Kitchen Memories Two A Collection of Recipes by The Little Schoolhouse and Museum in Tehkummah Township on Minitoulin Island, Ontario

During our great road trip/camping adventure we stayed overnight in South Baymouth, Ontario where we would board the Chi-Cheemaun ferry that would take us across Lake Huron to Tobermory.  The weather was cold and damp but we still took a walk-about before settling into our room for the night.  Across the main road from our motel we had a lovely view of the Chi-Cheemaun dock.  Scattered across Ontario there are a multitude of small, one room schoolhouses that have been converted into homes.  A few have been rescued and preserved as museums.  Such was the case with the was The Little Schoolhouse and Museum beside the motel to the north.  Unfortunately, we could only peer in the the windows for a glimpse of the past as the museum was closed.

We wandered from the museum around the motel pool ending up in the motel gift shop.  I always delight in finding community fundraiser cookbooks.  These types of cookbooks are comprised of a collection of recipes submitted by members of the community or organization then assembled into a booklet format to be sold as a fund raiser.  I was quite happy to find Kitchen Memories Two (June 2013), a collection of recipes by The Little Schoolhouse and Museum in Tehkummah Township on Minitoulin Island, Ontario.  This recipe book was compiled by residents of Tehkummah Township in support of the museum.  This really is a nice recipe book that I will be making a few recipes from!

These types of recipe books are a treasure not only from a cooking perspective but also are of interest to family historians and genealogists.  For example, several recipes in this book have the contributor's name  followed by 'sister' of so and so, giving valuable relationship connections useful in family history research.  Quite often recipes are contributed in honour of a loved one no longer living.  From a culinary perspective, these are very much home style cooking recipes.  Recipes contributed tend to be family favourites and family signature recipes, some handed down from generation to generation.  One thing I have found too, is the recipes submitted tend to use easily accessible ingredients. 

It is common for fundraiser recipe books to have one or more home canning recipes.  This can be problematic.  All home canned foods must be properly processed to ensure a safe product.  These types of recipe books seldom give the safe canning processing methods of boiling water bath (high acid foods) and pressure canning (low acid foods).  Some as in this recipe book may include instructions for unsafe canning methods such as oven or open kettle canning.  Someone following the instructions for canning meat in this recipe book could find themselves with a product that could make them very ill or possibly worse!  Another problem is ingredient omissions that would not be a problem when cooking but can be critical when home canning. 

I shudder when I see this type of thing.  Improperly home canned food is nothing to fool around with.  It really is like playing Russian roulette with your's or your loved ones' lives.  This recipe book was published in June of 2013 so there really is no excuse not to use current safe canning methods.  Honestly, I wish they would just refrain from publishing home canning recipes in these types of publications.  That being said, an experienced home canner can convert most of these recipes into safe-to- can simply by comparing them to tested home canning recipes, making the necessary adjustments then processing using the appropriate method.