May / June 2002 Vol. 34, no. 3

Canadian Cookbooks (1825-1949): In the Heart of the Home

Nicole Watier, Research and Information Services

Elizabeth Driver, freelance editor and independent scholar, was the speaker for the January SAVOIR FAIRE session. She discussed her work Culinary Landmarks: A Bibliography of Canadian Cookbooks (1825-1949), which is soon to be published by the University of Toronto Press. Ms. Driver holds an Honours B.A. from Queen’s University and an M.A. in Art History from the University of London.

For over 10 years, she diligently worked to identify every cookbook published in Canada from 1825 to 1949. She also sought to discover the authors who worked behind corporate aliases, for example, Rita Martin for Robin Hood Flour Mills and Edith Adams for the Vancouver Sun.

From her research, she discovered that more than 25 percent of the 3 000 titles in her bibliography are held in the homes of ordinary citizens. This is one of the reasons she subtitled her lecture "In the Heart of the Home."

Attempting to locate these sometimes elusive cookbooks was one of the challenges of her research. Ms. Driver explained that most early Canadian cookbooks were not produced by conventional publishers, but were published by communities, companies and women’s groups. Although she was able to view the records of some cookbooks through online catalogues, she also visited many communities and institutions across Canada, calling on local history museums and meeting with members of the public who had responded to the media coverage surrounding her project. These communications led many individuals to donate their early cookbooks to a public institution.

In 2000, due to publicity arising from Ms. Driver’s project, the National Library of Canada was pleased to accept a donation of a rare first edition of La Cuisinière canadienne (1840). The book was discovered when the title page was reproduced as part of an article in the Montreal Gazette, and the owner recognized the item as being part of his collection.

The National Library of Canada’s Reference and Information Services Division assisted Ms. Driver in her research by ensuring that bibliographic information gathered from online catalogues accurately reflected the items described. Most recently, National Library of Canada staff were able to help her determine the likely date of publication of an undated copy of the Western Farmers’ Handbook.

Ms. Driver spoke about some of the more significant and interesting cookbooks in Canadian history, informing us that an edition of a famous 18th century French work by Menon entitled La Cuisinière bourgeoise (1825) was the first cookbook published in Canada. We were also told about the first cookbook written in Canada. There were, in fact, two written at virtually the same time in 1840. The French-language cookbook La Cuisinière canadienne used many local ingredients in its recipes and was reprinted nine times up to the mid 1920s. The first English-language cookbook was The Frugal Housewife’s Manual. This cookbook was divided into two sections, one for recipes, and another for vegetables, which included cooking and cultivation instructions.

Appearing in 1854, Catharine Parr Traill’s The Female Emigrant’s Guide was a unique cookbook whose authentic vision focussed on backwoods cookery. It presented recipes with a truly Canadian perspective, observing, for example, that: "Canada is the land of cakes."

With the publishing of the Home Cook Book in 1877, a new genre of cookbook emerged  -  the fund-raising, charitable or community cookbook. Over 100 000 copies of the Home Cook Book were sold to benefit the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, making it the best-selling Canadian cookbook of the 19th century. This kind of cookbook was a development mainly within the English speaking Protestant community. Its success inspired many others to compile and publish similar works.

The Reverend Mother Caron was the first member of a religious order to write a recipe manual. Directions diverses données par La Rev. Mère Caron (1878) established the principles for cooking from a religious point of view. She organized ‘une école menagère’ for the Sisters and the children, and her text was used in Quebec’s Catholic institutions. Mère Caron thought this quote, from a cook whom she deemed a perfect and virtuous model, should be included in her book: "Le feu de la cuisine, que j’ai toujours sous les yeux…me fait penser aux flames de l’enfer, que j’ai si souvent meritées" [The fire of the hearth, which is always in my sight… makes me think of the flames of Hell, which I have so often deserved]. One wonders what Mère Caron would have thought of more recent generations of children whose first cooking experience is with an Easy-Bake Oven.

The promotional cookbook was a new variety of cookbook, which became popular in the late 1880s. These advertising brochures contained a few recipes and promoted cooking ingredients or kitchen equipment. For example, a recipe collection was published entitled Cottolene, the New Shortening. The product is described as: "a pale yellow material, of the consistency, texture and substance of lard…a simple preparation of cotton-seed oil and beef-fat [that] meets the public demand for a pure, healthful, digestible substitute for swine fat."

In the first half of the 20th century, the cookbook found in most homes was the Five Roses Cook Book and its translation La Cuisinière Five Roses. Rival milling companies used cookbooks as a useful advertising tool to make themselves better known to potential customers.

An important trend began in the 1930s and 1940s: the cookbook author as a media celebrity. Professional cooks were not well known, but because of radio, magazines and other forms of advertising, the public became more interested in these personalities. Kate Aitken is still the most recognizable star of this time.

Culinary Landmarks: A Bibliography of Canadian Cookbooks (1825-1949) is not simply a list of Canadian cookbooks. Elizabeth Driver hopes that the publication of this work will improve awareness of Canada’s culinary history and will help to preserve this unique part of Canada’s published heritage.