Maple Syrup and Stuffed Cabbage

Today we’ll turn our attention to our northern neighbor.  I have quite a few Canadian cookbooks but this new addition is now probably the star.  Note:  I didn’t get this one for a quarter.  I visited that bookstore a week early and opted to buy this one at full price (99 cents) because I didn’t want somebody else to grab it in the meantime.

Cookery Of Many Lands, published in 1967 by the Lakehead Folk Art Council in Port Arthur, Ontario, is a testament to the melting pot that is Canada.

The book itself was issued in commemoration of the Canadian Centennial in 1967.  I have mentioned having a sub-collection of American Bi-Centennial cookbooks, maybe this can be a sub-sub-category of commemorative anniversary editions.

I was unfamiliar with the town so I looked it up.  It doesn’t exist, at least not anymore.  Three years after this book was published several localities merged into what is now known as Thunder Bay, Ontario. 

See? Collecting cookbooks is both fun AND educational!

 I first picked this book up because the cover art is so unique, bordering on bizarre.  I love funky weird covers.  It is sort of like Chinese and Mexican restaurants, the funkier the decor, the better the food.  Cookbooks are often like that too.

This cookbook committee performed like a true committee in that there is a lack of consistency in the book.  That is part of its charm.  Somehow they pulled together substantial contributions from twenty different cultural groups.  Look at the representation, as referenced in the Table of Contents!  Now I’ve never been to Port Arthur (Thunder Bay) Ontario but I know it is on the northwestern shore of Lake Superior.  One thinks of significant groupings of cultural diversity in places like New York or Toronto but in Port Arthur? Even now Thunder Bay has a population of just over 100,000.  Who Knew?

Each ethnic group that contributed recipes apparently also had an opportunity to contribute something for the sectional divider page.  Some are quite good, like the one I’ve included for the Norway section.  Some just have the title, some are almost nondescript. That’s what I mean about consistency, but I like it.  Not every group has an artist on hand.  Sometimes they might have been tardily informed too.

There are a lot of ads in the book too.  Most are pretty typical, but some have an endearing local charm.  “The Bad Boy” of appliances?  One can only wonder.

There was an interesting stamp toward the front, indicating this book was purchased in The Finnish Book Store.  I thought that was pretty cool.

There are a lot of recipes in this book and most of them look very authentic.  It was hard to choose … like the stuffed cabbage recipes in the Ukranian section.  pages and pages of alternate fillings … I couldn’t do it justice in this short space.  So I just opted for a couple of offbeat entries.

Here’s one Croatian recipe, for Bakalar (Dalmation Codfish). Simple, to the point.  Authentic Croatian?  Not sure, but it looks er … uh … um … interesting.
A note on the next page says this is DRY UNSALTED CODFISH.

Here’s a Latvian Apple Bread.  This was a second edition and even then they missed the main ingredient?  THAT’s interesting.  I have to wonder if the committee painstakingly added the apples by hand to all 1000 books in this print run (and the previous print run too?), or did the owner do this on their own?  We’ll never know.

This Canadian Centenial cookbook has a lot of charm and historical interest.  1967?

That means their Sesquicentennial will be coming up in 2017!!!!

More Cookbooks!