Slices of her life

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This article was published 30/11/2019 (2179 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Before we begin today’s story about Roslyn Pilgrim, founder of Calypso Slices, a Winnipeg business specializing in baked-from-scratch rum cakes, a popular, holiday-season confection in her home country of Barbados, a quick history lesson might be in order.

A century ago, in 1919, the United States Senate passed the Eighteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, banning the sale and production of alcohol.

Only thing was, because Caribbean nations that had been distilling rum for the better part of two centuries are located relatively close to Florida, it didn’t take long for opportunists — rum runners, as they came to be known — to seize upon that fact and begin smuggling the distilled beverage in by the boatload to peddle on the black market.

Very quickly, the demand for Caribbean rum skyrocketed. So much was being turned out, in fact, that people living in countries that produce the spirit began coming up with alternate uses for it. Enter rum cake, made with chopped-up fruit such as prunes, cherries and orange slices that have been marinated in a red-wine-and-rum-mixture for months, sometimes up to a year.

Pilgrim grew up in Bridgetown, the capital city of Barbados. She has fond, childhood memories of standing on a chair in the kitchen, her younger brother jockeying for position next to her, watching their mother prepare rum cake for birthdays or Christmas dinner.

Because the alcohol from the rum cooks off during the preparation phase, one doesn’t need ID proving they’re over 18 to dive in.

“I was never interested in cooking growing up; I’m still not, but baking always fascinated me,” says Pilgrim, seated in a McPhillips Street coffee shop, not far from her home in Garden City.

“Of course, being allowed to lick the spoon when my mother was all done might have had something to do with it.”

In 1985, Pilgrim was walking along the “beautiful, sandy beach,” when she met a fellow who was originally from Barbados, but had since moved to Winnipeg. The pair struck up a conversation, during which he asked her out on a date. A month or so later, after he had returned home, she packed her bags and flew north to pay him a visit.

The couple got married that same year but it wasn’t until 1986, once her immigration papers were fully in order, that she was able to join him in Canada. She vividly recalls the day she arrived, as it was the first time in her life she’d ever experienced bone-chilling temperatures.

“It was Nov. 26 and it was something crazy like minus-30 outside,” she says, pretending to shiver. “He met me at the airport and handed me a coat and gloves saying, ‘Put these on, you’re going to need them.’”

Pilgrim, the mother of two, was married to her husband for 20 years. During that period she worked several jobs, including clerical positions at St. Boniface and Seven Oaks hospitals.

In the back of her mind, however, she’d always wanted to strike out on her own, so in the late 1990s, she enrolled at Red River College, where she studied business administration. One of the class assignments in her final semester was to come up with a business idea and map out a plan to bring it to fruition.

Her proposal, an enterprise specializing in treats from her homeland — rum cake in particular — not only got her an A, it won a $500 award from the Women’s Enterprise Centre, money she turned around and used to help convert her dream into reality.

“My mother had never bothered to write out a recipe for her cakes. It was always ‘a pinch of this, a drop of that.’ But now that I wanted to pursue this seriously, I had to have everything written out precisely, especially because there was alcohol involved,” says Pilgrim who, once her recipe was tweaked to her satisfaction, began working with Portage la Prairie’s provincially run Food Development Centre, which assists budding entrepreneurs with everything from regulatory requirements to labelling.

Calypso Slices made its official debut at The Forks Market in December 2001. While some passers-by had no experience with rum cake whatsoever, mistaking it for its much-maligned cousin, fruitcake, loads of people did, thanks to winter getaways to the Caribbean.

Many of those same people immediately picked up on Pilgrim’s accent, and, with a newly purchased rum cake under their arm, peppered her with questions, mainly, why on earth would somebody from Barbados choose to relocate to such a frigid environment?

“It’s funny, I hadn’t been home in eight years prior to last February but after just a few days away I was thinking, it’s so hot out, I wish it would cool down a bit,” she says.

Because Pilgrim doesn’t use any dairy products in her wares — besides rum cake, she also turns out coconut bread, currant rolls and cassava buns — by provincial standards she can do most of the prep work at home.

The finished product is available in two sizes, one- and two-pound cakes, both of which come packed in an attractive-looking wooden box, ideal for shipping to friends and family as a holiday gift. (Through her website www.calypsoslices.com, Pilgrim has mailed cakes — which have a shelf-life of six to eight months — as far west as Alberta, and as far east as Quebec.)

Pilgrim, who has become a familiar, summertime face at both the St. Norbert Farmers Market and the Arnes Farmers Market, just north of Gimli, says her regular clientele doesn’t just consist of native Manitobans; she also sells loads of cakes to Caribbean expats, folks who, like herself, moved to Canada yet are still looking for a taste of home.

“The best compliments I ever receive is when somebody from Trinidad or Jamaica tells me my cakes remind them of their mother’s or grandmother’s,” she says. “Of course people can make their own, but life can get so busy, especially this time of year, that they say it’s easier to buy one from me, which is great for business, right?”

Gregory Gaskin is the president of the Barbados Association of Winnipeg, a 100-member group formed in 1977, the same year Gaskin moved to Winnipeg from the parish of St. Michael. Gaskin recalls two things about that year: the weather the January morning his flight touched down — “I had trouble breathing and wondered what I had gotten myself into” — and having a rum cake at his aunt’s for Christmas dinner that December.

“Rum cakes are very popular around the holidays; Barbadians here in Winnipeg make them for Easter, Christmas, weddings and other festive activities,” he says. “I have a family recipe from my grandmother. I have tried Roslyn’s and found them similar to what I grew up with.”

In case you’re wondering what pairs well with rum cake, Gaskin has a few suggestions. You can enjoy a slice with tea, coffee or eggnog, he notes, or a shot of Mount Gay Rum, Mount Gay being the world’s oldest commercial rum distillery, having been founded in Barbados in 1703.

If you’re interested in picking up a rum cake for your holiday gathering, Calypso Slices will be a featured vendor at the Downtown Winnipeg Farmers Market, Dec. 5 and 19 from 10 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.

david.sanderson@freepress.mb.ca