Carleton Place Museum wraps up Findlay Foundry Exhibit with a taste of the past
The Carleton Place and Beckwith Heritage Museum is wrapping up its Findlay Foundry exhibit with a fitting tribute to the town’s very own industrial and culinary history, a live presentation that brings a 19th Century culinary experience to life.
On Saturday, Nov. 29, 2025, the museum will host Cooking with Fire!, an interactive event led by Lianne van Leyen, a domestic interpreter and historic cook at Upper Canada Village who specializes in historic foodways and open-hearth cooking.
Museum staff say Cooking with Fire! is a perfect way to close the Findlay Foundry exhibit, which has been celebrating one of Carleton Place’s most enduring legacies — the foundry that once exported its cast-iron stoves across Canada and beyond.
The historic cook’s presentation will take guests back to the 1860s, exploring how cooks of the Victorian era prepared food using open hearths and wood stoves — including the same kind of cast-iron models once manufactured in the town’s own Findlay Foundry.
The museum describes the event as both educational and delicious with guests having the opportunity to learn, watch, and even sample a few of van Leyen’s creations inspired by 19th-century recipes. While the museum’s Findlay stove isn’t operational, van Leyen plans to bring authentic cooking implements, antique cookbooks, and centuries-old recipes from her personal collection to guide guests through the flavours and techniques of pre-Confederation Canada.
“The Findlay Forest Beauty stove is similar to the one I use at Upper Canada Village,” van Leyen explained. “I’ll be using my collection of period cooking implements and cookbooks to talk about the foodways of pre-Confederation Canada, exploring everything from the seasonality of food to preservation methods and the role of women in food production and domestic life.”
Van Leyen, who grew up in rural Ontario and learned to cook on a Findlay woodstove herself, says her work is about more than food — it’s about preserving stories. “My mother’s family had lived in the area for many generations, with family members and neighbours holding on and practising traditional skills, trades and using antique implements / technology instead of replacing them with more modern options.”
“Historic cooking isn’t just about recipes — it’s about understanding how people lived, worked, and gathered around food,” van Leyen told Lanarkist. “It’s a hands-on way to connect with history and appreciate the skill and resourcefulness of earlier generations.”
According to van Leyen, her talk will also touch on the evolution of cooking and household roles, including how the Industrial Revolution and shifting technologies transformed the labours of daily life. Themes of her presentation will explore the seasonality of food, preservation methods, and how to read, interpret and cook or bake using period recipes including conversions from an era before standard measurements.
She will also discuss the role of matrilineal transmission of knowledge and methods versus using published written sources in cooking and preserving, the availability of local and imported food, and the gendered roles and tasks of the 1860s, to name a few topics.
“I hope my passion for bringing women’s history and domestic work to life inspires others to make and preserve things with their own hands,” she told Lanarkist. “Cooking and craft are living links to our shared past.”
According to the museum, there will be two presentations, at 12 p.m. and 2 p.m., and admission is $20 per person. Tickets can be purchased directly at the museum or via e-transfer to cpbmuseum@outlook.com and attendees should include their preferred time slot and contact information.
The event takes place at the Carleton Place and Beckwith Heritage Museum at 267 Edmund Street. For more details, call 613-253-7013.