Windsor’s Emancipation Days food focus of new research for upcoming Culture Days

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Who knew history could be so tasty?

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New research, under the banner of Ontario Culture Days, will focus on Windsor’s Emancipation Days celebrations and its rich food culture with a community picnic event in the works for this fall.

Tonya Sutherland is a researcher and historian with the The Jackson Park Project, a non-profit multimedia project and archive dedicated to the Emancipation Day celebrations in Jackson Park from the 1930s to 1960s.

With a five-month “creative residency” under the Culture Days banner, Sutherland will dive into the food history of the celebrations.

“As I explore primary documents, the photos themselves or other records of the day, as I learn more about food history in Canada, I’m trying to understand what food meant in the context of the (Emancipation Days) celebrations,” Sutherland said .

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Sutherland said she wanted a research topic that would be engaging and fun for people to learn about — but said food and food history can often be taken for granted.

“Food is great. It’s exciting to think about and talk about. Even if you’re from very different backgrounds, it’s easy to bond over food.

“These different communities, in Windsor and beyond Windsor would travel to attend the celebration and find connection over ‘hey, we all love ribs or grilled chicken.’”

There are countless examples of important and exciting foods from Emancipation Days, Sutherland said, including a barbecue sauce recipe that is a closely guarded family secret.

Elise Harding-Davis is one such guardian of the sauce recipe.

“I have the recipe for the sauce. I make ribs or chicken and put the sauce on it and the whole family enjoys that and invariably we talk about the Emancipation celebrations,” Harding-Davis said.

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Harding-Davis is a historian with a focus on African Canadian history and curator emeritus for the Amherstburg Freedom Museum. Born and raised in Windsor, she attended Emancipation Day celebrations with her family de ella in the 1950s and 1960s, and said food was a huge part of Emancipation Day celebrations.

“The smell of food is inviting and warming and makes you want to be there,” Harding-Davis said. “The BBQ pit smell permeated the park during the Emancipation celebrations. It’s something you cannot forget if you’ve ever smelled it and it’s absolutely part of the whole process.”

Harding-Davis attributed the famous sauce recipe to Windsorite Lou Morgan, though noted that the recipes are often generational with tweaks to suit each family.

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Emancipation Days were also economically important to the Black community in Windsor when visitors would come from across Canada and the United States, Harding-Davis said.

“It really boosted people’s economies and lifestyles,” she said, remembering two people in particular: Elwood Land, who supplied chicken and Harland Johnson, who supplied corn for the celebration.

“Big money was passed. It was a huge influence in the community. It made a big, big difference. When you look at the two gentlemen, they were Black people. The food was enjoyed by everyone and people looked to have that food yearly.”

At the end of her creative residency, Sutherland said she’ll be hosting a talk about her findings. Maybe even more exciting they hope to host a picnic-like celebration during Ontario Culture Days, a provincial celebration of arts and culture across the province, this year set for September 23 to October 16.

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“So we’ve been thinking of (a gathering) where people bring their own picnic, but then maybe we also have some vendors who are providing food that would be the sort of food you would have eaten if you were actually attending one of these celebrations … not a full re-creation, but evocative of that kind of picnic atmosphere that was present during the celebration.”

Going in with an open mind, Sutherland has lots of questions about food she hopes to find answers to — and eventually, to share with the community.

“It’s easy to think ‘okay, food is food. They brought food, they have food, they ate food.’ But once you start to poke at it, these interesting questions come up,” Sutherland said.

“Food is something that is pretty easy to get behind and feel enthusiastic about. And after after the past two years I’m trying to focus on a subject that can bring some joy and happiness to audiences and just to celebrate happiness.”

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