A brief history of CANADIAN Cookbooks

elizabeth driver spent more than 20 years putting together Culinary Landmarks: A bibliography of Canadian Cookbooks — and in more than 1,000 pages, it only reaches 1949. She was inspired to take on the project after a stint editing the Good Housekeeping cookbook for british publishing house doring Kindersley, and seeing how pronounced the American influence had been on that book’s u.K. edition. “We gradually, gradually started to produce our own,” driver says of Canada and its own cookbooks. “but of course, people are always cooking. Notwithstanding the publishing side, we were developing traditions.” Indeed, while Canada may be just now entering the fray as a country with a clearly delineated culinary identity, we have a rich agricultural and gastronomic history — and some of it, as driver’s tome will indicate, has been put down on paper. Here, an abridged history of Canadian cookery publications beginning around confederation and ending (for now) with the publication of True North.

1831: The Cook Not Mad

As driver notes in Culinary Landscapes, this is often referred to as Canada’s first cookbook, but that is incorrect — The Cook Not mad is Canada’s first english-language cookbook; La cuisinere bourgeoisie, published in Quebec City in 1825, earns that distinction. The book’s recipes are now regarded as “a reading cookbook rather than a howto cookbook,” due to the lack of sophistication of its recipes and differences in modern ingredients.

1854: The Female Emigrant’s Guide

Catherine Parr Traill’s handbook includes a compendium of recipes that the british native compiled from various sources, from Canadian housewives to American cookbooks popularly used in Canada. The recipes were selected, driver writes and her comments “crafted to explain ... Canadian cooking customs.”

1840: La cuisiniere Canadienne

While 1825’s La cuisinere bourgeoisie was the first cookbook published in Canada, it was written in France; La cuisiniere Canadienne therefore holds the distinction of being the first French-language cookbook to be written in Canada. Its recipes include those for pates, pies, cookies, jams and seasonal vegetables.

1861: The Canadian Housewife’s Manual of Cookery

This cookbook, published in Hamilton and originally retailing for 12.5 cents, was a compilation of recipes from French, American and british cookbooks, with recipes for several types of pudding coming from The Housekeeper’s Almanac, published in the u.S. in 1842.

1877: Cookery for the million

This book, which was subtitled “A book for the times: How to live cheaply and well,” was written for the Canadian housewife with limited means. The recipes, however, are mostly british: cornish pie, bubble and squeak and toad-in-the-hole are among them.

1878: Cuisine

A massive fire in June 1877 decimated many homes in St. John; this collection, published out of the New brunswick capital, may have served to replace many of the recipes lost in the fire. Cuisine is Canada’s second “charitable cookbook;” the first was The Home Cook book published a year earlier in Ontario.

1897: Dwight’s Cow-Brand

Cook-Book

Cow brand baking soda was the first commercial baking soda sold in Canada; two sons of the company’s original founders established Arm & Hammer baking soda in 1873, and while the two companies were friendly competitors for three decades, Cow brand was the only type of soda sold in Canada. In 1889, the Toronto Globe (now the Globe & mail) wrote that in the year since Cow brand’s introduction to the Canadian market, more than 1,000 copies of this cookbook had been sold and distributed.

1905: McMurdo’s 1905 Calendar Cookbook

This book, written by Thomas mcmurdo and published in Nova Scotia, is split into four sections: Cakes, etc.; meat, etc.; Fish, etc.; and desserts, etc.

1915: Patriotic Cook Book

This publication, printed in London, Ont., was just one of dozens of cookbooks issued during the First World War whose sales would benefit combat efforts overseas (this one benefitted the red Cross and “War Contingent Funds). It was a compilation of personal recipes compiled by “the ladies of St. Talbot School” in London.

1923: Saskatchewan, Department of Education

more a pamphlet than a cookbook, this publication nevertheless outlined the significance of home cookery by pointing out that “59 per cent of Saskatchewan schoolchildren attend rural schools” and includes instructions for healthy packed lunches among other recipes.

1932: Junior Home Economics

Charlotte ruth dean, who authored this textbook and its following four following editions, was a professor of home economics at the Ontario College of economics and a founding member of the Canadian Home economics Association. The book, which included “Lessons in Cookery” as well as “Lessons in Health and “Care of the House” was used in classrooms at bloor Collegiate and Central Technical School in Toronto.

1943: The Sun: Prizewinning Wartime Recipes

The ninth edition of the vancouver Sun’s annual recipes book was tailored to reflect the fact that, at the time of its publication, Canada was at war: “The recipes in this book were chosen because they call for only materials available in our markets,” the book’s author, edith Adams, notes in its introductory pages.

1945: Kate Atiken’s Canadian Cookbook

Atiken was one of Canada’s first culinary superstars, appearing on Tv, radio and in print over the two decades following the publication of her wartime cookbook to advise Canadians on everything from dinnertime etiquette and grocery shopping to good nutrition and, of course, cooking.

1957: The Ogilvie Cookbook

This cookbook was issued by Ogilvie Flour Co., and included — among other things — information about calorie counting. According to a current Amazon listing for the title (the asking price is $46), the book’s dust jacket is printed on reynold’s Aluminum Flour.

1968: Graham Kerr’s Television Cookbook (Vol. 3)

The english-born Kerr was one of Canada’s first celebrity cooks, hosting The Galloping Gourmet, which was produced for CbC Television from 19691971. CbC also issued several cookbooks from Kerr, several of which predated his Canadian Tv series’ inception; Kerr was already a star in Australia and britain by the time he moved to Canada in the 1960s.

1970: Out of Old Nova Scotia Kitchens

When marie Nightingale released this cookbook, it became the biggest-selling cookbook in the province to date. When Nightingale died in 2014, the famous P.e.I. chef michael Smith said that “Her book was a gold-standard reference for all chefs wanting to learn about Nova Scotia cuisine.”

1987: Many Cultures, Many Cooks: The P.E.I. Multicultural Council Cookbook

by the 1980s, Canadian palates had evolved and many Canadian home chefs were becoming amenable to using more international ingredients in their kitchens. This is reflected not only in this cookbook, from Prince edward Island, but hundreds of others, among them doug Whiteway’s What’s Cooking in ethnic Winnipeg.

1989: For The Love of Cod: The Newfoundland Codfish Cookbook

In the 1980s, Canada’s appreciation for regional and seasonal cooking began to take root in earnest. Among the titles released during that decade was this St. John’s tome, as well as elizabeth baird’s Summer berries (1980), James barber’s mushrooms are marvellous (1984), and douglas Leighton’s A Taste of Calgary: recipes from the Chefs of Canada’s Surprising Stampede City (1986)

1995: Northern Bounty: A Celebration of Canadian Cusine

Anita Stewart is now one of Canadian cooking’s most outspoken ambassadors; 20 years ago, she published one of the first cookbooks to unabashedly champion the ingredients and dishes of the Great White North.

2000: Jamie Kennedy: Seasons

Also one of Canadian food’s earliest champions, Jamie Kennedy brought locavorism to the table long before it was a popular buzzword. His second cookbook helped cement Kennedy as a visionary in Canadian cooking, with its emphasis on seasonality, organics and the slow food movement.

2008: Au Pied de Cochon

martin Picard blazed a Canadian culinary trail less travelled with his bold, sometimes brash approach to cooking which emphasized a sort of hyper-Canadiana: lots of pork, lots of duck, and maple syrup on everything.

2011: The Art of Living According to Joe Beef

Four years before it was named the only Canadian restaurant on restaurant magazine’s Top 100 in the world, Joe beef was already making a name for itself, with owners Frédéric morin and david mcmillan making frequent appearances on Anthony bourdain’s various Tv series and the restaurant itself earning its place atop musteat-at lists for both Canadian critics and diners alike.

2015: True North

Picking up where Kennedy, Joe beef and Picard leave off, True North defines Canada as a country whose chefs are without parallel and its potential for regional cuisine should be held in the same regard as Italy, France and Spain.