Over the past few weeks, while taking some time to prepare the museum to reopen for the summer (yes, we’re open!), we’ve been continuing our perusal of Whistler Recipes, the cookbook put out by the Whistler Museum & Archives Society as a fundraiser in July 1997. The book brought together recipes from past and (then) present Whistler and Alta lake residents and, by looking into the stories behind the names attached to each recipe, it doesn’t take long to realize just how quickly the area has changed.
Lizzie Neiland and her children (Jenny, Jack & Bob Jardine) came to Alta Lake with Tom Neiland in 1921 and lived in a house on Alpha Lake, where Tom started his own logging business. In 1923 the family moved into an old cabin at 34 1/2 Mile (an area today better known as Function Junction) where they would live for the next two decades. From photos of the “Neiland Jardine Ranch,” we can tell that the Neiland family had an impressive garden and even kept chickens and, at times, other livestock. This was not uncommon for the time, when many households grew their own produce, made their own preserves, and even raised their own livestock.
Jardine-Neiland property at 34 1/2 mile, today’s Function Junction
Whistler Recipes was dedicated to the early residents of Alta Lake “who cooked and baked under challenging conditions.” This would have included Lizzie Neiland, who kept her family fed at a time when power and running water were not easily come by in the valley, groceries were ordered from Vancouver and delivered by train, and challenging economic conditions sometimes led to the shooting of a “government cow” (deer poached out of season).
There is one recipe in Whistler Recipes attributed to Lizzie Neiland, for “Barney Google Cake.” Though we can’t find much information on the cake, Barney Google was a character in a daily strip first published in 1919, first called Take Barney Google, F’rinstance, and today known as Barney Google and Snuffy Smith.
Formal portrait of Thomas and Lizzie Neiland taken in the 1940s
Also included in the book was a recipe for “Warm Chicken Spinach Salad” from Chef Bernard Casavant, who spent his time in Whistler cooking in a kitchen very different form the one Lizzie Neiland would have had.
Chef Bernard grew up on Vancouver Island and knew before he left school that he was going to be a chef. He became one of the first chefs from BC to earn the highest qualification of Certified Chef de Cuisine and was the first West Coast born and trained chef to represent Canada in the Bocuse d’Or Competition, France. He moved to Whistler in 1989 to become the executive chef at the newly opened Chateau Whistler Resort.
Chef Bernard Casavant, one of Canada’s most noted culinary maestros. Whistler Question Collection, 1994.
Chef Bernard is considered to have played an important role in turning Whistler into a culinary destination. After eight years at the Chateau he left to open his own restaurant, Chef Bernard’s Cafe, in the Upper Village and was voted Best Chef in Pique Newsmagazine’s Best of Whistler for multiple years. Part of what made Chef Bernard (or “Cheffie” as one article referred to him) so popular was his support for the local farming community and belief in using fresh and local ingredients (in 1993 he was one of the founders of the Whistler Farmers’ Market), and his involvement in the community (he was also the founding chef of Whistler Search and Rescue’s Wine’d Up fundraiser). He and his wife Bonnie moved to the Okanagan in 2006.
By the time Chef Bernard moved to the area it would have been very different from the Alta Lake Lizzie Neiland first came to almost seventy years earlier, but we love that the recipes of early Alta Lake residents are included alongside those of renowned chefs, all of whom cooked in the same valley.
WHISTORICAL 