Taste for it
Doug Jamieson got an early start at cooking and baking.
Doug Jamieson’s memories of learning to cook and bake go back to a big family in a small kitchen where everything centred around a wood stove that provided heat and countless meals.
It was in Philip’s Harbour, near Queensport, Guysborough County.
“Philip’s Harbour runs for about a mile along the highway and it used to have had one little grocery store. Queensport was the big centre, running for about two miles and with a couple of stores in my time,” he recalled.
Jamieson, now in his 60s, was in the middle of a family of 13 children. His mother’s days were filled with cleaning, cooking and caring for children, always hoping to make ends meet. His father fished to support the family.
“We had no power until 1969 and the only running water was one of us running from the well to the kitchen with a bucket.”
He does not remember being taught to cook or bake because both happened so gradually.
“My learning was watching Mom and to this day I don’t go much by a recipe. If you do it often enough you just go by the feel of it.”
He does remember a neighbour being surprised that he knew how to bake bread at an early age.
“I was looking after the younger ones while my mother ran across to a neighbour for just a few minutes. Another neighbour came in looking for her and asked who was baking the bread. I told her I was and I remember her pointing out I was only nine years old.”
While junks of maple and other hardwoods kept the family warm through the winters, he remembers his mother counted on softwood for baking.
“Hardwood burned too hot and the softwood was the only way to control the temperature of the oven. There was no setting it to 350 degrees and waiting for it to warm up, but with a little practice you could guess at it and come close.”
The pans had to be moved a few more times than in today’s electric ovens and occasionally the door had to be propped open for a few minutes if it got too hot, he added.
If the Jamiesons did not have much, neither did their neighbours, as he recalls.
“Philip’s Harbour was never very big, but it was definitely busier when I was growing up. There were more families around and it was a friendly place where everyone knew everyone else. Whatever you had, you shared. It was nothing to run something over to a neighbour or holler across the road for something.”
He particularly remembers wooden clothespins were to be treated with care.
“If you were sent out to bring in a line of washing in the winter, Mom would always warn you to be careful with the clothespins. The line was always full and the clothes would be frozen solid. She did not want you ripping things off the line and breaking or scattering the pins.”
He suspects he did not start out married life with much more than his parents before him.
“None of us started with one-quarter of what young people think they need today. We learned to work for everything and waste nothing. Maybe we have more appreciation because of it.”
In his youth, Jamieson sometimes fished with his father but he was always comfortable helping his mother in the kitchen.
“When you grow up in a big family, you learn to turn your hand to many things. Cooking and baking was something I enjoyed and it led me to working in restaurants.”
He was working both kitchen and counter in a small restaurant on the Eastern Shore when he heard his father was dead.
“I guess it was the shock of it, but I went right on serving food because I couldn’t really take it in. He fell off the wharf and another fisherman found him before we even knew he was gone.”
Jamieson and his wife made the decision to leave Philip’s Harbour when their children were entering their teens.
“A lot of people were leaving the small communities and going anywhere that might be a little easier, especially people with children. We wanted to do a little better by our son and daughter. We still go down home to visit, but I find it lonesome now.”
Pictou County was a natural choice for a new start because they already had family in the area. For their first seven years they lived in Pictou and when their children left home they moved to New Glasgow to be closer to work.
“My wife worked in a nursing home and I worked in restaurants. The early days were kind of rough because one of the kids was happy with the move and one wasn’t, but it got better. We enjoyed our years in Pictou and we’ve been 23 years in the county.”
Jamieson’s mother, Dorothy Jamieson, now 90, followed the family to Pictou and still lives there.
“Our son and daughter stayed here so we are very fortunate. Most important, this is where our grandchildren are and our lives revolve around them.”
About a dozen years ago, Jamieson’s daughter asked him to share a table with her at a flea market in Trenton.
“She told me to bring along some baking so we’d have a little more traffic but she just wanted to get rid of her baby clothes so it wasn’t meant to last. The baking sold really well and little did I know, it was just the beginning for me.”
These days he is a regular fixture at New Glasgow’s Sunday Flea Market where he loves to chat with longtime customers, browsers and family members who drop by.
“Times are different and we don’t know everybody around us like we used to growing up. On top of that, my wife and I are retired now so this is my big outing of the week. I look forward to it and I love it,” he laughed.
It is an outing that takes lots of planning and labour.
“I make my fudge early in the week. If I need jam I make that on Tuesday or Wednesday. Thursday, Friday and Saturday are my baking days and I package it all up Saturday evening.”
Apple and coconut pies are most in demand and he alternates between also offering lemon meringue or butterscotch. Peanut butter cookies are his top seller but chocolate chip is a close second. Jams and jellies, usually made from fruit he has picked himself, and pickles are always in demand.
“I’ve got a lovely plum tree in my yard and it makes beautiful jam but the deer got more plums than I did so I’m going to have to put up a fence if I want to win that battle.”
“When you grow up in a big family, you learn to turn your hand to many things. Cooking and baking was something I enjoyed and it led me to working in restaurants.”