When you were a child how did you get your food?

Well, my mother and dad provided it for me, and my four brothers and sisters. My dad grew all our vegetables throughout the whole year. Sometimes he’d be out there at six o’clock in the morning digging and hoeing and cultivating before he went off to work, just to keep the vegetable garden going. We had lots of apple trees, we had plum trees, we had a peach tree,and so that’s how we were fed .My mother made our own bread, and did baking, sometimes she would buy cookies I guess,but she bought the ingredients from the grocery store, and so that’s how we were fed, and we were fed very well.

How did you keep your food?

Well, we didn’t have a fridge until, I think, I was quite grown up, in fact I don’t know if we ever had one while I was living at home, I left home when I was eighteen, but on the back porch, which was on the north side of the house, we had a cooler, which was basically like a cupboard with holes cut out of the back of it and covered with screen so the cool air could get in, and when it was hot in the summer we just didn’t try to keep food that would go bad. My mother preserved a lot of food, she canned fruit and made jam and various other ways. I remember once she had a big crock. You know what a crock is, it’s like a big earthenware pot. We also had chickens and she had learned that if you put this..I don’t know what it was she put into the crock… it would preserve the eggs. I just remembered that.

Where did you grow up?

In Sidney, B.C.

How was getting food different when you were a kid?

Well, all of what I’ve just explained, but also, I remember that my mother could phone the grocery store and give them a list of the groceries she wanted, all the ingredients for baking and extra things,and the store would deliver them to her in a truck. We also had a milkman who had a dairy farm and he brought milk every morning. Do I dare tell you the first one I remember..delivered it in a horse and carriage And then we had one named Mr. Corser who delivered it in a truck every morning except weekends, maybe.

What is your favorite local food?

Well, local food…one of them is my own plum tree, I brought a picture of harvesting my prune plums. Because my dad grew all our own food when I got my own place I wanted to do that too. I never did it as well as he did! When I bought the property on Warbler road I planted an Italian prune plum tree, which produces masses of prune plums every year. I think there was only one year when I didn’t get very many. Here’s a picture of all the prune plums, in 1992 I think. I love them, they’re good to eat raw, I bottle some and make jam and I freeze some in my little freezer. But I also like fresh salmon, I don’t like shellfish but I certainly like fresh fish, sometimes we can go down to the wharf and buy it from the fisher people.

Tell me about a food memory you have from childhood.

Does it have to be a good memory? Can it be a bad one? Well of course all the fresh fruit and fresh vegetables that my dad grew. But as a child I hated Brussels sprouts. I like them now, but I hated Brussels sprouts and whenever we had Brussels sprouts for dinner i just couldn’t get myself to eat them and so I would be sent to the sink with my plate and dinner I’d have to stay there until I had eaten my Brussels sprouts while the rest of the family all had pie for dessert, because my grandmother always made pie for us every Sunday. I don’t mind Brussels sprouts now. I think maybe I found a little green worm in one once, because it was fresh from the garden.

What seasonal foods do you eat?

Well, I try to just eat foods that are in season. I try not to buy lettuce in the winter, because we don’t grow it here. I love fresh tomatoes out of the garden and fresh vegetables in season, in the spring and summer.

How do you overwinter your food?

I do canning. I bottle fruit, my own plums, applesauce sometimes, and I make jam, and the rest I put in my little freezer.

How and where do you shop for your food?

I shop in Sidney for large items like sacks of flour, but I buy food locally too, mostly down at the garage store, because I can walk there. So I buy both locally and off-island.

Why did you choose this recipe?

I guess you’re referring to a recipe that I have brought? Because I have the plums, I brought a plum and apple crumble recipe, because I can use my own plums, and I can use them when I’ve already frozen them, I can take them out of the freezer and put them in the casserole, and use that recipe, so that’s why I brought that. Here’s another one, it’s different, it involves using Bisquick and that kind of thing, but it also uses Italian prune plums.

How did obtaining food change when you moved to Galiano?

Well, I joined the food co-op, which was a group of people who got together once a month and ordered food, usually they liked us to order it by the case, or large quantities, and then Loney would take his truck and go to Delta or somewhere, and bought it I guess at wholesale prices and would bring it back to the island, and then what I remember was going down to Primal Point where Willow, particularly Willow, and Johanna, would sort it all out .so that was inexpensive for me because I didn’t have work when I first came. I guess when I got a full-time job at the school in ’76 I probably stopped doing that.

What food makes you think of spring?

Well, I guess fresh peas. Lettuce, and fresh beans and nettle soup, which I’m going to make today when I get home..because that’s what out there! And also those fresh green vegetables are very full of vitamins, they’re very good for you! I even like spinach now!

What foods make you think of summer?

Well I guess fresh tomatoes start .there’s nothing like them right off the vine..and things like zucchini, and I guess ice cream, which I don’t grow, I’d like to but I haven’t found the secret.

Which foods make you think of fall?

I have a wonderful pumpkin soup recipe which I brought from Australia…when we went to Australia it was March, but it was their fall, and everywhere we went they served us pumpkin soup! I don’t like pumpkin pie. I don’t like pie.

What foods make you think of winter?

Probably the food that I’ve either bottled or made into jam, and then of course turkey and Christmas dinner. Not much grows in winter, so it’s usually preserved food.