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| © The Canadian Centennial Library 1966 |
This is from a young Ukrainian immigrant named Gus Romaniuk whose family lived in a moss-chinked log home with a thatched roof and earth floor in the Manitoba Interlake region in 1912. Ill, he developed a craving:
I couldn't stand the thought of wild chicken. The fact that there were no domestic chickens in the entire neighbourhood complicated matters. As a substitute, father shot a sparrow. Mother cooked the little bird and also made some sparrow soup, which she placed by my bedside.
Unselfishly, I insisted that the bird be divided into four equal portions; one for each of us children. It made something like a small tidbit of meat apiece... My main meal for the mext few days was boiled sparrow and sparrow soup. Then father started shooting blackbirds. These were larger and meatier. The soup, too, was more nourishing. And on this strange diet, I gained some strength, although I was still invalided in bed.
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