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It must be serendipity! The one day a week we volunteer in the library at Fort York is the same day the Volunteer Cooks get together to research, test, and sample recipes from Georgian cookbooks. Every Thursday, we eagerly head to the kitchen to see what they are creating: Hedgehogs, Carrot Pudding, Portugal Cakes? The smell, sight, and taste of early nineteenth-century gastronomy lured us to enquire about Fort York’s Volunteer Cooking Program. The anchor is Bridget Wranich, the only officer at the fort who specializes in cookery. It is a challenging occupation, requiring knowledge about the historic foodstuffs, measurements, and methods of the often obscure recipes found in old cookery books. She finds contemporary equivalents and tests the recipes in the modern Bunker Kitchen. Later, the successful results are transferred to production in the historic kitchen in the Senior Officers’ Quarters where the cooking is done on an open hearth and in a brick oven. Preparing food here is particularly challenging, only learned by trial and error. Of course there is no running water. Keeping a pot boiling and stopping sauces from burning demands constant attention to the fire and the placement of the food on the hearth, while explaining the process to the public requires patience and humour. Bridget has maintained the cooking program by relying on volunteer cooks to augment her own skills and interests. One of the most enthusiastic volunteers is Mya Sangster. As a teacher, she used to bring her classes to Fort York. Since her retirement in 1996 she joined the fort as a volunteer and soon became “hooked” on historical cooking, training under Bridget and Fiona Lucas, a program officer of Foodways at Spadina Museum. She has also taken courses all over North America and England. Mya, who relishes research and welcomes new recipes culled from early sources, has become The Fife and Drum
a stalwart participant in the cooking program, especially when Bridget was on maternity leave. John Hammond joined the group in 2004. He has developed a keen interest in the mechanics of open-hearth cooking. Like Mya, he enjoys the stimulation of cooking in a group setting. Trying new recipes and discussing the processes and outcomes with the other cooks is a great part of the experience. It is interesting to see just how heated their discussions can become. John’s favourite part of the job is taking part in public demonstrations in the old kitchen where he can answer questions and talk to visitors about the kitchen itself, the implements, ingredients, and methods of cooking that were used to prepare food for the officers in Georgian times. Ellen Johnstone worked at the Canteen at the fort for twenty years. When she retired five years ago, she decided to become a volunteer cook. Now, she cheerfully fulfils the requirement of spending at least one hundred hours a year at the fort, on average three to four hours every Thursday in the Bunker kitchen developing recipes and also helping out at special events and on some weekends, when she wears period costume and functions as a cook re-enactor.
It is obvious that all three volunteer cooks enjoy their job. Their faces light up and without hesitation they agree that the interaction with the public, the research on Georgian cooking, and the camaraderie of working with other like-minded cooks is delightful. For them the historic kitchen is a “warm and inviting place.”To Bridget Wranich the excellence and devotion of these cooks is heart-warming. They inspire her to want to train more volunteers and she insists that no previous experience is necessary, just interest and commitment. This would permit her to expand the present program – to prepare a FortYork National Historic Site cookbook of modern equivalents and perhaps even to begin selling baked goods in the Canteen Anyone who attends the annual Friends of Fort York Georgian Dinner can attest to the delicious results of the program. Bridget and her volunteers spend countless hours all year long to research, test, and prepare the menu, which is then cooked and presented by the caterer according to her stipulations. The support of the Friends also allows for the continued growth of the food program, rather than its stagnation under the present budgetary restraints of the city. We help to equip the kitchen with crockery and to purchase ingredients and other supplies for the cooks. Bridget says, “The Friends are an enormous help financially and allow us to do more complex food testing than we would otherwise be able to do.”
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