I used to walk down every morning. I had a routine to go
down and get bottled water, big fresh bottle. And you had to
smuggle it back because people would be trying to get it off you
and it’s a shame that’s about the only thing, you know, we got in
And there used to be elderly ladies and I would say elderly
ladies well in their 60's and 70's on the side walk.
They would never be sitting, they would be squatting and they
would be making morning pancakes or morning bread and amazing
watching them doing this with this dough and they would have a
little low fire on and they would put this in the pan and
they wouldn’t have a spatula. It would be their hands,
they’d be, and some mornings we would walk by, she would say to
me, she said, “piece, piece?” And not to be offended,
“yes by all means.” So she’d cut off a piece and I’d be eating
it. What the heck is that? What is was they were missing
certain ingredients so what they used to do was peel birch
bark, strips of birch bark and they used to put it in the dough
to hold it together. So I’m eating this and I’m getting
a piece of birch bark hanging out of my mouth and I’m trying
to be polite. So I finished the doughy part of it.
So the next morning, I was going back down again. I took the
young signaller with me. I said, “Come on,” and I was
setting him up. So I said, “If you go by here and this elderly
offers you a piece of bread, don’t refuse them.
“But,” he says, “they don’t wash their hands.”
“Don’t worry about it!” So they offered him. I said,
“Take a big bite!” And course the poor Corporal took a big bite
as he’s been told by the Warrant Officer.
He took a big bite and it was nothing but pure birch bark.
He bit into a little bit of dough and I said “Don’t spit it
out. She’s watching you.” I said, you know, “say thank you,”
and he was trying to say thank you and he was chewing down on
this birch bark and I took a fit of laughing.
It was just, then the elderly she took a fit of laugh as
well. It’s things like that we laughed at , but you couldn’t,
this is how they kept their ingredients together when they
were making it. They were lacking, I don’t know what they
were lacking, yeast or whatever, but this is how they would do it
To keep the dough together and oh, but they would eat it.
But that was one of the things I use to tell, “Have a big piece!
and he right into it!! And he looked at me, “You know about
this?” I said, “I knew all about it!!” But it was things like
that, you know, it was moments like that we had, we had a laugh.