The Cottage Cookbook- Muskoka Memories

On one of my recent purging benders, I found this great old cookbook.  I got it decades ago from Mrs Morland, the mother of one of my parents' friends.  She had been an operator for Bell Canada in the stone age, when phones were essentially tin cans with string between them. Anyway, as a young woman, she'd bought quite a bit of stock in the company. By the time I knew her as an old lady in the late 70s, she was plenty loaded. And if you were even passably flush in Ontario in the 70s, you had a cottage in Muskoka, or as we always called it, "up north."

Pointe au Baril, Ontario.

This cookbook is from Pointe au Baril, a beautiful area on the Georgian Bay part of Lake Huron, for those of you not from these parts.  I don't remember going there as a kid, but I probably did.  My earliest cottage memories were in Bala and Baysville, with my family, and with friends in Lake of Bays, or when we were in the mood for bear sightings, Cache Bay, on the north side of Lake Nipissing.  Now that was up north!

Now that's how you get to the cottage.

As a young adult on a cottage vacation with friends, we'd drive part way up, stop at the last grocery store on the highway, and load up on fairly crappy food.  The girls, at least.  The boys would bring a pack of hot dogs and as much beer as they could cram into the car before the axel cracked and the trunk started dragging on the pavement. This worked out fine; we'd trade food for beer.

Not quite the outfits my friends and I wore while cottaging.

Mostly, we made tacos, macaroni and cheese, hot dogs, and big, country breakfasts.  Nothing like these fancy cottage recipes.  Occasionally, I'd cook something more healthy or involved, but at that age, food was merely a filler for our stomachs which allowed us to drink more beer without getting sick.  The gourmet years, especially while cottaging, were a long way off.

From the 1923 Islanders' Association Yearbook.

Beware the hackneyed sandwiches, cake, and lemonade of ordinary picnic parties.  Indeed.  Sounds nice, unless you're the one stuck in the kitchen while everyone else is on the lake.  Wouldn't you sort of prefer a huge bag of chips and whatever you can throw on the fire?

Make your own sandwiches from attractively-arranged leftovers.  Ha!

I love the photos in this book, but also the recipes.  This is proper old White People Food.  If you're the sort of person who objects to that term, please click elsewhere.  Yes, it is used to refer to a rather bland cuisine, but, hey, it's my heritage.  I used to use this book fairly frequently, and I am starting to again.  It has some great appetizers and desserts, especially. To wit: Cheese Krisps!

I made these a while ago, and everyone loved them.  Sort of hilariously easy, but not as bland as you'd think.

Cheese Krisps

1 package McLaren's Imperial cheese
1 cup flour
1/2 cup butter
1- 1 1/2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
2 cups Rice Krispies

1.  Soften cheese and butter, and mix with flour and Worcestershire sauce.
2.  Add Rice Krispies and stir.
3.  Spoon onto buttered baking sheet, and flatten each cookie with your hand.
4.  Bake at 350 for 10 minutes
5.  Cool and store in air-tight container.

Honestly, they sound silly, but they were really good with cocktails.  If there's one thing WASPs know, it's how to do cocktails.  Check out these gents:

More photos of ye olde time cottagers:

Oh no, she's sneaked away from the kitchen!

Catching fish while wearing a tie.  I love it.

We hardly ever venture up north now.  There's no cottage in the family, and the drive takes almost twice as long, thanks to population growth and no new highways.  Still, when we do, I adore the cool mornings, the bonfires, and the sounds of loons on the quiet lake in the morning (before the Sea-Doos  start up.) There's nothing like it.  All I need is a cottage and a pontoon plane, and I'd be happy to travel north to make some delicious food from the Cottage Cookbook.  Mrs. Morland would approve.