Welcome to the Food, Glorious Food blog series. This new, limited series is a companion blog series to the Museum’s temporary exhibition of the same name, now on display in the Museum’s lobby and Burgoyne Room through autumn 2025.

Throughout the series, Curator Kathleen Powell and Public Programmer Abbey Stansfield (both the expert bakers here at the Museum), will be exploring Victorian-era recipes and local food history to help us all appreciate the importance of food and its history in our daily lives.

Things are about to become a whole lot sweeter with Part 3: the Lemon Tartlet, written and baked by Public Programmer Abbey Stansfield.

Bon Appetit!

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Lemon Tartlets
Publisher: Harry Southcott
From: Southcott’s Almanac and Cook Book for 1897

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“One-quarter pound of butter, one-quarter pound of powdered loaf sugar, the yolks of three eggs, well beaten, one lemon. Squeeze the juice of a lemon and grate the rind. First mix the sugar with the butter, then the yolks of the eggs, then the lemon rind and juice; mix it well together; let it stand for a day or two; it is then ready for use. Line some patty tins with pastry, and put a little in each; bake in a quick oven, keep turning them, as they soon burn.“

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Residents in St. Catharines were enjoying the most prosperous year in the last quarter of the 20th century. Early Canals had set the city on the path to becoming an industrial powerhouse, yet it was the introduction of the railroads that contributed to continued success after the realignment of the third canal bypassed downtown altogether. The St. Catharines Board of Trade Yearbook for 1900 credits the opening of the Niagara, St. Catharines and Toronto Railway between Niagara Falls and St. Catharines as the driving factor for hundreds of new shoppers shopping at local stores.

The Yearbook explains:

“Under the stimulus of this influx of new and profitable business, the merchants are making it their aim to carry the best quality and the largest possible variety of styles of goods. In these important particulars they aim at and have actually attained equality with much larger cities.”

The merchants of St. Catharines lived up to this claim if their advertisements of the day are to be believed. One St. Paul Street grocer, Bradley and Son, advertised:

“We are in a position to handle one of the largest grocery trades of the district. We have many customers, but we would like to add more. That is the object of this extra space to tell you a few prices on our regular stock. Our shelves are always well filled and the highest standard of quality is maintained.”

Among the items on their regular stock list were boxed cake mix, powdered jelly, lemon, orange and citron peel, and shredded coconut. It is surprising that some of these products – what we might consider to be luxury items in 1900 – would have been available to the average household. However, with the development and improvement of shipping goods many boxed, canned, and perishable (like the lemons in today’s recipe) items could be obtained regularly at the local grocers.

Lemons as a European crop began to appear as far back as the Middle Ages. Introduced to Europe by Arab traders the yellow fruit was seen as a status symbol amongst the highest classes and nobility. In a written depiction of the royal wedding feast of King Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn in 1533, there is a single lemon listed as part of the delicacies served. The exclusiveness of the lemon during these times went hand in hand with the cost and rarity of sugar used in Europe to prepare it.

The continuing global spread of lemons to the Americas (there is no lemon plant native to North or South America) is credited to colonial expansion. In 1493 the plant was introduced to a settlement in Hatti and within twenty year they were producing a healthy crop. With further colonial settlement, lemon orchards would be developed in Brazil, the United States, and Australia.

Sailors would continue spreading the lemon out of pure necessity. British Naval surgeon, James Lind, endorsed the consumption of citrus as a remedy for scurvy in sailors as early as 1753, however, it wouldn’t be until the end of the 1700s that the Royal Navy began to issue it to sailors.  

Given the volume of shipping taking place along the Great Lakes and through the early canals it would make sense that lemon juice at the very least would have been available in early settlement in St. Catharines. However, given the inability to source it locally when and where would it have been available to the home cook in St. Catharines?

An ad from an 1831 edition of the The Farmers’ Journal and Welland Canal Intelligencer reads: “LEMONS.- Just received and for sale by the Subscriber, a lot of fresh Lemon, in prime order. December 1831, WM. C. Chace” The advertisement does not indicate how much the lemons cost which likely means they would have been expensive. In addition, lemons do not appear in other advertisements for Mr. Chace’s store, located near Lock 3 (Old Canal) and we can assume these lemons are a one-time availability and not an item regularly stocked. One can only imagine the specialness of the dish prepared using such a rare luxury.

By 1900, however, the advancement in shipping appears to have made lemons more commonly available. Rather than advertise their availability locally the local grocers’ ads speak to the availability of lemon extract and lemon peel. A 1900 ad taken out by Bradley and Son grocers lists lemons as their Wednesday sale item, regular price $0.15/ dozen on Wednesday they would be $0.10/ dozen. Roughly in 2025 that would translate into $5.70/ dozen regularly or $3.80/ dozen on sale!

Harry Southcott the publisher of Southcott’s 1897 Almanac and Cookbook owned Southcott’s pharmacy on St. Paul Street. He opened his business in 1888 and from all appearances was quite successful. From the ads he took out in the Standard it would appear most of the items he sold where of a pharmaceutical nature. It is very doubtful he would have carried the lemons listed in his recipe book and almanac. Particularly when there were large scale grocers like Bradley and Son just down the road.

Rather the publication of the book appears to have been a marketing tool and thank-you gift for his customers. Recipes as part of Almanacs can be found in Niagara all the way back to the 1802 Upper Canada Almanac printed in Niagara-on-the-Lake. Today we can liken these books to the printing and distribution of wall calendars by a company for their customers.

Mr. Southcott’s introduction to the almanac confirms this intention:

“To the public… We present you with our Almanac and Cook Book, for 1897. If you will hang it up in a prominent place and use it, and not throw it into the waste paper basket, we will feel amply repaid for the trouble and time that has been bestowed upon it. The preparations advertised in it are all prepared in the most scientific manner, from the best obtainable formulae, and in each one only the purest drugs are used. We thank you for your liberal patronage in the past. We have tried to please you… Sincerely, Harry Southcott”

No mention is made as to who the author of the recipes is throughout the work. It is unlikely that Mr. Southcott developed and wrote the recipes himself, given that he was running the pharmacy. Likely it is a compilation of similar recipes for the dishes from other sources available at the time.

Eventually Mr. Southcott sold the pharmacy and went on to be the manager, and later, President of Wethey’s mincemeat factory here in St. Catharines. A fitting second career for a cookbook publisher.

The Recipe

These lemon tartlets turn out well and are a nice treat to have around.