Up the Gatineau! Article
This article was first published in Up the Gatineau! Volume 16.
A Canadian Bride's Dowry
Stuart Geggie
The occurrence of certain common plants can be used to locate long abandoned farm homesteads. The ubiquitous lilac and daylily (hemerocallis) will often indicate where a house has been. At the appropriate time of year, the brilliant splashes of orange and yellow and tall purple lilac bushes call out the information.
Another common plant of early settlements was hops (humulus lupulus). This plant is a herbaceous perennial related to hemp, nettles and elm. Resins and oils in the hop cones have flavouring and preservative qualifies. The earliest recorded reference to the hop was in the 6th century B.C. It was widely cultivated in monastery gardens in Europe and is thought to have come to Great Britain in 1400. This is the same plant that is used to flavour and preserve beer and ale but it was used for making bread as well.
In the days when one could not buy yeast in a store for baking, the housewife would expose a sugar, flour and water mixture to the open room and capture some natural yeast spores floating around in the air. When the mixture began to bubble and ferment, the cook knew that she had a yeast culture and would use a cupful or more in her bread dough. If it made a good tasting bread, she would try and preserve the remaining culture for future use. To do this, an extract of hop cones was made in boiling water, and as the yeast starter was used, it would be replenished with the hop-water, sugar and flour mixture. Of course, the hops helped to flavour the bread but apparently it was not bitter like beer. The late Mr. Roy Mahon of Rupert remembered his mother using a hop mixture when making bread, even in a time when most stores would have carried yeast. He hastened to add that it was good bread with an excellent taste.
Perhaps one can imagine a young bride going to her new home carrying with her a root from her mother’ s favourite hop plant.