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Drawing on a collection of recipes from the Nova Scotia Archives from 1780 to 1902, this presentation will trace the histories of Loyalist matriarchs through the colonial exchange of food in Halifax and the Atlantic World. Halifax's development involved the violent colonization of Mi’kmaq lands and the legacies of transatlantic slavery, linking it to the British metropole, Caribbean sugar colonies, and the West African slave coast. Halifax’s trade with the West Indies, which included goods like coffee, sugar, and rum, shaped Halifax's upper-class society.

Claire Schofer’s presentation focuses on four elite families—the Almon, Wentworth, Miller, and Uniacke families—who used slave-produced ingredients in their recipes. These recipes reveal cultural influences from the transatlantic slave trade and highlight the complex connections between Halifax's culinary practices and its colonial and loyalist histories. Recipes, often overlooked, provide valuable insights into these families' ties, and Halifax more broadly, to the British Empire.

Presenter(s) Bio:

Claire Schofer is currently a master’s student in the department of Historical Studies at the University of New Brunswick. Claire’s SSHRC-funded research focuses on recipes, women, and the British Empire, exploring colonial exchanges of food between Halifax and the Atlantic World.

Suggested readings:

Huskins, B. (2015). “Shelburnian Manners”: Gentility and the Loyalists of Shelburne, Nova Scotia. Early American Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 13(1), 151-188 https://doi.org/10.1353/eam.2015.0004

What's Cooking? Food, Drink and the Pleasures of Eating in Old-Time Nova Scotia. https://archives.novascotia.ca/cooking/ (Website): Browse through some of the digitized recipes in the Archives

Whitfield, H. A. (2007). Black Loyalists and Black Slaves in Maritime Canada. History Compass, 5(6), 1980-1997. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1478-0542.2007.00479.x 

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