In the early twentieth century, Newfoundland trailblazer Agnes Marion Miller Ayre became an outspoken advocate for allowing women to vote. She was also an avid botanist and an accomplished artist who published a book, Wild Flowers of Newfoundland. One overlooked aspect of Ayre’s remarkable life was a recipe collection she wrote in a small notebook, starting in 1917. She didn’t bother with traditional recipes—not a boiled dinner or pan-fried cod to be found—but collected out-of-the-ordinary dishes for the time, along with ingenious ways of being frugal with leftovers. Intrigued by this historical document and curious about what exactly the lady of a middle-class household in World War I St. John’s would feed her family, Roger Pickavance and Agnes Marion Murphy (Ayre’s granddaughter) set about cooking all 140 recipes in the century-old notebook. Most worked well, some did not, and many would make a welcome addition to a modern cook’s repertoire. Pickavance and Murphy have reworked some recipes, filling in the blanks, simplifying steps, and offering ingredient substitutions where required. The result is a glimpse into the personal life of Agnes Ayre—and a cookbook full of delicious surprises.

Roger Pickavance was raised Wales and arrived in Newfoundland in 1968, a pivotal time where the traditional way of life outside St. John's was entering a period of rapid change. But many traditional foods were still in evidence, many of which Pickavance had neither seen nor heard of before, including saltfish, cod tongues, britches, partridgeberries, and bakeapples. Seeing these in the kitchens of his new—found home opened his eyes to cooking traditions that had lasted for many generations, but which — along with the way of life — were being rapidly diluted by the modern world.

Roger Pickavance's profile page

Agnes Murphy's profile page