Welcome to A Victorian Year in Ontario

Greetings Ladies and Gentlemen, the year is 1865, Her Majesty Queen Victoria has reigned since 1837 and we are in the midst of a prosperous era. The purpose of this blog is to record the daily round of chores, tasks, trials and triumphs of our household in rural Upper Canada (now known as Ontario). We have embarked on an experiment to live a year as close to the way it was done in 1865 as we possibly can. We will post our remarks and await your comments, suggestions and critiques. So join us as we travel back in time.

Monday, May 23, 2011

Wheels and Meals

Hi, its strange how the mind works. Margaret and I were on our way to get a load of wood and it occured to me that if our cars had wooden or steel wheels and rims the ride would be a lot bumpier and a great deal more noisy. Also a consideration is maximum speeds attainable and, more importantly, sustainable with wooden/steel wheels and rims as opposed to pnuematic tyres.

I don't think the steel wheels and rims are good for speeds much over 20 -30 mph (25 - 50 kpm). I'm not sure how to go about testing my theory so I'm going to give it some thought.

Vandy asked us if we were going to document our meals and what they consisted of. We hadn't thought about that but it will be part of our blog/record. Just now, we're having lunch: bread, butter, lettuce, cheese and tea. Tonight, we're having crispy fried tofu with sprouts, tahini garlic mayo,  onions and tomato. We're going to miss the tofu, it's one of our favourite meals..... and yes, you heard ME say that! I love tofu, Margaret introduced me to it a couple of years ago and I'm hooked.

The lettuce, onions, spinach, zuccini, beans, radishes, peas, corn, leaks are all up and we've already had fresh garden grown spinach for supper one night. Yay for garden veggies!!!

It's too late in the season for us to have dandilion salad since the leaves are too big and bitter for eating. We were asked about what we would eating, and a dandilion salad would have been one of the first spring meals. Something I had as a kid was lambsquarters, cut up, boiled and served in vinegar. It had a slightly tart or astringent taste but I liked it and we harvested it when ever we weeded the garden (it was one of the weeds). Often if we couldn't find my mum, we'd look in the garden and see where the lambsquarters was thrashing about. That would be Mum, weeding and tossing.

It's another grand day, really windy, partly cloudy and warm. Love it.

Thanks,
Margaret and Ken

4 comments:

  1. I feel I must protest. I have never found dandelion leaves to be any more bitter than the other bitter greens. It's hard to judge such things as preference, but I find it far more palatable than spinach.

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  2. And since you'll have to be making your own potables now...maybe a dandelion beer? I have a recipe...
    v

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  3. Dandelion beer, I'd like to try that. Would you send me the recipe please.

    Thanks,

    Ken

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  4. I heard e new word today ... scunner ... ??!! What exactly is a scunner?

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