Legacy Stampede Breakfast returns as invite-only tradition revived
After 7 years away, Calgary's prestigious pancake breakfast returns this summer with the ceremonial cow, Syllabub, and founding families honoured.
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Calgary's most storied invite-only pancake breakfast is returning this summer, seven years after the Hays family ended their nearly 70-year tradition during the 2019 Stampede.
The inaugural Legacy Stampede Breakfast will carry forward many beloved traditions of the original Hays breakfast, which started in 1950 and ran for 69 years before the family decided to retire the event. Ruth Peters, whose family co-hosted the Hays breakfast for many years, said there was "a lot of sadness" when it ended, but the event was greatly missed by those who attended.
"It was, for 69 years, the Stampede event that everybody wanted to be at," said Catherine Brownlee, an event volunteer and president of CBI Business Solutions. "If you had an invitation to be able to attend, you felt blessed to be able to be there."
The breakfast brought together politicians, executives, and community and business leaders from across all sectors, but it was never positioned as a self-promotion platform. Many community leaders spoke about missing it, so a committee came together to bring it back. Peters said she was "surprised and delighted" at what the committee had pulled together in a short timeframe. "It's not a small breakfast," she said. "It's an amazing feat to put together."
The Hays family has been supportive of the revival and will be honoured at the breakfast along with other "founding families," but they no longer wanted their name attached to the event. Peters said her family will support in any way they can and will definitely attend.
Many beloved traditions will continue at the Legacy breakfast, including the ceremonial milking of a cow for the mystery concoction the Hays family dubbed "Syllabub." It will be brought back under a new name but with all the usual pomp and circumstance—including bagpipers bringing in the ceremonial cow. "The cow would be milked, and they've got this big cauldron," Brownlee said. "They would pour in Tide and bleach and motor oil and vodka and tequila... and of course it was all fake." Even the Peters family wasn't privy to what actually went into the drink. "We were involved in the ceremonial mixing of it, but I think that maybe was part of the intrigue, that it was the secret recipe," Peters said.