Corps de l’article

Figure 1

Parkwood Estate, Oshawa, Ontario.

Photographic Credit: Parkwood Estate National Historic Site, 2017

-> Voir la liste des figures

Late in the day, on 4 January, 1972, a slice of apple pie was carried through the darkened halls of a grand old mansion in Oshawa, Ontario. Up the polished stairs in the servants’ quarters, through the servants’ door, and under the delicate plasterwork of the upper hall; the simple slice of pie stood in contrast to the luxury that surrounded it. It was on its way to the bedroom of the dying Colonel Robert Samuel McLaughlin (1871-1972), and was in the hand of his trusty and long-time cook, Velma Allin. She made the pie earlier in the day when things hadn’t been so dire. Unfortunately, Sam passed away before it could be consumed. It seems to have struck Velma later that evening as she cleaned the bright, airy kitchen of Parkwood Estate: this is it. No more garden parties. No more chrysanthemum teas. No more Col. Sam! The kitchen fell silent.

This paper represents a first attempt to piece together the vacillating history of the kitchen at Parkwood Estate, Oshawa, Ontario. There is not currently any scholarly work on the kitchen nor food at Parkwood, and very little work mentions Parkwood from other scholarly perspectives. The evidence presented here is heavily based on surviving archival records, as well as interviews conducted with surviving staff and relatives of former staff during the summer of 2017.[1] During the course of recording oral histories, additional primary materials emerged in the form of a cook’s notebook, and some annotated cookbooks used by a former cook at the Estate; while these collections were kindly made available for consultation, they remain in private hands.[2]

Parkwood sat at the heart of local, national, and international business networks, with Sam and his wife, Adelaide, entertaining many renowned guests. As the owner and president of GM Canada, McLaughlin possessed a complex personality, having one foot in local life and culture with the other in that of auto baron and industrialist. He required food that supported his vision of his place with society. Given that, by all accounts, R.S. McLaughlin never cooked proper meals, the task of culinarily interpreting and translating this complex figure into food fell to local women employed in his household kitchen. What does one feed a Canadian auto baron of the 1950s, both in daily events and during celebrations? This is exactly the type of question that the Parkwood Estate cooks specialized in.

This paper reconstructs the working environment, work histories, and work memories of the cooks of Parkwood Estate, according to newly uncovered archival and oral-history evidence. Records indicate that Parkwood’s cooks learned their basic culinary skills from family members, local groups, and cooking in other domestic situations, but learned to blend French-inspired fine-dining accents into menus in order to elevate and refine the McLaughlin family’s table. Food was both humble and complex –sometimes at the same time– which fed into the domestic identity of the McLaughlin family. The kitchen at Parkwood, was a key space of enculturation through which the McLaughlin family established and maintained a semi-aristocratic, Oshawian food identity. Since the McLaughlin family largely did not cook, cooks like Mrs. Allin sat at the heart of the Parkwood domestic establishment, and were skilled creators and curators of a culinary identity that was an important tool through which the McLaughlin family maintained social prestige.

Background

Robert Samuel “Sam” McLaughlin was born in Enniskillen, On., in 1871. He was the son of Robert McLaughlin, a locally renowned carriage builder. Sam eventually became a partner in his father’s firm in 1892. In 1908 the McLaughlin Motor Car Company was established out of the existing carriage company, and by 1918, the company had been bought by General Motors.[3] Sam served as President of General Motors Canada until 1945, successfully leading the company through the difficult years of the Great Depression due, in part, to numerous controversial labour decisions.[4] He remained Chairman of the Board until his death in 1972.[5] Sam’s wife, Adelaide, was born in Kinsale, On., in 1875. She attended Ottawa Normal School where she earned a teaching license, and began teaching in Whitby.[6] After meeting at church one Sunday, they married in 1898, and remained married until Adelaide died in 1958.[7] Sam did not re-marry.

Sam’s legacy is inextricably linked to the early struggles in the organized labour movement. On one hand, he offered GM workers “profit-sharing plans, sickness insurance, health benefits, dances, bands, company-financed mortgages” as early as the 1920s.[8] He also provided partial or full funding for numerous public and university buildings in Ontario, and established the R. Samuel McLaughlin Foundation to provide funds for numerous scholarships, bursaries, and grants to students in a wide variety of fields across Canada. On the other hand, Sam’s generosity seems to have been most prevalent around the 1940s and 1950s. This was due, in part, to the introduction of tax deductions for charitable donations, and due to a wish to see unions kept out of manufacturing through generous, if idiosyncratic, corporate welfare programs.[9]

Sam and Adelaide maintained Parkwood Estate as their primary residence from the time it was built, 1915-1917, until Sam’s death in 1972.[10] Inspired by the Beaux-Arts style popular at the time, Toronto architects Darling and Pearson designed and oversaw the first phase of construction in which the bulk of the house was built.[11] Later, during the 1930s and 1940s, the McLaughlins pursued considerable building and alteration schemes, including the addition of a large conservatory along the southern portion of the house, in the Art Deco style were overseen by celebrated Toronto architect John Lyle.[12]

Between 1915-1972, the garden underwent more substantial alterations than the house, and has attracted some recent scholarly attention.[13] Although the size of the 12-acre plot of land did not increase significantly over the years, Toronto architects Harries and Hall originally divided the property into four quadrants of roughly three acres each, including a residential, kitchen and cutting garden, pasture, and a “great lawn.”[14] Additionally, a substantial greenhouse complex was attached to the north-western end of the house during initial construction in 1917.[15] The greenhouses primarily provided flowers for the household in conjunction with the outdoor cutting gardens, but some greenhouses were constructed in a formal style and acted as additional entertainment space.[16] A portion of the original greenhouse structures are extant, and the formal greenhouse was recently restored and re-opened during the autumn of 2018. Additionally, chicken coops and a small home farm were located in the north-western corner of the Estate, providing a ready place for slaughter, plucking, and primary butchery of estate-raised animals.

Figure 2

Detail of kitchen, blueprint of Parkwood Estate, c.1913, House Blueprint, PA BP.11900.

-> Voir la liste des figures

The kitchen (5.1m x 5.7m) is situated in the westernmost end of the house, allowing for easy access to the formal gardens when catering parties, and to the kitchen garden so that gardeners could easily bring produce to the kitchen.[17] The breakfast and dining rooms are situated directly southeast of the kitchen, separated by a large service corridor and servery (4.8m x 4.8m). A simple but substantial servants’ dining room (5.7m x 8.5m) is located directly west of the kitchen, as the westernmost room on the ground floor. Additionally, a scullery (2.4m x 3.6m) attached to the southern portion of the kitchen provided more preparation space, as did a smaller larder (1.8m x 2.4m) attached to the north-eastern portion of the kitchen. Importantly, the larder contained refrigerators chilled by an ammonia-brine compressor; all of which survives in the house.

Cellars offered additional space for storing pickles, preserves, table silver, wines, and housed the laundry facilities that cared for both the delicate linens used in the front-of-house areas, and rags, towels, and cloths for the kitchen.[18] A wide staircase allows for access to all floors of the house, connecting the kitchen and servants’ dining room with entertainment zones, bedrooms, and cellars. None of these areas underwent significant renovation between 1917-1972, although appliances and fittings were occasionally updated.

Two small auxiliary kitchenettes also existed on the Estate: the nursery and garden-teahouse kitchenettes. The nursery kitchenette was outfitted with a small stove and sink that was used for preparing simple children’s meals, and reheating food sent from the main kitchen; both of these fittings survive in situ. It lost its cooking function during the late 1920s, by which time all McLaughlin daughters were young adults and had begun dining en famille. The garden teahouse –located in an Art Deco pavilion in the southern portion of the gardens– included a small oven and stove for warming and reheating food. No original equipment currently exists in the teahouse. In both cases, the nursery and teahouse kitchenettes acted mainly as réchauffoirs, with most preparation carried out in the house’s main kitchen.[19]

Parkwood’s Archival Holdings

Surviving archival holdings at Parkwood are largely limited to special-event menus, guest lists, and servant lists with particularly good coverage of the decades between 1940-1970 in series PA/2005. Some material was dispersed during the 1970s after Col. Sam’s death, and other documents that are mentioned in oral histories are currently lost.[20] Additionally, items like daily requests transmitted to the gardeners and home farm have not survived, and were likely destroyed close to the time of creation.[21]

A cookbook used at Parkwood and created by cook, Velma Allin, during her 1953-1974 tenure in the kitchen remains a treasured family heirloom of her daughter, Donna Bradley. Bradley, who grew up in and around Parkwood’s kitchen, kindly allowed the authors to view this book during the course of research. Additionally, Bradley allowed limited documentation of some passages of the book.

The Batterie de Cuisine

Figure 3

Kitchen of Parkwood Estate, June 5, 2017

Personal photograph

-> Voir la liste des figures

Much of the batterie de cuisine survives in situ. After 1972, the kitchen was closed to the public, and rarely ever used for catering or events. The original stove and oven were eventually removed, likely during the 1980s, although fridges, food warmers, tables, butcher’s block, linen, and china are original to the family.[22] The location of some furniture and appliances has moved over the years, as they did during the family’s tenure. Some former staff, for example, remember the stainless-steel warming cabinet, currently located under the fume hood in the kitchen, being located in the service corridor.[23] A photograph of Velma Allin, held in the Walter Curtin Collection, Library and Archives Canada, shows the dressing table currently located in the centre of the kitchen to be pushed up closer to the stove when Velma was using it in 1954.[24] The current 1930s-era enamel stove and oven were donated to Parkwood in 2008, in an effort to re-open the kitchen to museum visitors and accurately reflect something of the cookery that occurred within the space.[25]

Figure 4

A selection of the batterie de cuisine, July 18, 2017

Personal photograph

-> Voir la liste des figures

Notable sub-collections among the batterie de cuisine include a large suite of baking tools, the majority of which are without makers’ marks. Items include a very large number of fluted torte moulds, cake moulds, ladyfinger and madeleine moulds, petit four moulds, a vast array of fluted and straight-edge pastry cutters, scone cutters, dough and lattice cutters, as well as various sizes of muffin tins. Another sub-collection includes an array of moulds for use with aspic and savoury food. This group consists of, in part, a Grimwades British Lion mould, 5cm savarin moulds, timbales, circular and oval dariol moulds, and 3cm boat moulds. As with other sub-groups within the batterie de cuisine, most moulds and knives are without makers’ marks.

Surviving hand tools from the period of the family, that are accessioned in the archive, include a large variety of French knives, paring knives, zesters, butter paddles, pastry cutters, graters, potato ricers among a wide variety of other hand tools. Makers’ marks and brand names represent a plurality of early and mid-twentieth-century Anglo-American makers, some of which include Regal, Androck, and Grimwades. Interestingly, Parkwood’s batterie reflects the early introduction of electricity into the domestic Canadian kitchen, with many small electrical appliances mixed in among early twentieth-century hand tools. Examples of early small electrical appliances include a Westinghouse electric turnover toaster, likely series TT-3 (in production 1920s); a Sunbeam Mixmaster model 10 (in production 1950-1954);[26] and an Osterizer Deluxe model 438 blender (in production 1954-1955).[27] The Mixmaster is missing one whisk, and the Osterizer is missing the handle and chrome band that used to affix it to the glass body.

Figure 5

An Osterizer Deluxe blender (left) and a Sunbeam Mixmaster (right) in the Parkwood collection., July 18, 2017

Personal photograph

-> Voir la liste des figures

Like the smaller items in the batterie, larger appliances and furniture are both identifiable through makers’ marks, or were nameless. A six-compartment stainless-steel food warmer (1.4m x 1.25m x 54cm) carries an undated maker’s plate indicating that it was made by The Modern Kitchen Equipment Company, Toronto. The butchers block (83cm x 55cm x 55cm) is original to the house, as is a small tin-topped table (1.03m x 69cm x 84cm) that can be seen in a photo from 1964 supporting a meat slicer, since lost.[28] The main steel-topped dressing table (84cm x 1.6m x 1.8m) in the centre of the kitchen is also original to the family, and can be seen in archival photography.

The Household and Kitchen Staff

During the summer of 2017, the authors conducted interviews with three individuals that were closely associated with Parkwood when it was a private home: Brian Keys, former gardener (emp. 1965-1969); Jackie VanWort, niece of former cook Hazel Bow (emp. 1948-1971); and Donna Bradley, daughter of former cook Velma Allin (emp. 1952-1973).[29] Bradley also volunteered as an occasional helper in the kitchen throughout the years that her mother was employed at Parkwood, washing dishes and crystal, and scrubbing vegetables. Interview questions focused both on personal memories of working in the foodservice side of the house, and on family stories about relatives who worked at Parkwood.

With respect to overall numbers of staff working indoors and outdoors on the Estate proper, this changed over time. Unfortunately, archival records of servants before 1948 are lost. A 1948 list of “All the Staff at Parkwood” lists 14 staff indoors, and 22 staff outdoors; an additional 15 staff worked at the home farm, while 31 are listed as working at Parkwood Stable, McLaughlin’s stud farm north of Oshawa, and now known as Windfields Farm.[30] Unfortunately, job titles are not provided in the 1948 list. In the kitchen, specifically, the archive provides good coverage for the years between 1957-1968, while interviews and Vernon’s City Directory assisted in piecing together snapshots of the cooks at various times:

Table 1

Partial list of Parkwood kitchen staff, 1947-1973

Partial list of Parkwood kitchen staff, 1947-1973

[31] [32] [33] [34] [35] [36] [37] [38] [39] [40] [41] [42] [43] [44] [45] [46] [47] [48] [49] [50] [51] [52] [53] [54] [55] [56]

-> Voir la liste des tableaux

We are able to explore two cooks’ work histories with some level of specificity. Hazel Bow worked as a cook at Parkwood, for more than 20 years.[57] Bow lived in Parkwood on the second floor, in a large bedroom situated in the southwestern end of the house.[58] Bow grew up in Whitby Township, Ontario, taking on a large share of her family’s cooking and housework at age 15 when her mother died.[59] She did not have any formal culinary or domestic science training.[60] Hazel’s niece, interviewee Jackie VanWort, visited her aunt at the house occasionally throughout the 1960s, and ate in the servants’ dining room when visiting.[61] Since Hazel lived at Parkwood for most of her working life, and traveled to the McLaughlin winter residences in Bermuda for the winter, van Wort did not have the opportunity to enjoy or form memories about her aunt’s personal cooking style nor holiday special-occasion cooking.[62] Although Bow was married, her husband, Jack Bow, was a butler who was employed and lived at a residence in Toronto; they visited each other during days off.[63] Van Wort reports that she never met R.S. McLaughlin when visiting her aunt; he was never in the kitchen when she was there, and she was not allowed to linger in formal rooms.[64]

Figure 6

Hazel Bow standing at the stove in the Parkwood kitchen in 1958. Hazel’s assistant is unidentified.

Photo source: Library and Archives Canada, Walter Curtin Collection, 1981-262 NPC, 5411-2, fr. 15A-16-16A

-> Voir la liste des figures

Velma Allin also worked at Parkwood for over twenty years, first starting as a maid and seamstress, and moving into the kitchen gradually during the early 1950s.[65] Allin remained employed by the Oshawa General Hospital until 1973, two years after R.S. McLaughlin’s death, in order to cater to parties and groups that the Board planned to entertain at the house.[66] Allin’s daughter, interviewee Donna Bradly, worked in an un-paid, occasional capacity as a dishwasher and doing vegetable cleaning and paring.[67] Allin and Bradley both knew cook Hazel Bow and assistant cook Anne Cowan.[68] Before entering private service at Parkwood, Allin had worked as a maid for other members of the McLaughlin family, as well as having earlier worked as a cake decorator in Oshawa.[69] Having been orphaned before turning two, Allin learned how to cook from her guardian, Mrs. Trick, who lived near the General Motors plant and cooked for her family and travelers passing through on the rail line.[70] She later moved to Port Perry to cook for farm workers, before returning to Oshawa to marry.[71] Throughout her life, Allin remained active on the women’s’ guild at the former Centre St. United Church, cooking dinners for celebrations at the church hall, and learning and sharing recipes with other Oshawa ladies. Additionally, Bradley reports that Allin enjoyed Kate Aitken’s 1953 The New Cookbook, and later in life she greatly appreciated Graham Kerr’s Galloping Gourmet, broadcast on CBC between 1969-1971.[72]

Figure 7

Velma Allin in a candid moment in the Parkwood kitchen, 1958.

Photo source: Library and Archives Canada, Walter Curtin Collection, 1981-262 NPC, 5411-2, fr. 13A-14

-> Voir la liste des figures

The Food

According to oral histories, the prime years for entertainment coincided with Adelaide’s tenure over the house, although Sam continued to entertain moderately after Adelaide’s death, in 1958.[73] Therefore, Parkwood’s kitchen was required to move between party food and daily food, frequently. With respect to how menus were planned, Bradley remembers:

“In the beginning, when Mrs. Powers was housekeeper, I remember she would come to the kitchen to decide what the menu for that evening was going to be. There was a three-ring sort of notebook with a coil … and it sat on a little table just inside the kitchen. She would sit down on a chair and they would decide what was in season, what they had available, who was coming, and what the menu was going to be … Later, when Mrs. Powers became a little older and had her own health issues, she would come in and say, ‘what have you decided for today?’”[74]

Therefore, even the logistics of menu planning did not remain constant at Parkwood over the years. When large garden parties occurred –like Parkwood’s annual summer Chrysanthemum Teas– caterers were hired. In one case, Bradley remembers Arcadian Court, Toronto, catering the Tea.[75] Later, however, when formal entertainments had decreased in frequency and R.S. McLaughlin and the housekeeper were comfortable with the cook, the kitchen exerted more autonomy over menu decisions.

Parkwood Archives holds a small number of menus from dinner parties held at the house. At these times, menus contained a pronounced French influence, but also contained some local influences, as well as ingredients from McLaughlin’s own properties. At a dinner for the fellows of the McLaughlin Foundation, for example, the menu consisted of:

November 24, 1954[76]

Cocktails
-
Madrilene soup
-
Spion Kopje brook trout
Lemon sauce à la gourmet

Petite parsley potatoes
-
Breast of wild duck
Brandy sauce

Moulds of orange jelly in lettuce cups

Turnips Wild rice Green beans
-
Cherry tartlets à la mode
-
Coffee

Later, in 1968, it seems a more simplified menu was preferred. At “A Dinner Tendered by Col. R.S. McLaughlin,” the menu consisted of:

November 1, 1968[77]

Jellied vegetable salad
-
Oysters Umberto
-
Cornish hen
Fiddleheads Carrot purée
-
Profiteroles
Filbert sauce
-
Coffee

Both menus come from the month of November, with 14 years’ difference between them. In the latter case, the four primary courses were kept, but the fish course was lighter and not cooked, and starches were eliminated from the entrée. It is unknown whether this was part of a trend toward lighter meals during McLaughlin’s twilight years, or whether it was simply a feature of this particular meal.

It is more difficult to assess daily, non-party food served at Parkwood. The coil notebooks kept by the housekeeper and cook have not survived, although Bradley kindly allowed the authors to view Allin’s surviving cookbooks. In one page, she listed vegetable and meat options, presumably to give her ideas to cycle through. Included in this page are:

“Vegetables / 1. carrots / 2. potatoes / 3. spinach / 4. peas / 5. asparagus / 6. tomatoes / 7. corn / 8. onions / 9. cauliflower / 10. cabbage / 11. turnip / 12. pumpkin / 13. marrow / 14. horseradish / 15. radish / 16. lettuce / 17. beets / 18. parsnips / 19. cucumber / 20. celery / 21. peppers / 22. beans / 23. squash / 24. veg. marrow / 25. watercress / 26. kohlrabi / 27. sweet potato / 28. mangolds / 29. sugar beets / 30. artichokes / 31. red cabbage / 32. brussel sprouts / 33. lentils / 34. Eggplant / 35. mint / 36. puff balls / 37. parsley / 38. mushrooms / 39. swiss chard / 40. brocoly / 41. celeriac / 42. salsify

Meats. / Pork: chops / leg / steak / feet / spareribs / shoulder / butt / tongue / Beef: / steaks / Rump Roast / minced / stew / standing rib / tenderloin / Short ribs of beef”[78]

Allin did not make any indication as to why she recorded the above items. One suspects that it acted as a memory aid of some sort. Additionally, Bradley reports “the only thing that I remember that was really Mr. McLaughlin’s favourite, but there may have been others, was apple pie, fresh baking, whether it be buns or bread.”[79]

Figure 8

Velma Allin’s kitchen notebook. In the personal collection of the Bradley family of Oshawa.

Personal photograph

-> Voir la liste des figures

Additional insight can be gleaned from the memories of former gardener, Brian Keys. Keys states, “There were chickens, hens [white leghorns]. Yes, there were a couple of pens of hens. The eggs were gathered daily as well.”[80] Keys reports that older gardeners mentioned cows being maintained on the Estate during earlier years, but this stopped before his employment during the mid-1960s.[81] Keys also remembers many of the vegetables grown on the Estate for use in the kitchen:

Buttercrunch lettuce, spinach, carrot, beets, asparagus, corn, early Detroit tomato, big boy tomato, onion, cucumber, pumpkin, kohlrabi, eggplant, white potatoes, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, broccoli rhubarb, strawberry, apple and pear trees, mulberries.[82]

When it comes to menu planning and transmitting kitchen requirements to the garden, Keys explained the process:

“The routine every day was lunch break at 9. We started at 7, so there was a lunch break at 9 at which point Tom Wragg, head gardener for the kitchen, would come up to the kitchen and he had his snack, whatever they gave him, milk or tea or coffee and he’d come back with the list. So he’d say ‘Brian, here’s the list’ which was what the kitchen staff, usually the head housekeeper, would have the say on that. ‘This is what we need’. So then, Tom would be the connection between the kitchen and the kitchen garden. So, we’d pick the list.”[83]

Baked goods were also central to Parkwood’s food history. Stories about sweets and baked goods peppered many of the oral histories collected during this research. Apple pie, in particular, played a prominent role in Donna Bradley’s oral history of her mother’s time in the kitchen; it was one of R.S. McLaughlin’s favourite dishes, served both for dessert and sometimes as a midday snack.[84] Cakes, as well, played a central role at Parkwood, as indicated by Bradley’s account and by the extensive collection of cake moulds present in the batterie. Sweets were also used as gifts for visitors. Cookies, squares, and pies were among the gifts Bradley remembers being packed and sent away with visitors.[85] Cookies also played an important role in Col. Sam’s cocker spaniel’s life, who occasionally managed to intercept and devour gift-packaged cookies.[86]

Savoury baked goods were important as well. Dinner rolls and buns appear in the Bradley interview, used both for table bread and sandwiches.[87] Sandwiches could be simple, for staff members, but Bradley also remembered making party canapés such as pinwheel, cucumber, and cress & cream cheese sandwiches. Other, savoury baked goods appear in Bradley’s account, including chicken and beef pies.[88]

Conclusion

The kitchen, gardens, and home farm at Parkwood acted together as portals through which culinary identity formation and refinement occurred in controlled stages. By controlling most aspects of production of a vast array of foodstuffs, the McLaughlins were able to rely on the Estate’s produce with little need for recourse to public goods and service providers; surely important during the years of local labour struggles at his factory, or during the Great Depression. Whereas many Oshawa locals were relying variously on grocers, lunch counters, local cook houses, and even soup kitchens during the Great Depression, Parkwood’s kitchen garden and home farm provided enough meat and produce for the McLaughlins to weather the turbulence largely unhindered.

The kitchen itself was a stage upon which an important story in Canadian culinary history played out. Beginning with early cooks like Mrs. Symington, and ending with Mrs. Allin’s redundancy in 1973, Parkwood was home to cooks who interpreted French cuisine in a Canadian, Oshawa-based setting. Parkwood’s cooks received farm-raised meats and produce; they pared, chopped, poached, and roasted a more refined cultural form into them; and presented dishes within a time, place, and format which elevated the McLaughlin family’s status relative to local and national contemporaries. Therefore, whereas ingredient production and availability in the garden and home farm was key to this food identity, it was the regular, dependable, timely availability of high-quality foodstuffs from the kitchen that completed this circle and produced an air of aristocratic refinement.

The necessary and adequate performance of culture demanded by such cuisine was the responsibility of the McLaughlin family. Food was humble enough so as not to isolate one completely, but also complex enough to reflect Col. Sam’s worldliness and the aristocratic airs of his domestic establishment. Together, these presented guests with a powerful, tangible, tasty manifestation of Col. Sam’s dominium over his estates, and by extension, surrounding society.

The food story of the kitchen at Parkwood came to a quiet close on January 4, 1972, in the form of a simple slice of apple pie. Meandering through the hallways of the house, the small slice of pie represented the end of a type of domestic cuisine that few could experience while it existed. The woman carrying it, Mrs. Allin, also represented the end of a fifty-year tradition of Parkwood’s female cooks interpreting French cuisine along local, seasonal lines; in effect creating a unique culinary style that reflected a level of ingenuity and confidence that R.S. McLaughlin assumed as part of his own identity. The women who staffed Parkwood’s kitchens, then, were not just cooks nor negotiators of culture, but also partial creators of a unique and complex identity through which McLaughlin could exert, maintain, and reaffirm status to himself and society at large.

Acknowledgments: The authors wish to thank Helen Soutter, Donna Bradley, Jackie van Wort, Brian Keys, James D. Lindsay, Brian Wragg, DurhamRegion.com who advertised our call-out to former staff, Oshawa Museum and Archives for checking their collection for material related to Parkwood, Oshawa Public Library for making Vernon’s directories accessible, and the current staff and guides of Parkwood Estate.

❧

The following is one of the only surviving recipes of Adelaide McLaughlin, submitted to the c.1935 Oshawa cookbook Household Recipes, Simcoe Street United Church:

Strawberry Shortcake[89]
Mrs. R.S. McLaughlin

Bake two rounds of soft dough, made of one c. and a half of flour, ½ c. cornstarch, four level T. baking powder, 1-3 c. butter, pinch of salt and milk to form a soft dough. Bake in a single tin, spreading butter between the rounds. When baked, split apart and butter. Put together with two baskets of strawberries mixed with sugar. Garnish with cream and berries.