Join us for a talk with Anna Durand about her 2025 Chebacco article: "Baked Beans, Brown Bread, Ackee and Saltfish: Mount Desert Island's Nineteenth Century Foodways and Trade with the Slavery-Based West Indies."

Mount Desert Island's early colonial settlers relied on Caribbean slavery for everyday pantry ingredients, including molasses, coffee, sugar, and rum. Local schooners traded wood products and dried cod for these tropical treats, used in everything from flavoring medicines and gingerbread to hot drinks and cured ham. Resistance to the brutality of enslavement was widespread and constant across the West Indies, even as the goods made there brought wealth and a higher standard of living to the colonists here. Historical newspapers, local store ledgers, and colonial recipes will help us trace the culinary connections between Mount Desert Island and the West Indies. 

Anna Durand lives in Bar Harbor with her husband, Ralph. Her fascination with MDI history began in the late '80s when she worked as a clerk at the Hulls Cove General Store, listening to the "old-timers" tell their stories. She has raised four kids in Acadia and run several small businesses.

This program is a collaboration between the Northeast Harbor Library and the Mount Desert Island Historical Society. It will be offered in person and via Zoom. It will be recorded for later viewing. To register, go to: https://nehlibrary.libcal.com/event/13287839