HALIFAX -- A new cookbook is celebrating the spirit of Nova Scotia’s Africville community.
“In the Africville Kitchen – the Comfort of Home” shares some classic recipes that helped make the community special and shows how food connected the people that lived there.
“Lots of desserts, meats, of course what would be those Sunday dinners, the boil dinners,” says Juanita Peters, the general manager of the Africville Museum.
The book contains 24 original recipes from Africville descendants. Peters says fish dishes are a common theme, as the community was located near water.
“When you live on the Bedford Basin, there’s a lot of fish that winds up on your table or fish products, things from the water,” says Peters, who helped create the cookbook.
Beatrice Wilkins grew up in Africville and contributed a few family favourites that her mother made. She says fond memories of Sunday boil dinners still mean a lot to her, right down to the savoury aroma.
“All through the house, I believe it filled the community because the houses were so close together and everybody was having a boil dinner on Sunday,” recalls Wilkins.
The project began a year ago and its creators faced a few challenges along the way, as very few people had actually written down the recipes.
“When people cook a lot, especially our elders, they did it from memory,” says Peters. “They put a little bit of this in there, a little bit of that in there, and they knew what they were doing. They didn’t write it down, so it was really quite a search in going for some of these recipes.”
As for what made the kitchens of Africville so special, residents say they never went hungry.
“You could knock on any door and they would let you in,” says Wilkins. “All the time, the community was helping and that’s what we miss, and that’s what’s sad, and this book brings back all those memories.”
The book is available for order on the Africville Museum website and is available for pickup.
Proceeds will go to the museum’s post-secondary scholarship fund.
