First Taste of Summer, Edmonton, 1940s, by William Kay

Many fresh vegetables and goods year round for Edmonton up to the late 40’s was, for the average individual, either too expensive or unavailable. Frozen foods and vegetables were unheard of. Root vegetables and the like that could be stored in the root cellars were available but as the time passed into the late spring and into the early summer they began to be a little anaemic and spongy, or woody which was quite common. Freezers and refrigerators were only becoming available after the shortages of the WW II abated. Transportation and availability of fresh goods on a year around basis from the United States also became more prevalent.


So before and briefly after the Second World War, availability of certain types of fresh produce, a sure sign of the good things to come, was the Edmonton Exhibition (now Klondike Days) in July. With it came the Midway rides and concessionaires, most of who were from the United States. They brought with them much of their supplies. One special item that I always looked forward to every year was fresh succulent golden sweet tasting Corn on the Cob dipped into a pot of hot butter. No corn ever tasted so good as this first corn of the season, this first taste of summer. It wasn’t canned corn, which was always too unlike that eaten right off the cob. I wasn’t much for rides or the like as I was a bit shy and timid but that Corn had its attraction. It signalled the start of the summer and the eventual local harvest of fresh golden Bantam corn on the cob and other fresh produce. It meant that corn grown and tended by my Grandma Skidnook would also soon be available. It meant that great Borscht from the new beet and potato crops would soon follow.


Today it is much different. Corn on the cob is available year around. It is grown all over the Western Hemisphere. There are now new varieties succulent and sweet. But they don’t evoke the same flavours and memories of that first corn on the cob of the summer; that first taste of summer.