stew. But
how can New Brunswick claim any particular ownership of items such as
Waldorf salad, quiche, sweet-and-sour spare ribs, lasagna, or steak and
kidney pie?

Other recipes of interest—Blueberry Grunt, Lamb’s Quarters, Brown
Bread, Solomon Gundy —might be more accurately described as Maritime
specialties.