Hello lovely readers.  How far back does memory go?  I can distinctly remember being four years old.  That is because I started kindergarten that year.  Now a days it is called junior kindergarten or nursery school but back in the late 50’s (yes I am THAT old), there was no such thing as these or of day care, for that matter.  Most Moms were of the “stay at home” variety, unless there were extenuating circumstances, such as my Auntie who was a school teacher because, my uncle passed away suddenly at the age of 27.  I was also familiar with a couple of Moms who were nurses and there was my Mom’s best friend who lived (and still does) across the street, who had a kindergarten classroom in her basement.  As a favour to my Mom, she invited me to join this class when I was four years old.

When I was three, my Mom give birth to my twin brother and sister and so the gesture was to give my Mom a bit of a break, as there was a distinct possibility that I was a tad precocious.  I still remember many of the resources that were in the classroom that assisted us in learning our colours, numbers and letters.  I also remember how the room was set up with long tables in a “u” formation and where the teacher’s desk was placed, in addition to the shelves that held extra fat crayons and pencils for little hands.

I love exercising my brain in  this way because as is often the case as your grow older, my long range memory seems sharper than my more immediate.  I am forever running downstairs to our basement pantry and then yelling back upstairs “Does anyone know why I came down here?”

I suppose that I remember my fourth year so distinctly because I loved every single minute of school.  Does it make sense that the most vivid memories are of things that you love?  My love of food brings clear images to me as well, but in even greater detail, including aromas and tastes.  My first memory of an authentic Canadian food experience was when my Mom and Dad purchased a 1/4 bushel of corn on the cob.  I don’t even know how much that is, but I clearly remember that a pick up truck arrived in our back lane and we were rallied around to unload, what seemed to me, an endless supply of cobs.  The truck had come from a farm in Morden, Manitoba where the long, warm growing season produces bumper crops of corn and apples.

At this particular time, there were seven people in my family, as Sister #3 was not born until I was eight years old.  Feeding seven people is no easy task on one income and my Mom and Dad were very resourceful.  My Mom canned and pickled and my Dad had connections in the food-service business so that he could buy “wholesale”.  My Dad was an agrologist and knew many local farmers and so it must have come to pass that he got a deal on this bulk corn.

I also remember that we were all enlisted to shuck the corn.  The twins were too young to help and so my hands were the youngest and not the strongest, therefore instead of the muscular task of removing the husks and snapping off the stock, I was in charge of pulling out the fine strands that sometimes remain between the kernels.  When the corn was “bare naked”, I recall that my Mom blanched batches of it in her “pressure cooker” pot and then after they were patted dry, she lined six cobs into each freezer bag.  The day was a hot one and in those days there were very few homes with air conditioning.  The continual process of blanching the corn, produced a very steamy kitchen, indeed.  By the time supper came around we were all “dying” to taste the fruits of our labour.  I also think that my Mom must have been pooped, because what did we have for supper that night?  Corn on the cob, of course.  Just…corn on the cob.

There was always a pound of butter sitting on the kitchen table as well as the salt and pepper shaker and I was allowed to dress up my own cob.  Perhaps this is one of the sources for my love of sweet and salty tastes.  The corn was super-sweet-in fact, I think that was the name of the variety that we had ordered.  When slathered with creamy butter and liberally dosed with a glistening of salt, well, I don’t know if there is a taste in the world that would compare.  I was allowed to have seconds.  In fact, I was permitted to eat until my heart’s content.  I don’t recall the exact count, but it was the greatest number of cobs that I have eaten in one sitting, to this day.

Morden corn-my first authentic Canadian food experience. Here’s a bonus.  Sister #3 is preparing a cookbook of all of our family and friend favourites.  She has tested our Mom’s recipe for wild blueberry pie.  I told you that my Mom and Dad were resourceful and this included yearly family foraging trips for enough wild blueberries to freeze for the winter.  One year our car got stuck and we were almost stranded in the woods, but I leave that tale for another day.

Love-that is all.