The province’s Department of Health is pulling homemade preserves from the shelves at retail stores like Cochran’s Country Market in Rothesay, where Bronwyn McIntyre has bought Lady Ashburnham pickles for twenty consecutive Christmases.
Unlike dill pickles, beets, and jams, Lady Ashburnham pickles are a Maritime specialty, and aren’t available at most supermarkets. They’re named for the wife of the 6th Earl of Ashburnham who settled in Fredericton in 1901 — and have a romantic origin story.
While living at a hotel, Thomas Ashburnham fell in love with Maria Anderson, a night switchboard operator for the New Brunswick Telephone Company to whom he spoke regularly as he placed telephone calls from local taverns to the livery stable for a carriage to take him home at the end of the evening.
