Canadian, eh?

The Laura Secord Canadian Cook Book by The Canadian Home Economics Association

Cookbook Type: Comfort, Canadian

Favourite Recipe: Tourtiere (pg. 59)

Favourite Page: Canadian Menues (pgs 180-183)

Favourite Quote: “Years ago on our Atlantic seaboard lobsters could be purchased for a penny apiece. Today the demand is so great you would pay more than a hundred times that much, as in most years the lobster fishery is the most valuable of all the east coast fisheries.” (pg. 87)

Rating: 5/5 Larousse Gastronomiques (📕📕📕📕📕)

Review:

The real Laura Secord was a hero during the war of 1812, and as a result has had many a Canadian school named after her. Most Canadians would assume she started a chocolate business, but her real story is emboldened in Canadian history. I have to wonder what she’d think of this cookbook, named for her out of Canadian patriotism. Did she eat seal meat? Trappers bread? Jambon de la Cabane a Sucre? Placing her appetite aside, let me tell you about this gem.

This book of Canadian culinary culture is ripe with amazingly delicious recipes and facts. This should be taught in schools, lest someone claim that Canada doesn’t have a food culture of its own. Put those nay sayers to shame. This is a lexicon of the northern palate, albeit one stuck in a time capsule.

Some of aunties favourite parts?

• Fresh Fruit Ice Cream (pg 115) - it was always peaches in Auntie’s childhood home

• Buche de Noel (pg 99)

• Rubert’s Land Bear Stew (pg 65)

• Chicken Breasts in Maple Syrup (pg 72)

• Deer Island Lobster Stew (pg 87)

It should be noted that Auntie LOVES a cookbook that uses MSG unapologetically. Gotta stop that BS.

MSG for life.