MOOSE JAW - Ukrainian immigration has influenced food culture in Saskatchewan for 133 years, and to better understand this effect, a university student is collecting stories about how families have preserved their ethnic culinary heritage.
Margaret (Maggie) DeCoste, a Regina-born student at the University of Alberta, is pursuing her master’s thesis in anthropology by investigating what people cook and eat. She is in Moose Jaw this summer researching Ukrainian-Canadian food and recipes.
Specifically, she is determining how people use written recipes in community and family cookbooks to preserve their Ukrainian culture. She has been collecting cookbooks that local organizations — such as churches, clubs and schools — have published throughout Saskatchewan and speaking to people who use these materials.
“Things are going OK … ,” DeCoste said recently about her project. “(I’ve learned) many interesting things.”
For her thesis project, the student wants to speak with 10 people, and so far, she has spoken with six. Four people are either living in or have connections to Moose Jaw, while the others live elsewhere in southern Saskatchewan.
DeCoste records the interviews, which last about one to two hours. Afterward, interviewees are encouraged to show her how they like to cook a recipe from their favourite cookbook. To show her appreciation, the university graduate gives a $25 Co-op gift card.
DeCoste chose to conduct her research in Moose Jaw because it’s a smaller community and she wasn’t familiar with it. Moreover, she needed to pursue her project objectively, which meant she couldn’t do it in Regina. She also focused on southern Saskatchewan because there is a strong Ukrainian presence in the area.
“I (also) noticed there has been quite a number of Ukrainian newcomers … who had come to Moose Jaw now. I thought that was interesting,” she said.
Before beginning her project, the university graduate created a list of guiding questions she wanted to ask. However, from those conversations, she began developing further questions that she had not considered.
For example, she never thought to inquire about the variety of dishes people make, what is considered good Ukrainian food, whether people made all 12 traditional Christmas Eve dishes, why people cook certain dishes at specific times of the year, or how people adapt recipes by substituting different ingredients.
Furthermore, a recurring theme was that of grandparents and great-grandparents who arrived in the early 20th century, lived in isolation on farms, struggled to survive, and worked hard to make their own food.
“Every family and every person’s got their own interpretation (of a recipe). So it’s learning about how people use cookbooks and recipes and whether you use (them) as a guideline or follow it to the book,” said DeCoste.
“All of it’s very interesting. There’s so much … that it’s hard to sum up.”
DeCoste — who has no Ukrainian heritage — became fascinated by food and cookbooks after taking several courses in university that focused on these topics throughout the centuries. Furthermore, food has always been important in her family, even though they rarely ate any culturally related cuisines.
Her interest in Ukrainian foods also arose after speaking with wedding photographers, who pointed out that many couples have some related dish — perogies are popular — for supper.
DeCoste is interested in speaking with more people and learning about their Ukrainian heritage through cultural food dishes. She can be reached at — text or leave a message — or .
