A Culinary Adventure: The Order of Good Cheer

My culinary story began in the late 1980s with a research project that would last more than thirty years. My undertaking was to study the first gastronomic society in the New World, the Order of Good Cheer. It all began with retracing the steps of Samuel de Champlain when he formed this feasting society during the winter of 1606-1607 in Port Royal, Nova Scotia. Samuel de Champlain and a band of French explorers were fighting for survival against the Canadian elements (many of their companions had died of a mysterious illness the previous winter). Their solution to stave off illness was to put the men and their Mi’kmaq companions into a cheerful mood by getting them into the out-of-doors to hunt and fish. The game and seafoods they brought back were made into many different dishes for a series of feasts. Story-telling, singing and music accompanied the great dinners.

My research task was to find out what ingredients could have been used in preparing the feast foods, and what dishes might have been on their menus. This task eventually brought me to Port Royal, of course, but also to La Rochelle, Brouage and Paris in France.

In 1990 I presented a paper at the Oxford Symposium in Oxford, England. Eleven years later in 2001 Paul Kennedy (Ideas host, CBC Radio 1) contacted me to make a documentary about the Order. As part of the radio program I said that I thought it would be fun to recreate the feast and invited my friends to be members of the Order. Everyone came in appropriate attire and brought dishes that contained ingredients they would have had available and used recipes from 16th century France.

The documentary was played many times in 2001 and much to my surprise, when listening to Paul Kennedy this year in March, 2018, I heard it again. Paul had revived the documentary from nearly 20 years ago and added an interview with Chef Michael Smith, Inn of Bay Fortune, who also recreates the feast.

It is now a podcast “Good Cheer is a Great Idea!” Listen:  www.cbc.ca. The recipes included were made for our recreated feast.

Photo: Jo Marie Powers in 2001, playing the part of Samuel Champlain’s obstinate companion, Champdoré, at a re-creation of the 1607 Order of Good Cheer feast.