Kitchen at Grand Portage

A re-enactor prepares cookie batter.

Quick Facts

Location:

Within the Historic Stockade

Significance:

Fur Trade History

Amenities

6 listed

Accessible Rooms, First Aid Kit Available, Historical/Interpretive Information/Exhibits, Information - Ranger/Staff Member Present, Scenic View/Photo Spot, Wheelchair Accessible

A Professional Chef

Welcome to the company kitchen! Midsummer, the North West Company held business meetings and entertained their clerks and trading partners. To celebrate this reunion, a professional chef and baker joined the numbers who traveled here in the summer months from Montreal. He would employ local Native women to prepare elaborate five course meals that included soups, stews, fancy roasts and fish, scones and shortbread, and even fresh roasted coffee. Livestock such as cows, pigs, and chickens came aboard ships to create European-style fare. The menu also featured specialty dishes like haggis, blood pudding, and syllabub (a frothy cream and wine dessert popular at the time).

Look around to see kitchenware of the time, watch staff prepare food on the hearth or bake bread in an outdoor bread oven. While you’re there, learn what the voyageurs ate on their journey and see what Native goods made it on the menu.

Evidence of Use

Archeological excavations of the kitchen area during 1970 to 71, yielded almost 14,500 artifacts. The remains of a fireplace were also discovered and behind it a small stone-lined dry well or cooler with its wooden floor still in place. The fireplace and cooler were exactly centered on the mess house. This strongly implied the kitchen and mess house were associated with each other.