Ephrem Boudreau was born in River Bourgeois in 1905. He wrote Rivière Bourgeois from which this history is taken and translated.
At Christmas, the traditional meal was not turkey which in these parts was unknown. The excellent meal was rabbit pate in which the main ingredients were rabbit (wild white rabbit, American rabbit) caught by snare, and beef fat seasoned with onions.
The whole meal was cooked in the oven in a large, deep pot and garnished with a special paste on the bottom and the sides. Once the pot was full, a layer of paste covered it all and this transformed it into a beautiful golden crust. Oh, the delicious and fragrant aroma of rabbit pate cooking in the oven.
This pate was eaten not only at Christmas, but it was particularly appreciated at this celebration because it was around this time that the cycle for rabbit pate began with rabbit season starting just before Christmas and continuing until the end of winter.
New Year’s Day and King’s Day were hardly noticed; they were days like any other except that some were unemployed.
Year round there was plenty of salt cod and herring, and also potatoes, which kept very well in the cellars below the houses. The soups, especially vegetable soup, was on the menu every day because soup was easy to make like bread and a variety of products could be used for this purpose.
Molasses was another food generously used. Each meal had a jar of molasses, which was filled as needed when one went to the store.
The installation of power transmission lines did not begin in River Bourgeois, until the 1940s. The primary source of light was by candle or lamp. The lamp used lamp oil or kerosene which the Acadians of the “River” called karassine. When going to the store one carried the kerosene can, as well as the jar of molasses. The name canister came from the English, but the pronunciation was not for a can but for a metal box.
It was necessary to refuel the lamps and the lantern often, and to clean the globes and trim the wicks. In large spaces at least two lamps were necessary to ensure that the lighting was sufficient. To read at night, one had to sit close to the lamp. In the living room a more decorative lamp, with more vivid colours, pink often and with bands of gold, while the ordinary lamps only had the reservoirs and no handle for the globe.
With the advent of electric energy, life began to change profoundly because electricity could be used in so many ways.
Around 1917 or 1918 one could procure Aladdin lamps and beacons or incandescent lights. The wick was replaced by a mantle, which once lit became incandescent and gave off a powerful light. Gasoline replaced kerosene.
The lamp was placed on the table, on a shelf or a support fixed to the wall. Everyone had his little lamp which he carried with him when he went up to his bedroom to sleep. Before getting into bed, he extinguished his lamp. This little lamp had no base; just a small reservoir. It was grasped on the side by a handle.