Tag: Whistler Recipes

Cooking Up WhistlerCooking Up Whistler

December 26, 2023 Whistler MuseumWhistler Museum 0 Comments

While food may not be the first thing that many people associate with the Whistler Museum, the abundance of baking and celebratory meals this time of year recently had us looking at three cookbooks that are kept as part of the Museum’s reference section. Whistler Recipes, Festive Favourites, and The Whistler Weekend Cookbook all contain recipes, as expected, but they can also tell us about what businesses were operating in Whistler, who was working in the valley, and what was being eaten at the time of their publication.

Whistler Recipes is the first of two cookbooks published as fundraisers by the Whistler Museum & Archives Society’s Cookbook Committee. Published in 1997, it includes recipes gathered from past and then-present residents of Whistler and Alta Lake, as well as a few recipes from a cookbook published by The Vancouver Sun in 1940. Whistler Recipes included recipes like Yorkshire Puddings from Ann Bright, Myrtle’s Muffins from Myrtle Philip, Granny Cosgrave’s Scones from J’Anne Greenwood, and Lemon Loaves from Elaine Wallace, which we even tried making when the museum was closed in 2020.

The Whistler Museum and Archives cookbook committee, April 1997: Janet Love-Morrison, Florence Petersen (founder of the Whistler Museum and Archives Society), Darlyne Christian and Caroline Cluer. Whistler Museum Collection

The second book published by the Cookbook Committee in 2001, Festive Favourites, tells us less about the individuals who contributed recipes, but makes up for it by including food trivia and tips throughout. Many of the recipes and festive tips appear to focus on the December holiday season, with instructions for preparing The Scent of Christmas, Spiced Yule Cake, and more alongside a short history of Christmas trees and stockings, though there are also some recipes for other holidays, such as Halloween Spicy Hot Chocolate.

Festive Favourites also suggested different ways to share meals with friends, proposing a “Dine Around Party,” which is “great for a small group of friends who live close together” as the group walks over to a different residence for each stage of the meal, and providing ideas for entertaining and involving children for “When Adults and Children Party Together.”

For anyone interested in the history of restaurants in Whistler, The Whistler Weekend Cookbook compiled by Diane Nicholson in 1987 is a very useful resource. It begins with a list of all restaurants and delicatessens in Whistler at the time, of which seven are still operating under the same name today. For every recipe contributed by a chef at one of the restaurants, their name and place of work are credited. For example, Rolf Gunther of the Rimrock Cafe supplied his version of Mahi Mahi with Bourbon Pecan Cream while Toshi Saito of Sushi Village provided his Tempura Toshi.

A sunny game of volleyball outside the Highland Lodge, today the location of the Highland Lodge. Whistler Question Collection

It is made clear by the sections of the book, such as “Mid-day & Apres Ski” and “Goodies & Supplies for Your Pack etc.,” that the book caters to a population that spends quite a bit of time on the mountain. Each recipe is also accompanied by a difficulty rating in the form of a circle, a square, or a diamond, symbols that could easily be interpreted by most skiers.

The recipes and their contributors also reflect the prevalence of sports in Whistler. Dave Murray provided instructions to make his Breakfast of Champions (oatmeal with nuts and apples) while Leanna Rath and Richard Kelly of Lifestyles Adventure Company included their Mountain Bike Greek Salad and Rob Boyd supplied his recipe for World Cup Granola Bars (cooking must a family affair, as his mother Molly Boyd’s Sunshine Pie can also be found in this book).

Molly Boyd receives the plaque honouring her as the Chamber of Commerce Citizen of the Year Saturday. Brian Walhovd, 1983’s winner, announced to the crowd that Boyd was the 1984 winner for her involvement and extra commitment to the community. Whistler Question Collection

Like the cookbooks published by the Cookbook Committee, The Whistler Weekend Cookbook was also a fundraiser, with a portion of the proceeds going to the Whistler Public Library to purchase New Age/Self Help books. Today, the books produced for such fundraisers can tell us more about the people and food in Whistler at that particular time. They can also be very helpful if you’re trying to recreate a meal you once had at your favourite restaurant, whether you miss the Southside Hot Antipasto Hero from the Southside Deli or the wings that you used to get at Dusty’s Cantina.

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A Variety of Whistler CooksA Variety of Whistler Cooks

July 14, 2020 Whistler MuseumWhistler Museum 0 Comments

Over the past few weeks, while taking some time to prepare the museum to reopen for the summer (yes, we’re open!), we’ve been continuing our perusal of Whistler Recipes, the cookbook put out by the Whistler Museum & Archives Society as a fundraiser in July 1997.  The book brought together recipes from past and (then) present Whistler and Alta lake residents and, by looking into the stories behind the names attached to each recipe, it doesn’t take long to realize just how quickly the area has changed.

Lizzie Neiland and her children (Jenny, Jack & Bob Jardine) came to Alta Lake with Tom Neiland in 1921 and lived in a house on Alpha Lake, where Tom started his own logging business.  In 1923 the family moved into an old cabin at 34 1/2 Mile (an area today better known as Function Junction) where they would live for the next two decades.  From photos of the “Neiland Jardine Ranch,” we can tell that the Neiland family had an impressive garden and even kept chickens and, at times, other livestock.  This was not uncommon for the time, when many households grew their own produce, made their own preserves, and even raised their own livestock.

Jardine-Neiland property at 34 1/2 mile, today’s Function Junction

Whistler Recipes was dedicated to the early residents of Alta Lake “who cooked and baked under challenging conditions.”  This would have included Lizzie Neiland, who kept her family fed at a time when power and running water were not easily come by in the valley, groceries were ordered from Vancouver and delivered by train, and challenging economic conditions sometimes led to the shooting of a “government cow” (deer poached out of season).

There is one recipe in Whistler Recipes attributed to Lizzie Neiland, for “Barney Google Cake.”  Though we can’t find much information on the cake, Barney Google was a character in a daily strip first published in 1919, first called Take Barney Google, F’rinstance, and today known as Barney Google and Snuffy Smith.

Formal portrait of Thomas and Lizzie Neiland taken in the 1940s

Also included in the book was a recipe for “Warm Chicken Spinach Salad” from Chef Bernard Casavant, who spent his time in Whistler cooking in a kitchen very different form the one Lizzie Neiland would have had.

Chef Bernard grew up on Vancouver Island and knew before he left school that he was going to be a chef.  He became one of the first chefs from BC to earn the highest qualification of Certified Chef de Cuisine and was the first West Coast born and trained chef to represent Canada in the Bocuse d’Or Competition, France.  He moved to Whistler in 1989 to become the executive chef at the newly opened Chateau Whistler Resort.

Chef Bernard Casavant, one of Canada’s most noted culinary maestros. Whistler Question Collection, 1994.

Chef Bernard is considered to have played an important role in turning Whistler into a culinary destination.  After eight years at the Chateau he left to open his own restaurant, Chef Bernard’s Cafe, in the Upper Village and was voted Best Chef in Pique Newsmagazine’s Best of Whistler for multiple years.  Part of what made Chef Bernard (or “Cheffie” as one article referred to him) so popular was his support for the local farming community and belief in using fresh and local ingredients (in 1993 he was one of the founders of the Whistler Farmers’ Market), and his involvement in the community (he was also the founding chef of Whistler Search and Rescue’s Wine’d Up fundraiser).  He and his wife Bonnie moved to the Okanagan in 2006.

By the time Chef Bernard moved to the area it would have been very different from the Alta Lake Lizzie Neiland first came to almost seventy years earlier, but we love that the recipes of early Alta Lake residents are included alongside those of renowned chefs, all of whom cooked in the same valley.

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Cooking with the MuseumCooking with the Museum

June 23, 2020 Whistler MuseumWhistler Museum 0 Comments

Earlier this month the museum posted a photo on our Instagram account of a page from Whistler Recipes, a cookbook published by the Whistler Museum & Archives Society in 1997.  The book contains recipes gathered from past and (at the time) present residents of Whistler and Alta Lake, as well as a few scattered recipes from a 1940 cookbook published by The Vancouver Sun.  Recipes such as “Myrtle’s Muffins” from Myrtle Philip, who was one of the original proprietors of Rainbow Lodge in 1914, are found along with instructions for making Yorkshire Puddings from Ann Bright, whose family moved to the area when her husband Jack Bright began working as the general manager of Whistler Mountain in the 1960s.

This cover may look familiar to some!

It is easy to tell that some of the recipes have been handed down from friends or family, with specific names attached to contributions such as “Mrs. Noble’s Blueberry Muffins” and measurements you wouldn’t necessarily see written in more formal cookbooks.  The best example of this comes from “Granny Cosgrave’s Scones” submitted by J’Anne Greenwood, which called for “1 lump butter, the size of a small egg.”

Mabel Cosgrave first visited Alta Lake in 1923 when she, her eight year old daughter Sala, and her mother Judith “Mimi” Forster-Coull stayed at Rainbow Lodge.  The family returned the next summer and in 1925 Mabel bought a lot on Alta Lake and hired Bert Harrop to construct a cabin.  After Mabel and Sala moved from Seattle to Vancouver they were able to use their Alta Lake cabin quite often in all seasons.

Sala’s daughter J’Anne Greenwood visited Alta Lake for the first time at just six months old in 1940.  Sala and her family had been living in Winnipeg, where her husband was in the RCMP, but after he joined the army and was sent overseas Mabel, Sala, and J’Anne decided to live at the Alta Lake cabin full-time.

Mabel “Granny” Cosgrave’s original cottage, July 1926. Photo courtesy of J’Anne Greenwood.

Over the summers of 1943 and 1944 they ran a tearoom out of the cabin (possibly even serving the same scone recipe).  Sala did the cooking while Mabel read tea leaves for those who wished.  In 1944 Sala bought two lots of her own on Alta Lake, paying Charlie Chandler a total of $800, in anticipation of her husband’s return from war.  Sadly, he was killed while still overseas.

One of the lots had a cabin built in the 1930s and Dick Fairhurst and his brother built an additional wing to be used as a tearoom in 1945.  That same year, however, Mabel, Sala, and J’Anne moved back to Vancouver, in part for J’Anne to attend school as the Alta Lake School had closed.  The family continues to spend time at the cabin regularly.

When the Philips retired and sold Rainbow Lodge in 1948, Myrtle Philip bought Mabel Cosgrave’s original cabin and owned it until her death at the age of 95 in 1986.  The cabin on Sala’s lot stood until 1989, when the Greenwood family decided to build a new house.  Like many other buildings from that period, the original cabin was offered to the fire department, who burned it down as part of fire practice.

The recipes included in the book taste as good today as they would have when the cookbook was first published in 1997.

Recipes and the people who share them can offer far more information than just what people like to eat and so we love that Whistler Recipes includes names for each contributor.  Keep an eye on our social media for more recipes and results from Whistler Recipes (we tried making Elaine Wallace’s Lemon Loaves and can confirm that they are delicious) throughout June and, if you happen to have a copy, let us know what your favourites are!

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