In the 2026 Black History Month blog series public programmer and culinary historian Abbey Stansfield examines the important intersections between food and the daily experiences of Freedom Seekers in mid-19th century St. Catharines.

Part 1: No Hogs, No Cows, and All Such Stuff

One historic source can reveal different information when a new lens changes the focus. There are many historic sources that reveal the daily lives of Freedom Seeker refugees in St. Catharines which present an opportunity for a culinary historian like me to examine those testimonies from a different point of view. Sometimes, it’s a one-off reference, or a comment out of context about food that we would normally gloss over. And so, one area of our local history that has yet to be explored fully is the culinary traditions of the Freedom Seekers living in St. Catharines during the first half of the nineteenth century. As a culinary historian, the pursuit of what and how people ate is always an exciting part of the story when interpreting the past.

Culinary historians have started examining the evolution of the African American culinary tradition and how it evolved from the foods treasured in native African countries over the past 15 years. Following the narratives of the development of food traditions of the enslaved and formerly enslaved peoples in the United States makes obvious that food was central to their lives.

“It is important to understand the food practices of enslaved people simply because eating was one of the few sources of pleasure they enjoyed”.

– Charles Joyner in Hog and Hominy by Frederick Douglass Opie.

Understanding how important food was to Freedom Seekers before the Civil War and emancipation led me to question: was the type of food available at their destination (i.e. St. Catharines) a factor in the decision to follow the Underground Railroad? Were People of Colour in St. Catharines able to continue traditional food practices more prevalent in southern climates or was the promise of freedom more important than the culinary traditions passed down for generations? Over the next four weeks I am going to apply a culinary history lens to the local sources available between the 1830s and the 1860s to see if there is a continuation of culinary traditions in St. Catharines.

Traditional food rations of enslaved persons in the southern United States during this period vary depending on the region. However, ingredients that became important regardless of location were pork, sweet potatoes, corn meal, and garden vegetables. Misinformation on what was available to eat in Canada (even what was possible to grow here) was rife during this era. The intent was to prevent travel of the Underground Railroad by enslaved persons by making them believe that life would be more difficult in Canada than it would be if they remained in enslavement.  Each week I will investigate an item from the list and discover how accessible it would have been to Freedom Seekers and how it played into their culinary tradition.

To start the series off I chose to deep dive into the world of pork in the 1830s-1860s. Pork often was the only meat many enslaved peoples received as part of their rations. This meant pork featured prominently in everyday cooking. Testimony from a Freedom Seeker living in St. Catharines recalled being told that livestock was not reared in Canada, as a means of discouraging travelling the Underground Railroad.

“The white people at the South said nobody could live here [Canada]; that they had no homes here, no hogs, no cows, and all such stuff as that they didn’t raise anything here much at all.”

– Testimony of Joseph Smith as it appears in the Freedman’s Inquiry Commission report by Samuel Gridley Howe, 1863.

The image Joseph describes is a bleak prospect particularly for people who are looking at economic uncertainty when they arrive in their new home. Yet we know, to many the risk of a barren land was worth escaping enslavement. What did they find when they reached St. Catharines? Were there livestock and access to pork that would allow for the continuation of living their traditional food way of life?

The newspapers were filled with reference information on caring for both crops and livestock, expected crop prices for local farmers, and the results of the St. Catharines and Grantham Agricultural Society exhibition. Exhibition participants were showing cattle, sheep, swine, poultry, wheat, barley, apples and even grapes. While the canal may have brought industrialism to St. Catharines, agriculture was still a major industry in St. Catharines, something that would have disproved the myths and perhaps surprised Freedom Seekers when they arrived.

Reviewing the winter editions of the St. Catharines Constitutional, I discovered that meat and other staples were consistently available even in the winter months at the farmer’s market. The winter availability list gives the price for 100lbs of pork or beef.  This was the first evidence I came across that detailed the commercial availability of pork in St. Catharines during the period we are focusing on. I wondered at the origins of this pork as the market list does not specify cuts of meat and the volume of meat being sold hints that there is something that the original readers of the list would have known without being told.

My research led to historian James Townsend’s explanation of salt pork and its prevalence in the eighteenth and early nineteenth century. Salt pork as we know it today would not have been how they prepared it in the nineteenth century. Salt pork then meant any cut of the pig that’s been preserved through a salting process and is distributed in a barrel where it can keep for up to a year. Then as much salt as possible is soaked out of the meat with fresh water prior to using it in culinary applications.

The market list confirms the availability of preserved pork, a favoured protein throughout the year. However, salted pork was regulated by weight not by cuts of meat. There is an agreement among culinary historians that enslaved persons ate “low on the hog.” This is used to describe the quality of cuts of pork they received as part of their rations including the ears and feet. This contrasted with the enslaver who ate the premium cuts of pork (eating “high on the hog”). I continued to search through the records to discover if there was an opportunity for Freedom Seekers to eat “high on the hog” in St. Catharines.

Commercially there were butchers’ shops in St. Catharines, and two sources imply Freedom Seekers patroned these shops. In one account a Freedom Seeker, Jacob Blockson, details his first employment after arriving to Canada is at a butcher’s shop in St. Catharines where he makes a good wage of $2.50 per week. While not proof that it is accessible to Freedom Seekers, I did come across an additional newspaper article in the St. Catharines Evening Journal that mentions a butcher’s shop near the market that specializes in pork products. The article also mentions how pork was a particular favourite food of Freedom Seekers. Rounding these brief mentions of Freedom Seekers is the July market price lists. The list reveals a king’s ransom of meat products available including fresh beef roasts, mutton, offal, haslet (meatloaf), pork, chicken, bacon, ham and sausages. At $0.10-$0.15/ lbs local farming made fresh pork an economic choice when compared with beef prices which for the premium cuts went as high as $0.40-$0.50 per pound.

In addition to being readily available in season for purchase some Freedom Seekers chose to raise their own livestock. The market price list reveals that to purchase a pig cost $0.07-$0.08 per pound. William Wells Brown’s account of the Freedom Seeker settlement in St. Catharines seems almost to be a direct response to the information of life in Canada that Joesph Smith had been told.

“…The coloured settlement is a hamlet, situated on the outskirts of the village and contains about 100 houses, 40 of which lie on North Street, the Broadway of the place. The houses are chiefly cottages, with from 3 to 6 rooms, and on lots of land nearly a quarter of an acre each. Each family has a good garden, well filled with vegetables, ducks, chickens, and a pigpen, with at least one fat grunter getting ready for Christmas.”

– William Wells Brown, 1847, in The Narrative of William Wells Brown, a Fugitive Slave.

Whether or not Wells Brown was looking to directly challenge the misinformation of Canada not raising livestock, growing food and providing a place to create a home it does detail that Freedom Seekers have access to pork products which were important to maintaining their culinary traditions. Why were these traditions so important? Historian Frederick Douglass Opie, Professor of History at Babson College, explains that during enslavement in the South, food and religion became deeply intwined and for many enslaved persons mealtimes represented the very limited free time they were allowed. Days for religious observances and holidays provided the occasion for families to celebrate, when they were given more freedom to go visiting to neighbouring farms to visit family and friends and occasionally were given higher quality rations. Ensuring that high quality dishes were available during these celebrations was important even when working with limited means.

What dishes did Freedom Seekers make which featured pork? Malinda Russell published the first African American cookbook in 1866 in Paw Paw, Michigan. In the first edition of her cookbook Malinda explains that her life had been altered by the second Fugitive Slave Act (1850) despite being a freewoman. She was unable to remain in the South and relocated to the North until she could safely return home. It was her hope that by publishing her recipes that she would make enough money to return home.

“ I have made cooking my employment for the last twenty years, in the first families of Tennessee, Virigina, North Carolina, and Kentucky. I know my Receipts to be good, as they always have given satisfaction. I have been advised to have my Receipts published, as they are valuable, and every family has use for them. Being compelled to leave the South on account of my Union principals, in time of the Rebellion, and having been robbed of all my hard-earned wages which I had saved; and as I am now advanced in years, with no other means of support than my own labor; I have put out this book with the intention of benefiting the public as well as myself.

I learned my trade of Fanny Stewart, a colored cook, of Virginia, and have since learned many new things in the art of cooking.

I cook after the plan of the “Virigina Housewife.”

– Malinda Russell in A Domestic Cookbook, 1866

Malinda’s experience cooking African American food professionally made her recipes a good fit for recreating dishes Freedom Seekers were familiar with in St. Catharines. While the historical research is an important part of our blog series so too is the actual making of the food! The recipe I tried as a sample for pork preparation was To Boil and Dress Mutton Ham.

To Boil and Dress Mutton Ham
Perforate the ham, and put slices onion in. Rub it with salt. Canvas the ham, put in whole grains pepper and cloves; sew it tight, and boil until done. Take three spoons sugar, one half pint Madeira wine, butter, thicken with flour; boil and turn it over the ham with parsley.

This recipe was interesting to interpret to modern terms. The first was the cut of pork to use. While it says ham, after reviewing it several times I decided it was more likely a tough cut of pork that the recipe was referring to. That is how I interpreted the “mutton” in the title and the fact that it was boiled. Using a tougher cut of pork, I placed onions down the middle and then tied it with butchers’ twine into a round.

My next question was what “canvas the ham,” could mean. After thinking on it I decided it likely meant wrap it in canvas cloth or in a modern kitchen wrap the salted pork round in cheesecloth with whole peppercorns and cloves. I used twine again to secure the ends rather than sewing the pork into the cheesecloth.

The boiling of the roast I replaced with cooking in a slow cooker. I covered the round with water so it could braise and cooked on low for 6 hours. The result was a tender pork round.

Wanting to complete the recipe with the sauce recommended, I also replicated the Maderia sauce for the top of the pork. I did slightly alter the recipe here to include some of the pork stock leftover from the cooking the roast. I put 1 cup of Maderia wine (I did find advertisements for Maderia being available for sale in St. Catharines in the 1850s) into a saucepan and let it reduce by half, then I added 2 tbsp butter, 2 tsp sugar, 1 cup pork stock until the sauce came to a boil. I removed some of the warm liquid and added the 2 tbsp flour until combined and then returned this into the saucepan and cooked it together thickened.

The results? The sauce complemented the pork very well and elevated the dish to something special. I had wondered when I first saw the recipe why pork would be prepared this way. The purpose of curing a ham is to preserve it and often it makes for a celebration-worthy meal we still prepare at holidays today. The recipe really began to make sense when I remembered the link food and celebration. The practice and skill of making flavoursome dishes out of lower cuts of meat was core to the daily experience of enslaved peoples. Exploring history this way shows not only that proper preparation made a less desirable dish into something that could be served at a celebration, but it also provides us with valuable insight into the importance of food and culture, and the heavy decisions and enslaved person might make when deciding to follow the Underground Railroad to freedom. Their hope was rewarded – at least when it came to food – for when they arrived at last, there was a bounty of familiar ingredients ready for them.

Stay tuned for part two of the series “That’s How It Came to Grow Here” released February 14.

Abbey Stansfield is a culinary historian and a public programmer at the St. Catharines Museum and Welland Canals Centre.

Select Sources

St. Catharines Consitutional, St. Catharines Museum Archives

The Evening Journal, St. Catharines Museum Archives

Freedmen’s Inquiry Commission reports and transcripts, Library of Congress

Opie, Frederick Douglass. Hog & Hominy: Soul Food from African to America. Columbia University Press, 2008.

Russell, Malinda. A Domestic Cookbook: Containing a Careful Selection of Useful Receipts for the Kitchen. University of Michigan Press, 2025.

Wallach, Jennifer Jensen. Getting What We Need Ourselves: How Food Has Shaped Agrican American Life. Rowman & Littlefield, 2019.