Nabob Foods Home Service Nabob Foods Home Services department produced cook books, spice charts, and other educational materials until the 1970s. Consumers who sent in 25 cents and labels from four different Nabob products would receive “Time-honoured Recipes of the Canadian West”, all selected by Jean White, Director of the Nabob Home Services Department. In […]
Archive | Cookbook Research
The Nanaimo Bar
The Nanaimo Bar Who would have thought that Nanaimo Bars could be so controversial? We have always claimed Nanaimo Bars as a quintessential BC food mainly because of the name and the outstanding branding done by the city of Nanaimo on Vancouver Island. This famous recipe has been shrouded in mystery as no one has […]
Pioneer Pudding and the Delights of Community Cookbooks
Pioneer Pudding and The Delights of Community Cookbooks When I turn to my collection of community cookbooks, there are so many possibilities to write a blog about but today I was drawn to “Pioneer Pudding”, written by the Tumbler Ridge Alliance Church in the 1980s. Community cookbooks often give us some history of the community. […]
Canadian Stew and War Cake
Canadian Stew and War Cake What makes stew “Canadian”? Why was the name of War Cake in the First World War changed to Eggless Spice Cake in the Second World War? An extensive collection of military rations and cooking in Baird and Wranich’s book Recipes for Victory features almost 150 pages of recipes drawn from […]
Recipes for Victory
Recipes for Victory Every November our thoughts turn to Remembrance Day and the role food has played during wartime over the years. In 2018, Elizabeth Baird and Bridget Wranich released Recipes for Victory, a collection of recipes and research papers that were part of a 2014 Great War Food Symposium organized at the Fort York […]
Wedding Cake Recipe Search
Wedding Cake Recipe Search Few food historians can resist the urge to help someone find a recipe. When the BC Food History Network received a request for a wedding cake recipe, we all tried to help. Here’s the request: Hi there, I had a lady make my wedding cake in 1989 in Victoria BC. The […]
Cookbook Research – Windermere Cookery
Cookbook Research: Windermere Cookery Using Cookbooks to Document the Challenges and Solutions of Daily Home Life Cookbooks (and cookbook research) are sometimes not taken seriously. Ferguson (2012) suggests that cookbooks deserve respect as a form of minor literature: they are written in stripped-down functional English that can be easily recognized (like poetry): they are political […]
Community Cookbook Analysis – “Personal Recipes”
Community Cookbook Analysis – “Personal Recipes” – All Saints Anglican Church, Vernon, BC Old cookbooks are endlessly fascinating. They cause us to remember events and occasions of the past and when we thumb through them we may remember aromas, first tastes, traditions, failures, good and bad times. Community cookbooks provide a window into women’s lives […]
Cookbook Research
Cookbook Research Provides a Window to BC Food History – The Navy League Chapter of the Imperial Order of Daughters of the Empire Victory Cook Book (1941) Cookbooks are increasingly being recognized as primary sources for historical research as they offer original, uninterpreted information often reflecting tastes and cooking practices of the home cooks. […]
Introducing Dr. Lenore Newman a Local Food Researcher
This week we introduce you to a fellow food researcher, Dr. Lenore Newman, who is currently Associate Professor of Geography at the University of the Fraser Valley, and holds a Canada Research Chair in Food Security and Environment. While her core research activity is focused on food security and agriculture issues, she is at heart […]