And the winner is... Baked Beans

It seems every old cowboy movie had a camp cook serving up a mess of baked beans. I can see John Wayne eating them now. . . from a tin plate with an old battered spoon and a chunk of sourdough bread. So, it's fitting that when I asked rancher Art Unsworth for a recipe from the annual Murraydale Stampede and Picnic, he sent a recipe for baked

Swedish meatballs are right at home in Canada

On a recent trip to Sweden, of course I had to try meatballs. Here on the prairies, Swedish meatballs seem to represent the culinary tradition of an entire nation that sent so many sons and daughters to western Canada in pioneer times. And it's good to know that Swedish meatballs are still popular in their homeland.

At a restaurant in old Stockholm called Pelikan (est. 1733) the menu is unabashedly traditional. Along with pork knuckle, Baltic fish and mashed swedes, the menu offers the timeless Swedish meatball "as big as golf balls" served with cream gravy, lingonberries and a sliced pickle, a bowl of mashed potatoes on the side.

According to the Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21, about 40,000 Swedish immigrants came to the prairies between 1893 and 1914, most of them settling first in the United States (primarily Minnesota, Montana, Wisconsin and the Dakotas) before moving north to homestead in Canada.

Among them were Anna and Olaf Nilson who came from Sweden in 1905. After landing at the port of Montreal, they took the train to Melfort, Sask., crossing the country with their two daughters in a cattle car. Their first home had been abandoned by its previous owner. The roof leaked. The floor was earthen. Their first cow died in calving.

The nearest store was more than eight kilometres' walk, where they could exchange extra butter and eggs for a few staples such as flour and baking soda. Most of their food they grew, gathered and raised themselves. The Nilson (later changed to Nelson) family history notes, "Mother stated many times that, if money had been available, they would have returned to Sweden."

Well, it wasn't and they didn't. Despite the hardships – and obvious lack of Baltic fish – they did their best to make the traditional dishes that reminded them of home.

Recipes such thin crisp bread, St. Lucia buns (served at the festival of St. Lucia on December 13), pepparkakar (ginger cookies) and meatballs with cream gravy or lingonberry sauce. This recipe for Swedish meatballs was given to me by Joan Thompson (née Nelson) of Saskatoon, granddaughter of Anna and Olaf.

She got the recipe from her mother Myrtle (née Standberg) whose Swedish ancestors followed a different route to Canada. They first settled in Minnesota and, in 1903, their son Axel moved north to homestead in Canada, where he married his Swedish sweetheart Jenny. Life was hard for them, too. Myrtle, one of 10 children, got her first job at 14 cooking and cleaning for a couple of bachelor farmers. But they prospered.

By 2011, more than 152,000 people living in the prairie provinces claimed Swedish heritage, and no doubt, many of them are still fond of Swedish meatballs.

A word about lingonberry sauce: lingonberry is the Swedish word for low-bush cranberry, which grows abundantly in our parklands and Boreal forest. You can substitute currant jelly.

Swedish Meatballs
1 1/2 lbs ground beef
1 small potato, peeled and grated
1 small onion, grated
1/2 tst salt
1/4 tsp pepper
2 tbsp cream
1 egg
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/2 cup dry bread crumbs
2 tbsp butter or oil

Mix everything but the final ingredient. Work the mixture with your hands or an electric mixer until the meat is smooth and fluffy.

With damp hands, form into balls. Heat butter or oil in a skillet. Fry the meatballs, turning to brown all sides. Open one meatballs to ensure they are cooked through to the centre. Tip: Shaking the skillet as the meatballs cook helps to keep them round.

If you need to cook the meatballs in two batches, add additional butter/oil if needed. Serve warm tossed with cream gravy or lingonberry sauce or both!

Cream Gravy
2 tbsp drippings from meatballs or butter
2 tbsp flour
2 cups warm chicken or beef stock
2 tbsp sour cream

Heat drippings or butter in a saucepan. Whisk in flour to a smooth paste. Add warm stock, whisking thoroughly to prevent lumps. Simmer and thicken. Remove from heat. Whisk in sour cream.

Lingonberry Sauce
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup water
1 cup frozen low-bush cranberries
1 tbsp fresh-squeezed orange juice

Heat sugar and water in a saucepan to a bubbling simmer, stirring occasionally. When the sugar is dissolved, add the berries and orange juice.

Bring back to a simmer. As the berries heat, they will pop and release their juices. You can help by pressing them with a fork. Boil lightly until it is jammy, but not too jammy, as it will thicken further as it cools.

Good Ol' Meatloaf

Urgent message from a friend: Do you have a recipe for meatloaf? Why yes, of course!

3 slices of hardy but dry white bread, crusts removed
1 cup milk
1 egg
1/2 onion, chopped
1 tsp fresh thyme or 1/2 tsp dried
1 tbsp apple cidre vinegar
1 pound lean ground beef
1/2 pound pork sausages, casings removed
2 tbsp fresh dill, chopped (if you have it)
1 tsp salt
several grinds of pepper
1 tbsp tomato paste
1 tbsp honey
1 tsp brown mustard
A fat pinch of ground coriander
Break the bread into pieces in a large bowl.

In a blender or food processor, combine the milk, egg, onion, thyme and vinegar. Pour over the bread and mix well, leaving it sit a few minutes for the bread to soak up the milk.

Add the meat, dill, salt and pepper, mixing thoroughly. Pat the mixture into a bread loaf pan.

Stir together the tomato paste, honey, mustard and coriander. Spread on top of the meatloaf. Bake at 350°F for one hour. For a browned crust, turn on the broiler toward the end of cooking.

Familiar Flavours Far From Home: Shashlik

Imagine if you had to solve a word puzzle before you could eat. But the puzzle is in a different language and a strange alphabet. That was the challenge of ordering dinner in Izmail, Ukraine, a small historic city on the Danube River near the border of Moldova.

My husband and I had just arrived in Ukraine, travelling down a country road full of potholes, the creaky old bus zigging and zagging while the onboard television blared a popular music show, the performers singing a familiar Beatles tune, slightly altered, All You Need is Peace. After a day of travel, we were hungry.

In Izmail, the only restaurant that appeared to be open was on the main drag, a popular place full of well-dressed millennials sipping cocktails and raising a din of conversation, of which I understood not a word.

At the table beside us was a young couple on a date. Behind us, a group of clean cut young men (perhaps soldiers) with a bottle of vodka on the table between them. The dance floor was empty (the DJ arrived later) and, playing on a giant screen, music videos of beautiful models in tropical locales.

Our waiter didn't speak a word of English and neither did his menu. It looked Greek to me. Literally. Prior to Ukraine, we had travelled in Greece, where I became somewhat adept at reading Cyrillic letters. The Cyrillic alphabets of Greece and Ukraine are close enough that I opened the menu and began sounding out the offerings. But even though I could pronounce it, I had no idea what it meant.

You might be surprised to know that restaurants in Ukraine often don't serve Ukrainian food, or what we here on the prairies know and love as the foods of our Ukrainian ancestors. Vareniki, holubtsi, kutia, babka and borshch – these are familiar foods in Ukrainian homes, but when people go out to eat, they're happy to dine from the smorgasbord of the world. Ethnic restaurants are as familiar in Ukraine as anywhere.

Working my way through the menu, I suddenly came upon a word I understood: Карьонара. Carbonara. Below it was вологнесе or Bolognese. Italian!! Both were delicious.

In Odessa, we ate several meals in a sweet French bistro and in Kherson, we enjoyed grilled skewers of meat in an outdoor Georgian grill (that's the former Soviet republic of Georgia, not the U.S. state). In Kiev we ate paninis from vendor on the street.

The grilled meat was called шашлік, which I recognized instantly. It's shashlik, a familiar food among descendants of Russian and East Ukrainian immigrants, also known here on the Canadian prairies as shishliki. In the Old Country it's common to add lemon juice, but since lemons were impossible to find on the prairies more than a century ago, local versions tend not to use it.

Old timers will tell you a secret to making good shishliki is to mix it with your hands, so don't be afraid to put a little elbow grease into it.

Shishliki
Traditionally it's made with lamb, but pork and chicken are good, too.

2 lbs meat (1 kg), cut in 2 inch cubes
Salt and pepper
1 big onion, sliced

Put meat in a bowl. Sprinkle generously with salt (a good teaspoon) and pepper. With your hands, rub the seasoning into the meat. Mix in onion. Cover and refrigerate 3–7 days, turning the meat once a day. Thread meat onto skewers. Grill over hot coals or BBQ.

(This article first appeared in Grainews.)