A Taste of Haldimand – March 14, 2024

One of the unexpected benefits of writing this weekly column are the people who have reached out to talk to me about a recipe or article that I have written. It has been so much fun connecting with new and old friends. As was the case when Donna Blake messaged me. Donna and her husband Bob live outside of York, but years ago we led a 4-H club together. She asked if I had heard of a “soup swap”. I had not. She said her daughter Emily had just participated in one, so I immediately got in touch with Emily. She was also a former 4-H member and now resides in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories. Emily travelled a bit after leaving Haldimand, spending a semester in Poland as well as some time in Kenya before moving to the north for work. According to Emily, Yellowknife, with its population of about 20,000, is a close-knit community and not much different than Haldimand. Emily said her friend Charlotte Morrit-Jacobs, also from Haldimand and now living in Yellowknife, was the person who had organized the soup swap. 

For the swap, each participant made a different type of soup. Some brought their soup to the event in single serving sized containers, while others had frozen their individual soup portions in freezer bags for convenience. I asked Emily to share some of her favourite soup recipes. The first is Dill Pickle Soup, or Zupa Ogorkowa in Polish. It is a little unusual, but Emily loved it the first time she tried it in Poland. The second is a more traditional chicken soup recipe.