THE GHOSTS OF RECIPES PAST
From rationing to microwaved turkeys, a look back at 125 years of Star creations that reflected our city over generations,
In the last 125 years, since the Star first published, it has printed thousands of recipes, many during the holiday seasons. Looking back, those recipes offer a glimpse into the past — what ingredients were available (citrus-forward recipes emerged with Tropicana’s rise in the ’50s), what kitchen innovations home cooks were obsessed with (before the Instant Pot, the Star ran many microwave recipes in the ’80s, including for turkeys) and how certain dishes and ingredients reflected the news of the time (using shortening instead of butter during the Second World War).
We dug through more than a century’s of Star recipes to see what they could tell us about life in Toronto over the years.
1900s: The Ice Box Years During the formative years of the paper, recipes were found under “Madge Merton’s Page,” which was the pen name for Star reporter Elmina Ella Susannah Elliott Atkinson. On Dec. 1, 1900, Merton praised the new oven thermometers that were now attached to oven doors, resulting in more accurate temperature readings and tastier roasted birds (she then offered tips on roasting an eight-pound turkey).
A Dec. 30, 1905, recipe for “turkey mayonnaise in a jelly ring” offered a suggestion for leftovers: a jelly mould of whisked aspic and heavy cream on a bed of watercress with a big dollop of chopped turkey, celery and mayonnaise in the centre. Refrigerators wouldn’t be in homes for another decade, so the recipe calls for literally putting the mould on ice. 1910s: Wartime Christmas The outbreak of the First World War resulted in higher food costs and scarce ingredients. On Dec. 14, 1916, recipes encouraged using buttermilk, as it was cheaper than regular milk, for muffins, scones and cakes. A year later, “War Menus” were developed by the Canadian government to discourage the use of wheat, bacon and beef, so that those ingredients could be shipped to troops overseas. For Christmas dinner, the Star published a recipe from the government that used margarine, which was previously banned in Canada due to protests from dairy farmers, but had been temporarily legalized due to butter shortages. 1920s: The Trendy Banana Candle Salad A feature in the Dec. 22, 1926 edition marked the first appearance of the infamous holiday Candle Salad — it also popped up in other publications, including the L.A. Times (1921), Women’s World Magazine (1924) and Good Housekeeping (1927). It’s comprised of a peeled banana placed in the centre of a pineapple ring on top of a bed of lettuce. A pimento pepper is then placed atop the banana to resemble a flame, and a strip of green pepper on the banana’s side to represent a handle. Food history site Food Timeline says the popularity is likely due to influence from the burgeoning Dole pineapple company in Hawaii. 1930s: Escapism on a dime In a decade when any kind of cheer was a welcome respite from the Great Depression, food editor Marie Holmes’ Cooking Chat column put out economical recipes that emphasized appearance as much as taste. On Dec. 23, 1934, the paper featured Christmas Canapés (star-shaped slices of bread spread with cream cheese topped with pimento and parsley); the Dec. 24, 1934 edition touted decorative plates of mint and cranberry jellies to liven up the dinner table; and on Dec. 21, 1936, the Star printed a how-to on making festive popcorn balls decorated with red and green food colouring. 1940s: Staying Strong on the Home Front “Many of our allies need Canadian food to help them fight this war,” Holmes wrote in her Dec. 16, 1943, column. “(At home) there will be plenty, but without extravagance, and Christmas dinner can be made festive because of extra care in cooking and serving.” As turkeys were sent to the troops, Holmes suggested roasting chicken, duck, goose or beef instead. Nuts were also scarce, so plum puddings would have to omit them. Butter was rationed, so cookie recipes from the Dec.15,1943 column included raisin cookies and bran cocoa squares using shortening.
Families needed to be healthy to keep up with the war effort, and, as Holmes wrote in her Dec. 6, 1940 column, the prevalence of electric appliances such as the vacuum had led to more sedentary lifestyles and thus, the need to consume more fruits and vegetables for “producing health and energy requirements without the burden of surplus weight.” Thus, “light and dainty” Christmas salads of celery curls stuffed with beet relish and pears stuffed with cranberry-orange relish were introduced that year. Frozen peas and asparagus also popped up in recipes and adjacent ads, as the canned stuff was sent to soldiers overseas. 1950s: Celebration of Citrus In food editor Margaret Carr’s Cooking Chat column, holiday desserts included fruit: fruit jellies, fruit-nut snowballs, cranberry and date cookies, orange sugared walnuts, orange eggnog, and on Dec. 23, 1953, a Christmas Tree Salad of grapes, diced pineapples, maraschino cher- ries, ginger, apple, orange, grapefruit and almonds mixed with whipped cream and served in lettuce cups. The prevalence of orange juice in recipes no doubt coincided with the Tropicana juice company’s emergence years earlier.
The mass production of refrigerators prompted Carr to create a Dec. 17, 1956, recipe for “macaroni and frankfurter bake” meant to be frozen and reheated on Christmas Day. The turkey also got a “new look” in the Dec. 26, 1957 edition as Carr details deboning the bird then rolling it into a log: quicker and easier to for “father” to carve, and a perfect recipe to test out the new wave of electric stoves. 1960s: International Flavours Go Mainstream The influx of Chinese immigrants to Canada during this decade coincided with more Chinese restaurants popping up in cities and a greater appreciation for Asian-inspired dishes amongst readers. A Dec. 15, 1960 ad for Philadelphia Cream Cheese included “yuletide snacks” recipes that included an “Oriental Philly Dip” that mixed cream cheese with soy sauce, grated onion, lemon juice and ginger. Carr’s Dec. 17, 1960 column recommended a new cookbook for the giving season called “Secrets of Chinese Cookery” by Tsuifeng and Hsiangju Lin and included a recipe for sweet and sour pork balls.
Recipes had a greater global bent, either inspired by travel (this was the supposed golden age of flying) or the increasingly multicultural makeup of Toronto. There’s a recipe for Yugoslavian poteca (walnut-stuffed Christmas bread — Dec. 13, 1963), Austrian coffee cake (Dec 23, 1968) and even curried turkey-mushroom casserole (Dec. 24, 1962). Carr’s Dec. 2,1963, column recommended a new 745-page cookbook called Fare Exchange by Dorothy Allen Gray that collected recipes from Canadi- ans of different nationalities. 1970s: “Career girls” and “Bachelor” Nation The Sunday Cook column featured recipes from a wide range of home cooks that demonstrated shifting demographics. “Career girls” living alone in the city cooked filet of sole for friends (Dec.18,1971), “bachelors” made pot-roasts and full turkey dinners for friends and coworkers, and York University students whipped up anchovy and boiled egg appetizers.
Another entertaining spread in the Dec. 8, 1976 edition featured specialized recipes on what to make if you’re an empty nester (tea-time fruitcake balls), single (easy party sandwiches), part of a working couple (quick quiche) or homemaker (salad with whipped cream dressing). Hanukkah recipes started appearing with a spread on Nov. 25, 1972, featuring obligatory latkes, heizenblozen (sweet fried dough) and a pudding that’s prepared a month in advance. 1980s: Marvellous Microwaves Food coverage greatly expanded in the paper and featured more recipes from local restaurants, readers, cookbook authors and celebrities, such as Sharon, Lois and Bram’s “Elephant-Bite Brownies” (Dec. 7, 1980).
Hollywood also seeped into recipes as food writer Jim White created a Victorian Christmas menu inspired by the 1981 movie The French Lieutenant’s Woman, starring Meryl Streep in her first leading role.
Madame (Jehane) Benoit, the Canadian equivalent to Julia Child, released a four-volume encyclopedia of microwave cooking in1985. Included in his Dec. 18 gift guide, food writer David Kingsmill wrote the book “undoubtedly will become a standard reference in the field of microwave cookery” and the Star regularly republished her microwave recipes, such as one for plum pudding on Dec. 9. 1987.
Also, a reprinted recipe from Newsday that ran on Dec. 22, 1986, suggested cooking an under-16-pound turkey in the microwave in 15- to 20-minute intervals. We don’t recommend trying it. 1990s: Rise of Celebrity Chefs The creation of the Food Network in 1993 catapulted chefs from the kitchen into millions of homes. Food editor Marion Kane gave readers a look at the influential chefs, restaurateurs and personalities that defined Toronto’s dining scene. A Dec. 1, 1993, feature included holiday recipes from the city’s top female chefs (who also spoke about sexism in kitchens in this piece) at places such as Yorkville’s Four Seasons, Splendido, Mildred Pierce and the still-goingstrong Scaramouche. Kane also recommended The Dave Nichol Cookbook as a gift that year. Nichol, best known as the face of Loblaws, was responsible for creating the PC Insider’s Report magazine that introduced iconic eats such as the PC Decadent Chocolate Chip Cookie that debuted in 1988. In 1994, she touted cookbooks from other local authors such as then-Star contributor Bonnie Stern and Naomi Duguid, who continues to rack up culinary writing awards to this day.
In December 1998, five fans got to meet Emeril Lagasse in the Star’s test kitchen for a bread pudding taste test published on Dec. 16. A month before, on Nov. 11, 1998, the Star announced its food section would be available on this new thing called the World Wide Web. 2000s to present: Best of The 6 The new millennium saw food editor Jennifer Bain reaching beyond turkey and stuffing and toward multicultural communities in Scarborough, Markham, Richmond Hill and Etobicoke to capture what GTA residents and restaurants were really cooking. After all, in 2011 the census reported that just under half of Toronto’s population identified as being a visible minority (that number inched just past 50 per cent in 2016).
The Dec. 18, 2002 edition reported on a Mexican Christmas fiesta thrown for Mexican newcomers and farm workers that featured chicken tamales and champurrado (chocolate atole) using ingredients that had yet to seep into the mainstream, such as tomatillos and masa.
A Dec. 17, 2009 feature included recipes from families celebrating fall and wintertime holidays, be it Hanukkah, Christmas, Diwali or St. Lucia Day, with recipes for “Tri-colour Christmas Latkes” and “Holiday Chai Spice Ladoos (Snowballs).” The annual Cookie Calendar, which was started in 2007 and features 24 cookie recipes for the month of December, also diversified in 2012 with recipes from readers ranging from chai snickerdoodles to peanut butter-bacon cookies. The 2014 edition included recipes from the city’s Greek, Chinese, Danish and Persian bakeries, showing just how far Toronto has come in the last century and a bit. karonliu@thestar.ca