Touring the Great Lakes

Pancakes, bread AND cookies! What do they have in common? These three recipes all come courtesy of the Ships of the Great Lakes Cookbook. I was lucky enough to receive this book to review from Sara of I Like to Cook who runs her own blog in addition to hosting The Weekend Cookbook Challenge and The Cookbook Spotlight. This month, Mary of Breadchick is helping Sara out with hosting duties for The Cookbook Spotlight and so I, along with a group of 10 other bloggers are reviewing the Ships of the Great Lakes Cookbook for your reading pleasure. As I’ve mentioned before, I LOVE getting mail and was thrilled to receive my copy. This book was especially interesting in that it’s not strictly a cookbook. It gives you a glimpse into both the history and culinary history of the tall ships, freighters and passenger ships that sailed the Great Lakes. The book is divided not by course or flavour, but by boats, with each one presenting a history of the ship and an authentic menu that was served aboard the boat. This makes for some very interesting stories and menus but unfortunately also leads to one of the book’s downfalls. Because the book contains authentic menus, this means that they were written for a full crew as opposed to a regular serving of 4-6 people. For example, one recipe calls for 18lbs of chicken and 7 ½ cups of Caribbean Jerk Sauce. Darn! I just used up my last 18lbs of chicken… uh, maybe over the course of the last 6 months! The recipes varied in this respect and not all of them were for such large quantities but I would say that the majority of the recipes resulted in more servings than I would ever need. This meant having to seriously scale down most of the recipes I wanted to try. Now, I’m a smart cookie and am able to do the math, but I’m also a lazy cookie and would rather that someone else do it for me. On the other hand, if you need a recipe for a bake sale or family reunion, this is a great cookbook to use! Another issue I had with the book had to do with the very nature of its subject. Because the cooking was all being done onboard the ships, the recipes called for a lot of canned goods, some of them almost exclusively so. Obviously this is necessary when living onboard a ship where fresh ingredients aren’t always obtainable or able to be stored, but that’s not the case in my kitchen so I would have opted to use more fresh ingredients and less ready made sauces. What does appeal to me about the Ships of the Great Lakes Cookbook is all of the stories that accompany the recipes. It gives a great idea of what it would have been like aboard some of these boats and the effort that goes into feeding a huge crew of people. The recipes vary broadly as well, and I’ve learned that some sailors definitely ate better than others! Reading through the book I found a number of very good recipes and there are many that I have bookmarked to try such as Beef Crepes with Curried Apricot Beef Filling or the Broccoli Cream Quiche. But for the most part I will have to either scale them down significantly or invite the whole neighbourhood over for dinner. I just might go broke in the process… The three recipes that I did try were the S.S. Courtney Burton Buttermilk Hot Cakes, (to which I added bananas) the Homemade Bread, (which was jammed packed with dried fruit and spices) and the Sailor’s Favorite Cookies. I enjoyed each of them and didn’t have any trouble replicating only a fraction of the recipe.

Like I said before, the best part of the book is all of the wonderful stories it contains such as the following one I’m about to retell about the Flower Lady. Her real name is Arlene Earl and she owns a third generation flower business which she runs on Harsen’s Island. Arlene had an uncle, Norman LaCroix who absolutely loved the ships of the great lakes and spent 47 years working on the lakes as a Chief Engineer. After his retirement, Norman developed Alzheimer Disease and so Arlene invited her uncle to come and live with her and her husband on the island to that he could watch the freighters that he loved so much. He spent most of his days outside, waving to the ships as they went by. Arlene saw this and sent a note to the shipping companies, telling them about where Norman was now and from that time on, whenever the ships went by they would greet Norman with whistle blasts. Norman came to believe that each ship that passed was his own and it gave him immense pleasure. Arlene decided to repay the sailors onboard those ships the best way she knew how, by sending flowers. She didn’t even think they would be noticed but they were and she began receiving letters of thanks addressed to “The Flower Lady.” For the next 10 years until his death, Norman watched the boats everyday, Arlene continued to send flowers at least 4 times a year and the sailors continued to send notes of thanks. Some of the crew would even stop by for a visit and Arlene was not only good with flowers, but she could also cook and made sure there was always something ready for the sailors who arrived at her door. These cookies, Sailor’s Favorite Cookies, are an example of that.

Sailor’s Favorite Cookies

2 cups sugar

2 cups brown sugar, firmly packed

¼ cup butter

1 cup Crisco

4 eggs

2 tsp vanilla

3 cups all purpose flour

2 tsp salt

2 tsp baking soda

3 cups oatmeal

2 cups soft raisins

1 cup chocolate chips

1 cup chopped nuts

2 cups coconut

Cream together sugars, butter, Crisco, eggs and vanilla. In a separate bowl, mix flour with salt and baking soda. Mix dry ingredients into creamed mixture. Stir in remaining ingredients by hand. Chill dough. Using a small scoop, place dough on ungreased cookie sheets. Bake at 350F for 8-10 minutes.

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Cookbook Review + Cookies + Pancakes + Bread