NATHALIE Cooke Cookbooklets and Canadian Kitchens

Nathalie COOKE Cookbooklets and Canadian Kitchens Résumé Abstract Cet article analyse la forme et la fonction des This paper explores the form and function of carnets de recettes, ces petits livres de recettes cookbooklets, those ubiquitous and oft-overlooked omniprésents et auxquels on accorde que peu small cookbooks produced for promotional d’importance, fabriqués à des fins publicitaires et purposes and published irregularly. Under close publiés de manière irrégulière. Après un examen examination, characteristics of the cookbooklet attentif, on remarque que les caractéristiques du suggest a surprisingly stable genre. Consequently, carnet de recettes sont curieusement invariables. there seems to be a paradox when the corporate En conséquence, il semble y avoir un paradoxe cookbooklet is seen in relation to that of which lorsque le carnet de recettes ordinaire est considéré it is a subset: ephemera. Rather than associate parallèlement au mode dont il est un sous- cookbooklets with ephemera, I suggest that we ensemble : l’éphémère. Plutôt que d’associer le consider corporate cookbooklets as a subset of carnet de recettes ordinaire à sa particularité the highly stylized and consciously mediated set d’être éphémère, je propose de l’examiner en tant constituted by cookery literature. To this end, this que sous-ensemble d’un tout fortement stylisé et paper identifies and exposes two primary rhetorical délibérément médiatisé constitué de la littérature strategies of the cookbooklet—testimonial and culinaire. Pour ce faire, cet article identifie et localization—as well as ironies inherent in them, présente les deux principales stratégies rhétoriques with a particular focus on Canadian editions of the du carnet de recette, c’est-à-dire le témoignage Knox and Davis Gelatine cookbooklets within the et la localisation, y compris l’ironie qui leur larger corpus of Canadian cookery texts. est inhérente, en plus de porter une attention particulière aux éditions canadiennes des carnets de recettes Knox et Davis Gelatine. Cookbooklets in Canadian Kitchens Contact and Settlement The first Canadian cookbooks emerged as guide- Canadian culinary history, as perceived through books for newly arrived Canadians during the mid- the lens of Canadian cookbooks, can usefully be 19th century—the best known being Catharine Parr divided into five periods: contact and settlement, Traill’s Female Emigrant’s Guide (1854) and A.B. consolidation, affiliation, articulation and dif- of Grimsby’s Frugal Housewife’s Manual (1840), ferentiation. This heuristic ends with the 1960s as well as La cuisinière canadienne (1840) and La because the next significant paradigm shift occurs nouvelle cuisinière canadienne (1850-55). when cookbooks become the object of keen interest on the part of scholars. This, however, is not so Consolidation much a development of culinary history as one of During the last decades of the 19th century, scholarly history. cookbooks served to consolidate knowledge 22 Material Culture Review 70 (Fall 2009) / Revue de la culture matérielle 70 (automne 2009) gleaned from various sources for Canadian home Differentiation cooks—the best-known being The Home Cook At the same time as cookbooks articulated a Book (1877), Canadian Housewife’s Manual of shared sense of identity through explicit use of the Cookery (1861), Mrs. Clarke’s Cookery Book word “Canadian” in the title, a tendency further (1883, and published under various titles) and encouraged by various initiatives of the centenary Directions diverses données par la Rev. Mère Caron celebrations, the 1960s paradoxically ushered in (1878). The consolidation of culinary knowledge a time of increasing differentiation as cookbooks in this period was intended to serve the Canadian focused on regional and cultural variation in food- cook in her kitchen. But it was also the first step in ways practices. These competing drives—towards a larger program of consolidation that would both consolidation and differentiation—are always at give rise to a sense of a distinctly Canadian cuisine, play to some degree, but their co-existence is most and position cookbooks as a useful vehicle for the acutely visible in cookbooks of the 1960s and articulation of Canadian tastes and values. In some 1970s. Expo 67 can be seen as a moment in which ways, then, the period of consolidation might be Canada not only invited the world to its doors but seen to extend to the latter half of the 20th century, also into its kitchens. reaching a crescendo in 1967. There are other paradoxes associated with the history Affiliation of cookbooks in Canada. In addition to the compet- At the turn of the 20th century, cookbooks emerged ing drives towards consolidation and differentiation that were affiliated with institutions rather than that reach a crescendo in the 1960s, one can identify individuals. Such corporate cookbooks as The Five simultaneous and contradictory impulses to evoke Roses Cookbook/La cuisinière five roses (1913), as the timely and the timeless, and to advocate for the well as those by Purity and Ogilvie flour companies, saving as well as the spending of time in the kitchen. became valued resources in Canadian homes, rather The focus of this article, on the period of Affiliation, in the way that the Edmonds Company cookbook best allows me to illustrate all three paradoxes became ubiquitous in New Zealand homes.1 Further, since this period witnessed a homogenization of single-author cookbooks gained credibility from North American cuisine as a result of a number of their association with educational institutions. factors, including significant corporate penetration Nellie Lyle Pattinson, for example, developed the into the marketplace. One of the most effective trusted Canadian Cook Book (1923) as a textbook corporate marketing strategies was the introduction for the cooking school of which she was director; of corporate spokescharacters—fictitious creations, and in French, Manuel de la cuisine raisonnée such as Betty Crocker, who put a human and (1919) was used in homes and classrooms. friendly face to a corporate identity and promoted the use of her (with the notable exception of Uncle Articulation Ben, human food spokescharacters were generally As home economics was professionalized in women) company’s products in homes across North Canada in 1939, and home economists took up America. Canada had its own spokescharacters, of positions as not only teachers and dieticians, but course, but Canadians also welcomed a number of also as corporate and public spokespersonalities, American corporate spokeswomen into their homes cookbooks served as one conduit for the articulation on a regular basis—via their products, radio and, of identity alongside radio and, later, television later, television shows; newspaper columns and shows. corporate ephemera. It is this last category that par- Canada had its own spokescharacters, of ticularly interests me; many of the small corporate course. Kate Aitken (fondly known as “Mrs. A” to recipe booklets originated from companies outside her audiences), author of Kate Aitken’s Canadian Canada, but were revised to relate a different Cook Book (1945), and Jehane Benoit, author of story of food and the kitchen for the Canadian and L’encyclopédie de la cuisine canadienne (1963) and the Quebec markets. The precise nature of that The Canadiana Cook Book (1970), both illustrate revision—what was changed and why—provides the way in which cookbooks provide an opportunity clues to the corporate vision of uniquely Canadian for an individual to articulate, even construct, an food tastes and practices. More particularly still, emerging sense of shared identity. a number of these corporate publications were produced in both English and French, the latter for Quebec. However, they were not all direct Material Culture Review 70 (Fall 2009) / Revue de la culture matérielle 70 (automne 2009) 23 translations; they often included recipes selected cookbooks are a subset of what is generally called both to feature the company’s own products and to ephemera. Cookbooklets are distinguished from appeal to particular regional tastes. At a time when their culinary cousins by virtue of their size and North America was experiencing a normalization their explicit product affiliation—both primary of food practice, corporate ephemera provides characteristics. Like the short story in relation to evidence not only to suggest that the distinct nature the novel, they are notable for their brevity. Mary of Canadian and Quebec society existed, but also Barile explains that a booklet, although larger that it was recognized in their various construc- than a brochure, is made up of fewer than fifty tions of Canada’s—and Quebec’s—commercial pages, whereas “a brochure is only a few pages “fictions.” and is folded, not bound” (1994: 131). Secondly, but equally significant, cookbooklets are usually What is a Cookbooklet? the result of a promotional initiative and thereby illustrate a particular affiliation to a corporation or With food studies in their infancy, we understand- lobby group as well as a strategic logic. ably know far more about the sources for and Cookbooklets tend to be produced irregularly influence of cookbooks with many pages and (Burant 1995: 191), are intended as ephemeral multiple editions than those with fewer pages or documents and are usually distributed free of charge Figs. 1a and 1b appearances. Notably, Elizabeth Driver’s recently or for marginal cost and are lightweight and made Front and Back Covers of Knox published bibliography of Canadian cookbooks of cheap materials. Ironically because of their need to engage an audience, they have immediate appeal Gelatine Company’s focuses on those of sixteen pages or more. My Dainty Desserts for aim here is to open a discussion about these often- (Barile 1994: 132). As a result, some examples of Dainty People. Dated overlooked little cookbooklets, to explore their form the form are surprisingly attractive and colourful 1915 and published and function while acknowledging the paradox (Fig. 3). Collectors prize the “die-cut designs” (135) in Johnstown, NY, of an ephemeral genre that provides lasting and or booklets with “moving parts” (137).2 by Charles B.

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