Margaret Laurence's Cauliflower Soup

"I'm going out for more milk."

"You're kidding."

"It takes an awful lot."

"We have cream. Why don't you use that?"

"But then it wouldn't be the way Margaret Laurence made it."

Domestic dialogue between me and my wife from this weekend past. The subject is soup. I'd decided to tackle one of Margaret Laurence's favourite recipes. It was her very own creation. You can understand the attraction, I'm sure.

Now, I'm a really crummy cook, so it really says something that I had a hard time sticking to the recipe. The temptation to tweak was great. Water? Why not broth? A red pepper might add colour and taste. Those two quarts of milk seem like a lot, don't they? Of course, Laurence suggests that I might use less, but how am I to interpret "or however much you need for right amount for your soup pot"?

The result was a bland, watery mixture. I raised spoon to mouth reminding myself that this was what might have been served had I ever been invited to the writer's Lakefield home. It would've been impolite not to finish. Having never read Laurence, my Québecoise wife and teenaged daughter pushed their bowls away.

When came time to clear the table I turned to my wife. "Margaret Laurence was a much better novelist than cook," I said.

"So are you."

"But I'm not a novelist."

"Exactly."

As far as I know, the recipe for Margaret Laurence's cauliflower soup was first published in Those Marvelous Church Suppers (Kelowna, BC: Wood Lake, 1985). I took it from The CanLit Foodbook, (Toronto: Totem, 1987), which was compiled and illustrated by Margaret Atwood. Husband Graeme Gibson's recipes dominate.

The CanLit Foodbook was meant as a fundraiser in aid of PEN International and the Writer's Trust. Donations may be made by clicking on the links provided.

Related posts:

Dining with Mister Dressup

Comfort in Cans

Comfort in Cans

Vancouver Aquarium Seafood Recipes
Ainley Jackson
Vancouver: Gordon Soules, 1977

No living creature from the aquarium was killed in the making of this book. I'm willing to bet on it.

Vancouver Aquarium Seafood Recipes was a fundraiser; its contributors – 79 by my count – were members and supporters. I was once a member myself, and for a time lived within walking distance.

Vancouver is a great city for seafood. One gets a sense in this book, but not more than that. It's a product of the 'seventies, meaning that spices are few, herbs are unheard of, and pretty much everything comes in cans. This last isn't such a bad thing. We now live over 3200 kilometres east of Vancouver, and roughly 1400 kilometres from the nearest ocean. It's a good 45 minutes drive to the nearest seafood store.

So, yeah, cans are fine.

The first dish tackled was patron Isabel M. Latta's "Buffet Salmon Casserole".

I wanted to make it just as Ms Latta had, so resisted all temptation to add ingredients. Anyone looking to follow my lead might consider adding a dram or two of milk to the condensed cream of mushroom soup, cutting back a bit on the bread, and, oh… pepper.

Kate Salter's "Tuna Baked in Scallop Shells" was even better.

Again, I'd cut down a bit on the bread.

Though neither was anything like what mother used to make, I recognize both dishes as comfort food. Just the thing as we head into the holidays.

The one quibble I have with this fundraiser is that all measurements are imperial. This made shopping for cans a chore. I mean, really, in 1977 metric wasn't coming to Canada – it had arrived.

As for fresh seafood? For my family, in the 'seventies it wasn't even on the horizon.

Trivia: Ainley Jackson not only put the whole thing together, but contributed over one hundred illustrations.

Object: A 112-page trade-size paperback printed on glossy paper with binding fairly designed to come apart. I purchased my copy for 75¢ at the Salvation Army Thrift Store in Stratford, Ontario.

Access: As of this writing, nine copies are on offer from online booksellers. Prices range from one to five American dollars.

Library and Archives Canada and the Toronto Public Library have copies, as do four of our university libraries. Vancouverites will have to make do with a single reference copy housed in the stacks of the Central Branch.

Related post:

Dining with Mister Dressup

Dining with Mister Dressup

Air Fare: The Entertainers Entertain
Allan Gould
Toronto: CBC Enterprises, 1984

Okay, so I never dined with Mr Dressup, but I did once break bread with Knowlton Nash. Both idols of sorts, they're just two of the forty-one CBC names found in this artifact of better times. Imagine, our public broadcaster once published books. Air Fare is not its greatest achievement – Northrop Frye's The Educated Imagination was a CBC publication – but it is good fun.

The concept here is simple: Allan Gould profiles some of the Mother Corp's better-known employees, who in turn share their favourite recipes.

I purchased my copy last December in preparation for a resolution that would've had me cooking up a storm in the New Year. What dinner guest wouldn't be impressed by Lister Sinclair's Lamb Chops Champvallon or Gerard Parkes' Funghi Alla Panna?

Ten weeks into 2013, I've tackled just five. Thus far, the only disappointment has come in the form of Martha Gibson's hand-moulded Tuna Cutlets: pasty post-war comfort food.

The best comes from Mr Dressup, Ernie Coombs, himself:

Pasta with Clam Sauce

Ingredients
¼ cup olive oil
1 medium cheese clove, chopped
1 small onion, chopped
½ green pepper, chopped
2 5 oz. cans baby clams, minced
Parsley, chopped
Optional wine, grated Romano cheese
Pasta

Instructions
Sauté garlic in olive oil until dark brown, then discard. Add green pepper and onion to oil, and sauté until soft. Toss in a splash or two of white wine, then add the clams and their broth. When the sauce is thoroughly heated, scatter the chopped parsley onto it, and serve over your favourite pasta. Grated cheese may be added at this point.
Serves 4

Wine
Make sure the children are in bed, then open a bottle of Soave or dry Orvieto.

Tony Aspler provided the wine tip, but I'm left wondering about the parenting advice. After all, Mr D didn't appear to have any qualms about having son Chris around during the cooking.

Pasta with Clam Sauce is delicious, but what I like most about Air Fare are the 110 photographs of these CBC employees at work and home. Take Marketplace co-hosts Bill Paul and Christine Johnson. Bill was the first to get a computer, but Christine still had the better phone.

Though I'd seen corners of Clyde Gilmour's record collection before, this further glimpse was appreciated.

Who wouldn't want to scan Knowlton Nash's bookcase? Look, he has a copy of John Ralston Saul's Baraka! Just like me!

Meanwhile, Pierre Berton gives yet another lesson in self-promotion.

The profiles – "served up with the delicious humour of Allan Gould", says one ad – are for the most part  forgettable: "Let's get something straight, right off the top: Dennis Trudeau is not related to Him." CBC types already knew – and who but CBC types were going to be buying this thing?

Donning my publishing hat, I'd say my greatest problem with this book lies in the title: Air Fare is all too easily misread as Air Farce – a problem made worse by putting Luba Goy on the cover. As a reader and longtime CBC type myself, I take issue with the subtitle: The Entertainers Entertain. I've never thought of Knowlton Nash, Bill Paul, Christine Johnson or Dennis Trudeau as entertainers – and certainly not Mr Dressup. Today's CBC on the other hand...

Object: An 8½"x10" paperback, 16o pages in length. Though it enjoyed only one printing, that run numbered 20,000 copies. As I say, an artifact from better times.

John Murtagh's cover design owes more than a nod to that 'eighties staple The Silver Palate Cookbook.

Access: WorldCat records just seven copies in Canadian libraries, the beleaguered Library and Archives Canada included. Decent used copies are out there and can be purchased online for as little as $5.45.

Keeping an Eye Out for Pamela Fry

The Watching Cat

Pamela Fry

London: Davies, 1960

Who was Pamela Fry? None of my Montreal friends, bookish types all, have been able to answer this question. Yet the married "Miss Fry" once lived in the city and twice used it as a setting in mystery novels. Both were published by respected houses, both were lauded in the pages of the New York Times and both have been out of print for half a century.

The Watching Cat, Pamela Fry's second mystery, stumbles out of the gate with an entirely unimaginative premise: Catherine Ellis, a young, single schoolteacher from a remote Manitoba town inherits a large Montreal house from a previously unknown, eccentric uncle. Much as I'd hoped the work would quickly ready itself, Miss Fry fairly clings to cliché as the story falters forward. Poor Catherine, an orphan, enters what she expects to be an empty domicile only to encounter an evil stepmother, an unstable half-sister and a tall, dark and handsome lodger. A shady lawyer works in the background as those in the know sneak about the house looking for riches hidden away by the recently deceased funny uncle.

It all seems so forgettable, but I'll remember The Watching Cat as one of the most disappointing novels I've ever read. The author has a peculiar penchant for planting, then ignoring, seeds of a dark psychological drama. When the evil stepmother relates stories of family mental illness, Catherine begins to question her own sanity – but only for a paragraph or two. Gaslight invariably dims to a Nancy Drew mystery, as when our heroine is awoken by a scratching sound:

The noise came from somewhere very close – surely it was the other side of this very wall, the wall alongside her bed. There was someone in Uncle Jeremiah's room... She looked at the luminous dial of her watch. It was three minutes to four... But who could be in there at this time of night – and for what reason?

So boring, so bland... and yet on occasion The Watching Cat stretches to rise above it all. Catherine's half-sister, for example, proves not to be mentally ill, rather she's a heroin addict. Her pusher is boyfriend Eddie, a young medical school drop-out who is not only in on the scheme, but is probably sleeping with the evil stepmother. And there's a good deal of fun, like when small town girl Catherine, dressed in a hideous handmade green taffeta gown, attends a party populated by beats.

Nearly everything I know about the attractive Miss Fry is found in the book's author biography. Her debut novel, Harsh Evidence, published in London by Wingate (1953) and in New York by Roy Publishers (1956), is held by all of nine libraries worldwide. Harsh Evidence isn't listed for sale online, and seems exceedingly scarce – only the British Library has the Wingate edition – so you'll understand my surprise in discovering that it was translated into both Swedish (De döda tala ej, 1956) and Finnish (Kuolleet eivät puhu!, 1957) .

Did more mysteries follow? The only other books I've been able to uncover by Miss Fry are The Good Cook's Encyclopedia and The Good Housewife's Encyclopedia, both published in the early 'sixties by London's Spring Books. I'll step out on a limb and speculate that a third Spring title, Cooking the American Way, is naught but a repackaging of the first.

Who was Pamela Fry? Disappointed as I was by The Watching Cat, it contained just enough quirk to keep me in the hunt for the answer.

Object: A very attractive hardcover in dark blue boards. I can't quite make out the cover artist's signature. My copy, signed with publisher card, was purchased this past autumn from a Montreal bookseller who tells me that he has never seen another. It would appear that that this, the novel's only edition, received no second printing. No Swedish or Finnish translations this time.

Access: A rare book, Canadian library patrons will find The Watching Cat at the University of Toronto, the University of British Columbia and the University of Victoria. A mere three copies are listed for sale online. At US$15.77, Serendipity Books of West Leederville, Australia offers the one in best condition ("top edge foxed else v.g. in worn and sl. torn d/w"). Second place, goes to a New Zealand bookseller who is selling a slightly less attractive copy for an even twenty American dollars. A Canadian bookseller in Oakville, Ontario brings up the rear by asking C$60 for a crummy thing that lacks the dust jacket and front flyleaf. On the other hand, The Watching Cat is so uncommon that it might just be worth the price.

Further reading: I follow Juri Nummelin in my attempt to track down more about Pamela Fry. His initial investigation is found at Pulpetti.
Related post: The Mystery Writer Mystery Unravels

Serving Up Louis Riel

A few final words on Swan Publishing. The company put out only four books by Canadian authors, but this wasn't one of them. A shame we can't claim it; Fanny aside, Strange Empire was the best book on their list. Author Joseph Kinsey Howard was a Montanan, a local historian whose interests clearly recognized no borders. The biography a very strong work and a good read, though it suffers greatly from a lack of references. Strange Empire was first published by Morrow in 1952, a year after Howard's death of a heart attack. He was 45 years old.

Swan's cover image comes from Riel, a 1961 CBC drama that featured Bruno Gerussi as the Métis leader. Forgotten today, it was a big deal at the time. One reviewer described the actor's performance as career defining, likening it to countryman Raymond Massey's portrayal of Abraham Lincoln. In other words, we should be remembering Gerussi as Louis Riel, not log scavenger Nick Adonidas. Still, is the image not an odd choice? The programme aired four years before the book appeared, so it could hardly be considered a tie-in. What's more, the future Beachcombers star looked nothing at all like Riel. Swan seem to have figured all this out when reprinting the book in 1970, replacing Gerussi's photo with text, text and more text – even the title is longer. As far as I've been able to determine, the reprint marked the end of Swan as a publisher.

Digestif: Writing this I was reminded of Celebrity Cooks, the show Gerussi hosted at the height of his fame. I never watched the thing – as a kid I had no idea who these people were. Mary Travers? Wilf Carter? Judy La Marsh? The only name that meant anything to me was Margaret Trudeau. Eartha Kitt one week, Peter C. Newman the next, it was such a mixed bag. That said, the years have passed – older, taller and wiser, I long to see these episodes. YouTube only whets the appetite, offering nothing more than opening credits and eight minutes and eleven seconds of champagne-swilling celebrity cook Toller Cranston.

Interesting to see that the figure skater dressed the same whether on or off the ice. Then again, it was the 'seventies; Gerussi's ensemble is all that different.

The show spawned Celebrity Cooks, Recipe Book I (Vancouver: Initiative, 1975), Celebrity Cooks, Recipe Book II (Vancouver: Initiative, 1977) and The New Celebrity Cooks Cookbook (Agincourt, ON: Methuen, 1979). I'll be on the lookout for these. What better way to wow dinner guests than to serve them Toller Cranston's cheese cake. He calls it "Tolly's Folly".

Later that same day: YouTube has removed Toller Cranston's Celebrity Cooks appearance, thus depriving my daughter of the joy of watching the catsuited figure skater down glass after glass of bubbly. A coincidence? I like to think so – though it was on the site for nearly three years. Dare I try a second clip? Yes, I dare.

Related posts:

Anything for a Buck (or Thereabouts)

Gay Swans

Mrs. J. Hoodless, Domestic Scientist

J.W.L. Forster. Adelaide Hoodless (c. 1897)

One hundred years ago today, Adelaide Hoodless collapsed and died while delivering a speech to the Women's Canadian Club in Toronto. She was a foe of suffragettes, thought a woman's place was in the home and believed the education of girls should focus on making them good wives and mothers. Still, she's owed a debt of gratitude for recognizing the importance of nutrition and sanitation in an increasingly urban Canada.

"Educate a boy and you educate a man, but educate a girl and you educate a family", she would say; but to Mrs Hoodless, education for girls centred on domestic science. Her efforts made Canadian home and hearth healthier, but helped keep women out of the workplace. Under her watch, the Hamilton YWCA phased out commercial courses, replacing them with classes in domestic science. Mrs Hoodless' influence expanded greatly with the 1898 publication of her Public School Domestic Science, a textbook used in schools across Ontario, and less than two years later she found herself president of the new Ontario Normal School of Domestic Science and Art. All went south from there: financial problems, a nervous breakdown and dismissal, ending with her hitting the stage, literally, in Toronto.

An ignoble end to an interesting woman from another time. Tonight I raise a glass to Mrs Hoodless... anyone who dismissed proponents of prohibition as "temperance cranks" can't be all bad.