Tasting Lang Village

"Hello! Welcome to Lang Pioneer Village's Corn Roast event!"

In my imagination, goats talk.

In today's surprisingly cooler weather, we tasted our way through Lang Village.

We were the third group to go through the gatehouse when it opened at 10 a.m. which was lovely because there were no lineups all day. In a house dating back to the mid 1800's, we were served a sample of Cereal/Corn Coffee. Sometimes food items were difficult or expensive to get back in the day and settlers needed to improvise. Cereal/Corn Coffee is made of wheat bran, corn meal, malt extract and water. All of this is roasted in an oven until it is "a nice dark brown". Another recipe called for molasses as well. The "coffee" was fairly tasty.

A neighbouring house was offering Johnny Cake samples. They were really good! I took a recipe home. Johnny cakes for breakfast it will be!

Even the sheep were tasting their way across the field.

Next to a teepee made of various barks, a very informative young lady told us about how Indigenous Peoples fed themselves.

One of the crops they grew were Jerusalem Artichokes.

I love how the trees planted since 1967 when Lang Village began have matured. They make the village feel real.

There were free samples of food here and there as well as food to buy. The friendly folks of the Keen Lions Club were operating a food trailer deep in the village. Oh my! What a nice poutine to share! The fries were crispy. Yum!

Around the back of the village the cheese shop was selling white and orange curd from Empire Cheese and white, wholewheat and sourdough bread from a local bakery. Guess which one came home with us?

Still on the corn theme, we learned how settlers processed their dried corn.

This particular special event is not as busy as some of the others. Volunteers had time to chat with visitors.

Today there were two busloads of Syrian Canadians visiting the village. We chatted with some of them and they were loving their visit. What better way to teach your children about your adopted country than to visit an historic site? All of your senses are put to use.

Remember the sheep which was eating its way across the field? Well she and her sheep friends were shorn recently. Throughout the village we saw wool being cleaned and spun and dyed and hooked and woven.

The buildings in Lang Vilalge seem to be well maintained.

We ended our visit with a step inside the hotel. Yum! Is your mouth watering?

Today's sponsor is a job well done. We saw signs of the sponsor throughout our visit, from enthusiastic volunteers to an archivist who asked Ted about the various farm implements and tools in one of the barns. Apparently, he is old and is one of the few visitors who has actually used a threshing machine.

Thank you, Lang Village. And, I will tag you.

Bonus picture in colour. Earlier I asked you to guess what we bought in the cheese factory. Here it is - sourdough bread! I wish I bought more. So good. Now your mouth is watering.

When I am older and greyer, I will re-read this post and hopefully taste today all over again. It was lovely.

“We write to taste life twice,

in the moment and in retrospect.”

Anais Nin