Contents

The Galt Museum & Archives is extremely pleased to share the experience of the exhibition Lethbridge Eats with its members, visitors and the community through this publication—a book that explores the history of food and food culture throughout this diverse community. Lethbridge Eats relays some of the stories about what has been eaten, who created certain dishes and delicacies and how that has changed over time through the voices of those who have lived and continue to live the food experience. 

This publication is the result of contributions by many individuals, both within the Galt and throughout the larger southwestern Alberta community. As a community-centred organization we are eternally grateful to our donors, whose objects, photos and stories help capture the complex, often deeply emotional significance of food in our lives. We also thank the restaurateurs, past and present, who shared with us their passion for food and their own place within the region’s culinary history. Although we have only been able to include a selection here, we hope this book will inspire readers to experience and support the many wonderful local eateries throughout our city and region.

Special thanks to the Board of Directors of the Galt Museum & Archives, staff team, members and volunteers who continue to support and make the museum a special gathering place for community and the sharing of ideas.

Darrin J Martens
CEO/Executive Director

Food is a fundamental part of who we are as individuals—it is part of our everyday lives, our memories and our identities. 

Food is also a reflection of the broader community and those who live, work, study and play in a certain place. Lethbridge is located on Niitsitapi territory, and since the late nineteenth century has become the centre of a large agricultural region. We benefit from plenty of fresh, local food and a rich diversity of food traditions that contribute to a unique culinary landscape. We recognize that these benefits are not afforded to everyone and that food insecurity is a global concern. Unequal access to safe and nutritious food has become even more apparent as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Food is the central focus of Lethbridge Eats. Through images, objects and the voices of those who have developed local food culture, this book chronicles what, how and where we have eaten over time. The inclusion of cherished recipes from the community in this book offers a glimpse of our collective place in this moment, with respect to the diversity of approaches to cooking and flavours that can be found in southwestern Alberta. 

We invite you to “dig in and enjoy” Lethbridge Eats.

Aimee Benoit
Curator

Lethbridge is located on the traditional territory of the Niitsitapi (Blackfoot Peoples), whose rich foodways shaped their seasonal movements and relationships to the land.

Settler society changed Indigenous lives and diets. In the 1870s, American whisky traders brought canned and dry foods such as flour, salt and sugar to this region. As commercial hunting decimated the bison, the Canadian government replaced traditional foods with agriculture and poor-quality rations. In residential schools, children were “always hungry,” as the Truth and Reconciliation Commission reports. 

However, Indigenous Peoples have been pushing to revitalize traditional food systems. In southwestern Alberta, the Kainai Ecosystem Protection Association is one group working to restore the integrity of Niitsitapi (Blackfoot) foods, relationships and land.

“The plants were here before us. The plants do so much for us. We need to help them now; that’s what we’re offering—we’re actually helping the plants heal.”

— Api’soomaahka (William Singer III), Kainai Ecosystem Protection Association

Nothing beats a home-cooked meal, as they say. As a society we tend to idealize the ritual of sitting down to a family dinner, even though reality is often different.

Over the past century, home cooking has been shaped by the availability of ingredients, people’s movement from rural to urban areas, changing gender roles, and new tastes introduced by diverse cultural communities. In southwestern Alberta, settlers from around the world have maintained distinctive food traditions as part of their cultural identities.

Industrialization has changed people’s relationship with food, shifting much of the labour to food processing corporations. Yet many home cooks were happy to give up the difficult tasks of growing, slaughtering, salting, drying, pickling or canning. 

Technology has also opened up new food choices. Refrigerators and freezers, available to many households by the 1950s, enabled people to preserve and eat meat more often, and to store convenient frozen foods. Other appliances such as microwaves and slow cookers have made cooking much simpler.

Maria Romaniuk described the traditional Ukrainian Christmas Eve meal to the Lethbridge Herald in 1991: kutia, a dish made of wheat, poppy seeds, nuts and honey; followed by 12 more dishes that might include pickled herring, smoked fish and perogies.

The Christmas Eve supper is meatless and all natural, made of food from the land.

— Maria Romaniuk, Lethbridge Herald, January 7, 1991

Food preparation is a highly gendered activity. Throughout the twentieth century, home cooking and clean-up were commonly portrayed as women’s work—regardless of who actually performed these roles. In contrast, grilling was strongly associated with masculinity.

It can be difficult to decide what to eat, given all the advice by medical experts, governments, popular magazines and food corporations. 

In the early 1900s, experts’ food advice often had a moral tone, targeting poor or immigrant communities and encouraging Anglo-European eating habits. Advertisers promoted images of white, middle-class nuclear families; and vigorous but slender bodies. 

Governments began regulating food information and labels to control safety and public health. Canada’s “Official Food Rules” were introduced in 1942 to counter malnutrition and food shortages during the Second World War. More recent recommendations in Canada’s Food Guide suggest limiting fat, sugar, salt and alcohol to prevent diet-related diseases. 

In general, nutritional advice has downplayed the sensual pleasures of eating in favour of rational choices and self-control.  

In the early twentieth century, infant mortality rates were much higher than today: 187 deaths per thousand births in 1900, compared to just five in 2020, according to Statistics Canada. Experts’ nutritional advice to parents sought to address—but also likely increased—parents’ anxieties about their children’s health.

A sweet, juicy mango from Mexico or smoked Gouda cheese from Holland—thanks to new transportation and storage systems we can now buy food from almost anywhere in the world, during any season. 

Early Lethbridge residents bought most of their food from neighbourhood corner stores or “dry grocers,” with side trips to the butcher, baker or greengrocer. Self-serve chain stores opened in the 1920s, with the first in Lethbridge located in the basement of Eaton’s. Instead of being helped by a clerk behind a counter, shoppers made their own selections—and food companies created brands that would stand out on the shelf. 

In the 1950s urban development shifted to the suburbs, and cars became more widely available. Grocery shopping became a weekly, rather than daily, ritual. In recent years, groceries have been sold in new types of venues: warehouse stores, convenience stores, pharmacies or online. Some consumers also look to smaller producers and farmers’ markets for fresh local food.

Medicine Hat resident Thomas Botterill opened a store in Lethbridge shortly after the townsite was first surveyed in 1885. Although specializing in hardware, Botterill also sold groceries such as tinned food, fresh dairy butter and green vegetables.

A long-time merchant through its system of fur trading posts, the Hudson’s Bay Company purchased the I. G. Baker store in Lethbridge in 1891. Located on the corner of 5 Street and 1 Avenue S, it was the city’s first department store, complete with a grocery section.

The City Bakery opened as the Lethbridge Bakery in 1887. In 1910 proprietor Robert Scott, shown here with his wife Mary, built a new bakehouse on 3 Avenue S, with stables in the back and an enclosed porch for delivery wagons in the front. 

Eaton’s Groceteria opened in the basement of the Eaton’s store in 1928. It was the first self-serve grocery store in Lethbridge.

In 1950 Wilson Lee opened the most modern self-serve grocery store in the region. It featured a complete frozen food section, a turntable cashier’s counter and two telephones so customers could call in their orders for free in-city delivery.  

Long-time Lethbridge grocer Andrew Mihalik opened a brand-new self-serve grocery store in 1939 on 13 Street N, complete with a refrigerator and spraying fountains to keep produce fresh.

In 1930 Safeway established 128 new stores in 59 western Canadian towns and cities—including its first store in Lethbridge. The large international chain operated on a “cash and carry” business model, in contrast to independent grocers, who often kept individual customer accounts. 

George Dong operated a small grocery and meat market at 707 9 Avenue N from 1954 to 1968. Originally built by John Berte in 1918, the neighbourhood grocery store served as a meeting place for locals for about eighty years before it was converted to a private residence. 

Ken Jang’s father, Guy, opened the San Man Sang Co. in Lethbridge’s small Chinatown in the late 1940s. He also operated the Ritz Café from 1937 to 1950.

In the early 1900s it was common for local farmers and market gardeners to sell their produce door-to-door. The city’s first licensed farmers’ market opened in the Hudson’s Bay building in 1932. A purpose-built market opened in 1945 on 7 Street; however, disgruntled by the “city slickers” operating the venture, several farmers left in 1962 to establish their own market on 3 Avenue S.

Eating out is a regular practice for many Canadians. According to the 2016 Household Survey, more than half of us eat out once a week or more, mostly for convenience or to celebrate with family or friends. 

In the early 1900s, small cafés in Lethbridge, such as the Cecil or Yale Café, offered light meals and soda fountain treats. Many diners were owned by Chinese Canadians and served both western food and a dish known across the Prairies as “chop suey.” 

By mid-century the first fast food chains and drive-in chicken or hamburger joints opened. Long-time Lethbridge residents may remember lunch at Woodwards, the Paramount Café or the Shanghai. 

Today there are more than 100 diverse restaurants to choose from in Lethbridge. With so much competition, what is the secret to success? For some of the city’s most iconic eateries it comes down to the basics: good, quality food and exceptional service—of course for an affordable price. 

In 1946 Zeke Quong and two partners opened the Lotus Inn on 1 Avenue S—a sleek, modern café outfitted with booths, a lunch counter and a jukebox. The Lotus Inn remained a popular Chinese restaurant until it closed in 1982.

Owned by James Wong from 1948 to 1959, the Shangri-La Café was one of many café-restaurants clustered in downtown Lethbridge in the late 1940s and early 1950s. The building had housed a restaurant since first opening in 1909 as Fats Quick Lunch. 

The Dinner Bell opened in 1958 along the busy strip of 3 Avenue S. It was one of three local drive-in restaurants at the time, along with the El Rancho (on Mayor Magrath Drive) and A&W. Drive-ins offered quick and efficient service to a growing number of automobile owners in mid-century Lethbridge. 

When the Alexandra Hotel opened in March 1910, hundreds of people crowded into its café to be entertained by a six-piece orchestra. The hotel became a landmark on the city’s main street of 5 Street S, while the restaurant offered both a respite to shoppers and a fine dining experience. 

Brothers Mike, Alex and John Afaganis opened a candy shop on 5 Street S in 1916, soon moving into larger premises on 3 Avenue S. They reopened as the Maple Leaf Café in 1937, but continued to sell fresh home-made chocolates, candy and pastries.

In 1942 Ian Hamilton and Don Calder opened Alberta’s first Chicken Delight, in Lethbridge. One of the first restaurants to open on Mayor Magrath Drive, the franchise offered both take-out and dine-in options—including its specialty, fried chicken. 

Jim and Hazel Penny bought the Canadian rights to Taco Time in 1977. New franchisees Bill, Dave and Doug Henderson, with a fourth partner, took over operation of the pilot store on Mayor Magrath Drive in 1978.

Sven Ericksen moved to Lethbridge in 1948 to operate the dining services at the Marquis Hotel—the city’s premier establishment at the time. By 1954 he was also running a café and drive-in restaurant at the El Rancho Motor Hotel. Ericksen opened his own family restaurant on Mayor Magrath Drive in 1969, serving home style cooking for regular patrons and many special occasions until closing in 2006. 

[Sven Ericksen’s] was about being hospitable, having that relationship with our guests…and it was always about good, wholesome food; everything was made fresh.

— Brian Wichers

The legendary Colonel Harland Sanders stopped in Lethbridge in the late 1950s, during a road trip to find outlets for his Kentucky Fried Chicken. He struck up a friendship with Sven Ericksen, who started selling buckets of KFC at the El Rancho Drive-In. Ericksen eventually opened a KFC outlet on 3 Avenue S in 1967; his grandsons Brian and Harvey Wichers continue to operate four KFC outlets in Lethbridge. 

Founding partners Wally Lam (head chef), Patrick Lam, Fung-ying Lam and Wayne Kwan opened The Regent Restaurant in November 1986. The restaurant’s iconic entrance greeted customers with a wooden footbridge that crossed over a koi pond.

We treated all of our customers as family, and always cooked with our heart.

— Wayne Kwan

Within the long tradition of Chinese restaurants in Lethbridge, The Regent Restaurant was the first to offer dim sum and authentic Cantonese cuisine when it opened in 1986. Specialists from Hong Kong were hired to develop the menu with delicacies such as fried salad shrimp with honey glazed almonds, beef riblets with honey pepper sauce, and chicken with fresh cantaloupe.

Spudnuts was an institution in Lethbridge for almost 70 years. In 1950 it opened as Babe’s Spudnut and Ice Cream Bar and became the meeting place for young people after school, dances or swimming at the Fritz Sick pool. Wolfgang and Angie Otto purchased Spudnuts in 1966 and operated the shop until 2000. Denise Hammon and her family opened Crazy Cakes in the same building in 2007. Otto returned to make a weekly batch of Spudnuts until the business closed in 2019.

“Mr. Spudnut” was known for his homemade ice cream, “graveyard” soda, and the free spudnut holes he gave away to children. 

I have a lot of dreams that I’m still making the spudnuts… I did it for too many years, see? I would make ice cream, and a mother and a little child would come—always the real ice cream in a cone, then [I’d] put sprinkles on it, just to make ‘em happy.

— Wolfgang Otto 

The Christou family is well established in Lethbridge’s culinary history. Chris Christou opened the much-loved White Lunch Café on 5 Street in about 1910, shortly after immigrating from Greece. He later partnered with Andrew Nicas until selling the business in 1946. Christou’s grandson Mike was later a partner in Streatside Eatery and other Lethbridge restaurants. 

I think what we really enjoyed doing was welcoming people into our dining room. I think that Greeks typically like that… food is an important part of their heritage; and gathering is important.

— Mike Christou

Treats Eatery opened in 1982 as the city’s first casual dining restaurant. Five years later partners Mike Christou and Ray Bonetti opened Streatside Eatery, which became known for its chicken fingers, fritters, burgers named for local streets, and decadent Turtles cheesecake. After working as a server and manager for many years, Steve Oseen purchased the restaurant in 2010.

Remember the prize in the Cracker Jack box? The space-gun Pez dispenser? Or Kids’ Bids—the Canadian TV show where children used Old Dutch potato chip packages to bid on toys? 

Snack food marketing is all around us, and since the mid-1900s much of it has targeted children. In addition to taste, collective memory and nostalgia for certain brands also shape adults’ snack choices. 

Common ingredients in snack foods such as sugar, salt, and fat have known health risks. Yet food historian Janis Thiessen suggests the problem is not that snack foods exist, but that they are often more filling and accessible than healthier options. At the same time, snacks can be important for enjoyment, celebrations and connections between people.

Of course, what we consider a treat has also changed over time and is shaped by cultural norms about what is or is not acceptable to eat. 

In 1901 Fritz Sick opened a brewery in Lethbridge, which became the centre of a brewing empire that spanned across western Canada and northwestern United States. In the early 1900s the company began a soft drink line featuring Sick’s “6” Lethbridge Dry Ginger Ale.

The production of soft drinks helped sustain Sick’s Brewery through Alberta’s liquor prohibition from 1916 to 1923, and through bans on advertising for alcohol. The logo for Lethbridge Dry Ginger Ale used familiar elements from the company’s Pilsner and other labels to subtly promote the beer.

Although Canadians enjoyed an abundance of relatively cheap food through much of the twentieth century, not everyone had equal access to it. 

During the Depression years of the 1930s, city officials, faith groups and service organizations distributed food relief to local families in need. After the Second World War, the Canadian government introduced social welfare programs to provide basic economic security—and in theory, eliminate hunger.   

Since the 1980s, those programs have been cut back and charitable and non-governmental organizations have stepped in with food banks, soup kitchens and community gardens. By 1992, there were three times the number of food banks in Canada than McDonald’s franchises. 

Today we face many societal, medical and environmental challenges related to food—among them rising costs, food waste, climate change, pandemics and unequal distribution. 

In the spring of 1947, consumers across Canada protested rising food prices. Children and teenagers formed strike committees and staged protests against the cost of chocolate bars, which had gone up from five to eight cents. This group was photographed outside the Westminster School in Lethbridge.  

I can remember the standpipe on the corner [of 14 Street and 6 Avenue S]. And when they raised the price of chocolate bars, I remember a big banner being up there saying, ‘We want five cent chocolate bars!’ and graffiti written on it. 

— Bill Lingard

Primary Sources

Galt Museum & Archives, Oral History Interviews:

• Api’soomaahka (William Singer III), Interview with Aimee Benoit, Sept. 11, 2020

• Bonetti, Ray, Interview with Kevin MacLean, Mar. 10, 2020

• Casson, Mitch, Interview with Aimee Benoit, Mar. 4, 2020

• Cavers, Barb, Interview with Kevin MacLean, Jul. 2015

• Christou, Mike, Interview with Kevin MacLean, Oct. 27, 2019

• Christou, Dr. Van, Interview with Kevin MacLean, Feb. 27, 2017

• Gurr, Duane and David, Interview with Kevin MacLean, Feb. 3, 2015

• Kogawa, Joy, Interview with Kevin MacLean, Aug. 29-31, 2011

• Kwan, Wayne, Interview with Kirstan Schamuhn, Feb. 2, 2020

• Lingard, Bill, Interview with Kevin MacLean, Sept. 14, 2014

• MacLean, Kevin, Interview with Aimee Benoit, Dec. 21, 2018

• Moch, Irene, Interview with Kevin MacLean, Sept. 2016

• Otto, Wolfgang, Interview with Aimee Benoit, Mar. 12, 2020

• Ptycia, Pam, Interview with Kevin MacLean, Feb. 24, 2017

• Wichers, Brian, Interview with Aimee Benoit, Mar. 9, 2020

Henderson’s Lethbridge City Directories, 1910–1990

Lethbridge Herald, 1905–2020

Secondary Sources

Blue, Gwendolyn. “If it ain’t Alberta, it ain’t beef.” Food, Culture & Society 11, no.1 (2008): 69–85.

Braun, Jennifer and Mary A. Beckie. “Against the odds: The survival of traditional food knowledge in a rural Albertan community.” Canadian Food Studies 1, no. 1 (2014): 54–71.

Coté, Charlotte. “‘Indigenizing’ food sovereignty. Revitalizing Indigenous food practices and ecological knowledges in Canada and the United States.” Humanities 5, no. 57 (2016): 1–14.

Duncan, Dorothy. Canadians at Table: Food, Fellowship, and Folklore: A Culinary History of Canada. Toronto: Dundurn Press, 2011.

Gordon-Walker, Caitlin. “The process of chop suey: Rethinking multicultural nationalism at the Royal Alberta Museum.” Diverse Spaces: Identity, Heritage and Community in Canadian Public Culture. Eds. Susan Ashley. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars, 2013, 16–28.

Health Canada. History of Canada’s Food Guides from 1942 to 2007. Ottawa: Health Canada, 2019.

Iacovetta, Franca, Valerie J. Korinek and Marlene Epp. Edible Histories, Cultural Politics: Towards a Canadian Food History. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2012.

Koc, Mustafa, Rod MacRae, Ellen Desjardins and Wayne Roberts. “Getting civil about food: The interactions between civil society and the state to advance sustainable food systems in Canada.” Journal of Hunger & Environmental Nutrition 3, no. 2 (2008): 122–144.

Linn, Susan and Courtney L. Novosat. “Calories for sale: Food marketing to children in the twenty-first century.” ANNALS, AAPSS, 615 (2008): 133–155.

McNish, Tori (2013). “Chop suey on the Prairies: A history of Chinese restaurants in Alberta.” The Senses and Society 8, no. 3 (2013): 378–382.

Mosby, Ian. Food Will Win the War: The Politics, Culture and Science of Food on Canada’s Home Front. Vancouver, UBC Press, 2014.

Mosby, Ian. “Making and breaking Canada’s food rules: Science, the state, and the government of nutrition, 1942-1949.” In Edible Histories, Cultural Politics: Towards a Canadian Food History, edited by Iacovetta et al., 409–432. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2012.

Risch, Sara J. “Food packaging history and innovations.” Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry 57 (2009): 8089–8092.

Rotberg, Robert I, Theodore K. Rabb and Ester Boserup. Hunger and History: The Impact of Changing Food Production and Consumption Patterns on Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985.

Stanton, John L. “A brief history of food retail.” British Food Journal 120, no. 1 (2017): 172–181.

“Eating out: How often and why?” Statistics Canada, January 10, 2019. https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/en/catalogue/11-627-M2019003 

Thiessen, Janis. Snacks: A Canadian Food History. Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 2017. 

Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. Honouring the Truth, Reconciling for the Future. Summary of the Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. Winnipeg: Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, 2015. http://www.trc.ca/assets/pdf/Honouring_the_Truth_Reconciling_for_the_Future_July_23_2015.pdf  

Veit, Helen Zoe. Modern Food, Moral Food: Self-Control, Science, and the Rise of Modern American Eating in the Early Twentieth Century. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2013.

Wallach, Jennifer Jensen. How America Eats: A Social History of U.S. Food and Culture. Plymouth: Rowan & Littlefield Publishers Inc., 2013.

I would like to thank our amazing team at the Galt Museum & Archives who assisted with the development of this book. While everyone has been a part of this project in some way, I would particularly like to acknowledge Andrew Chernevych, Kevin MacLean, Darrin Martens, Graham Ruttan, Hilary Squires, Rebecca Wilde and Nicole Wilkinson for their assistance in digitizing content, taking photographs, reviewing drafts, proofreading text, and reaching out to community contributors. Brad Brown and Jane Edmundson were instrumental in designing the physical version of the exhibition, and Anine Vonkeman from one match fire design & communications produced the graphic design for the exhibition and the book. 

This project brought together knowledge and stories from many individuals in the community. We are especially grateful to Api’soomaakha (William Singer III) for his passion for the plants and the land. Ray Bonetti, Mitch Casson, Don Cheung, Mike Christou, Denise Hammon, Bill Henderson, Wayne Kwan, Wolfgang Otto and Brian Wichers shared the fascinating stories behind their iconic local restaurant businesses. We also deeply appreciate the individuals who contributed recipes: Devon Apperloo, Alkesh Arya, Rebekah Cain, Alejandro Davila, Louise Michelsen, Jonathan Mpere, Ayumi and Yoshiko Sawa, Nikki Soup, Cody and Julia Spencer, Herma van Garderen, and Francis Wong. Thanks to all of you for spending time with us and for helping to create the distinctive culinary landscape of southwestern Alberta.

Finally, thank you to our volunteers and donors who are integral to who we are and what we do at the Galt.

This project was funded in part by the Government of Alberta.