What I'm Reading: Mitji—Let's Eat by Margaret Augustine and Lauren Beck (2024)

[delphi]

Mitji—Let's Eat: Mi'kmaq Recipes from Sikniktuk by Margaret Augustine and Lauren Beck, copyright held by the Elsipogtog First Nation, is a 2024 collection of recipes and foodways from the Sikniktuk region of what's colonially known as New Brunswick in Canada.

Normally, a cookbook wouldn't be something I read cover to cover, but this book takes a storytelling approach and has features on community members and information on Mi'kmaq foodways throughout it. The recipes are a mix of nostalgic for me (a lot of it similar to my grandmother's cooking) and brand new (rooted in ingredients or preparations specific to the region). They're all straightforward to prepare, and while some feature country meat that not everyone might have access to, the usual substitutions are easy to make.

Like the last book I read, this is divided into sections by season. If you're in spitting distance on the east coast of North America, this should feature some relevant in-season recipes. If you're not, there are still a lot of recipes based around staples available in many parts of the world—or they might just provide a glimpse into food traditions interestingly different from your own.

Blueberry Cake ("Poor Man's Cake")
Anne Barlow

When Anne Barlow and her ten siblings learned to cook growing up in Indian Island, their widowed mother would place ingredients on both sides of the table so that the children could repeat each of her steps. She also taught them other important survival skills that later served Anne well. Her mother ran the household, raised the children, and obtained everything they needed. She also kept the doors locked and asked her children to be mindful of strangers. Anne didn't learn until later that hiding under the bed and running off into the forest was not just a bit of childhood fun—her mother was protecting them from residential school. While in the woods, Anne and her siblings would pick blueberries for her mother's cooking.

Blueberries have long been plentiful in the region, providing a significant source of nutrition for the Mi'kmaq. Wild blueberries offer more nutrients than cultivated ones and are an effective anti-inflmmatory that can also help prevent cancer and cognitive decline. Harvested in July and August, blueberries can be used in both sweet and savoury dishes—whether as a jam or as barbeque sauce for moose ribs—and, of course, they can be tasty on their own.

For generations, the Mi'kmaq have migrated to take advantage of fruits and vegetables at their freshest. Entire families from the Maritimes went to Sedgwick, Maine, and its environs, to rake blueberries and to harvest potatoes. For a few weeks each year, people who did not normally interact or see each other came together in an intergenerational, seasonal community—something of a pop-up reserve.

Former chief of Elsipogtog Vincent Simon amassed more than fifty years of experience in the industry. He believes harvesting blueberries is about more than money. Earnings went toward clothes for the new school year, representing renewal. And it was most importantly about tradition and the relationships between people that were renewed each summer.

The Mi'kmaq, however, have gone less often to Maine in recent years. Vincent credits the increasing technologization of the harvesting process, with machines rendering most human labour redundant. At the same time, Marlene and Joe Thomas from Lennox Island First Nation, point to cheaper sources of migrant labour Mexico and other countries displacing the Mi'kmaq. Today, the most common reason to go to Maine is to shop in Bangor or Freeport.

The cake is called "Poor Man's Cake" because all ingredients are inexpensive and easy to source. The trick is the cake's consistency before the blueberries are added—if it's too thin, they will sink to the bottom. Instead of measuring, Anne sets ratio for quantities. For example, a teaspoon of baking powder for each cup of four, one part sugar to two parts flour, and water added gradually until reaching her desired consistency. Here is her recipe with our attempt to provide measurements.

Recipe

Yields 8-12 squares
Preparation time: 1 hour, 20 minutes

1/2 cup (125 ml) margarine or butter
1 cup (250 ml) sugar
1 tsp (5 ml) lemon extract or lemon zest
2 eggs
2 cups (500 ml) flour
2 tsp (10 ml) baking powder
1 tsp (5 ml) salt
2/3 cup (150 ml) water or milk
1 cup (250 ml) fresh or frozen blueberries

Preheat oven to 350F (175C) and grease a 13- x 8-inch (33- x 20-cm) pan with margarine or butter.

In a medium bowl, cream margarine or butter with sugar and stir in lemon extract or zest.

Beat eggs separately and add to the mixture.

In another bowl, combine flour, baking powder, and salt.

Fold dry ingredients into wet ingredients gradually, alternating with water or milk. Mix thoroughly until there are no lumps. The batter should be thick enough to stick to the back of a wooden spoon.

Stir in blueberries, pour mixture into the pan, and bake for 65 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out dry. Let cool, cut into squares, and serve with jam, blueberry coulis, whipped cream, or ice cream.

A variation for this recipe is Gail Barlow's Upside-Down Cake recipe, which she learned from Mi'giju' Barlow. You can use any fruit, but she reaches for fresh raspberries when they are in season.

Line a square cake pan with parchment, place a generous layer of fresh raspberries in the pan, three berries deep, ensuring they are evenly spread with no gaps between them. Sprinkle with sugar, and then add Anne's Poor Man's Cake batter (without the blueberries) on top.

After baking, let cool and then invert the pan onto a cutting board or serving platter, and peel back the parchment to reveal a colourful an tempting upside-down cake. Serve while still warm with ice cream.

(I made a half-batch of this, and it was really good!)

Comments

[dr_zook]

That's a great approach for a cookbook, and I totally understand reading it cover to cover! Thank you for the recipe, especially the upside-down version, nom!

[delphi]

I'm definitely going to try the upside-down version next, especially as we head into squishy jam-quality berry season!

[muscle_wizard]

This is delightful - and reminds me of the cake bars my mother has made.

I'll definitely make this myself, my father loves blueberries too.

Culture and context in recipe books is what makes me devour them too - I'll be looking for this.

[delphi]

I hope you can get your hands on it and find some other recipes that appeal to you!

[pauraque]

Oh, this sounds really cool. Thanks for the review!

[delphi]

Lately, I've been grabbing something off the staff recs shelf every time I go to the library, and it's meant some nice surprises - especially on the non-fiction front, since I rarely browse there.

[dhampyresa]

I want blueberry cake, now. And providing ratios rather than measurements is such a good way of doing things!

[delphi]

I love it when the main points are in ratios, especially as someone who's usually cooking for one and wants to cut a recipe down.

[greghousesgf]

I'd love to see more recipes!

[delphi]

I took some snapshots of the recipes I wanted to keep! The pages are a bit bendy, but you can see them here:

https://imgur.com/a/7V9Pkt7

Let me know if there's anything you can't make out. :) The "chicken haddie" referenced in the fish cakes recipe is a can of cooked boneless white fish, but it might be called something else in the U.S.

[greghousesgf]

thank you!

[corvidology]

I love a good cookbook that has a story to tell!

[delphi]

Me too! I've also always loved community cookbooks, so it's cool to see a more formal version of one where telling the story of people in the community and how they cook is a bigger part of it.

[corvidology]

Community cookbooks were not that common in the UK but here in the US South, they're very common as fundraisers particularly by philanthropic groups of the type that have local chapters.

As a result, I have a small collection of community cooks that fascinate me but I would never cook anything from them as they're not to my taste at all.

[delphi]

I definitely appreciate most community cookbooks as more of a historical relic than a source of recipes. They can give such an interesting look at not just what people actually were cooking at the time, but the dishes they wanted their neighbours to know they were cooking.

I recently picked up one from the city I currently live in, from the late 1960s or thereabouts, and it was wild to see how many people were brewing their own booze here. Four different recipes for parsnip wine alone!