“With just a few ingredients, lovingly handled, beaten, stirred, whipped and cooked into a mouth-watering treat our elders have given us the knowledge to carry on,” writes Vivian Cruise in the introduction to Season Upon Season.
A collection of recipes from mothers, grandmothers, families and friends, LUSH Valley’s new cookbook is chockfull of tasty things to put on your plate. The 126-page book is practical and user-friendly. But best of all, it makes me hungry.
Join Lush Valley for the launch of Season Upon Season, Sharing the Harvest and Preserving the Culinary Wisdom of Elders, this Saturday. The Simms Millennium Park Earth Day celebration takes place from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Yummy samples from Season Upon Season will be available.
Like most cookbooks, Season Upon Season, contains a selection of snacks, meals and desserts ranging from guacamole to Shepherd’s Pie to lemon cheesecake. But what intrigues me, are the more unusual recipes such as Salmon Wrapped in Skunk Cabbage, Eunhee’s (Seaweed) Birthday Soup and Nasturtium Pickles.
I was especially pleased to find Ruth Masters Gut Grinders.
Ruth once served me these delicious cookies and I’ve often wondered what mix of ingredients produced the flavourful, chewy texture. And the double-duty Alberta Handwarmers sound like just the snack to take along on one of next winter’s hikes.
Season Upon Season also includes an assortment of helpful hints, as well as sections on using leftovers and cooking without an oven. But the most heartwarming additions are the handwritten recipes for Mexican Wedding Cakes and Grandma White’s Homemade Soap.
Season Upon Season is truly a book to savour in more ways than one.
LUSH Valley Food Action Society (www.lushvalley.org) is a charitable, non-profit community organization focusing on food security.
According to the book’s back cover: “Food security exists when all people, at all times, have dignified access to nutritious, safe, personably acceptable and culturally appropriate foods, produced in ways that are environmentally sound and socially just.”
“This cookbook is our way of getting people to think about how much things have changed in the world of food,” LUSH Valley president Bunny Shannon writes in the foreword. “We hope you will adapt the recipes to your own tastes and share them with friends and families.”
Profits from the book will be used to promote and support the mandates of the society.
Season Upon Season (126 pages, softcover) includes colour photographs, and retails for $15. The cookbook will be available at Simms Millennium Park this Saturday and after that at the LUSH Valley office at 1126 Piercy Ave. in Courtenay.
A few copies of the book were sold at Seedy Saturday. Many of these copies contain printing errors. LUSH Valley encourages anyone who has one of these books to exchange it for a revised edition.