The Dominion Home Cook-Book, Adam Miller, 1868, 133 pages

“Every recipe, every advice, every little piece of information, is the result of personal experience,” claims the author of The Dominion Home Cook-Book, who identifies herself only as 'A Thorough Housewife'. The book, published by Adam Miller in 1868, aims to provide “explicit direction” and guidance to “housekeepers who study simplicity and economy in the preparation of food.” In its 133 pages, it manages to cover a myriad of topics, from preparation and carving of meats to bread to frosting. To further aid the unsure cook, the book begins with a series of illustrations (seventy-nine in total) depicting some items that may be necessary to properly furnish a kitchen. For me, these illustrations were a reminder of sixth grade Home Economics class. Before we could go anywhere near the kitchen, we had to pass a quiz identifying various culinary tools and appliances. Luckily, we did not have to know what a larding needle or a patent ice breaker was, otherwise I may never have graduated from sewing a stuffed hedgehog to making cheese biscuits. Another useful segment of the cookbook describes how to best select meats, eggs, butter, and fish for purchase. To choose fresh eggs, one’s tongue should touch the egg at the “larger" end. "If it feel[s] warm, the egg is fresh.” A method more familiar to twenty-first century sensibilities is to place the egg in a pan of cold water and watch to see whether it sinks or floats: the fresher the egg, the further it will sink. I’m fairly certain the manager of my local grocery store would not be pleased if I tried either of those tricks before selecting a carton of eggs. Moving past “Important Hints to Cooks” and directions for carving, the 'Thorough Housewife' moves on to sharing her recipes. Recipes included in the book are, according to our nameless author, meant to be used by the “frugal and industrious.” She tells us she is writing for those who do not have access to more expensive ingredients or have not had the culinary training other cookbooks of the day expect the reader to have. We can imagine then that all the recipes included in the book would have been familiar to Canada’s Victorian housewives. It contains a surprising array of recipes, including the faux-extravagant Mock Turtle Soup as well as instructions for various types of home-cured meats. It even includes instructions for making hot chocolate and cocoa: drinks that had only recently become widely available to the lower classes. The book itself, though published in Toronto, was likely not written for a specifically Canadian audience. Exactly the same book was published four years earlier in New York City by Dick & Fitzgerald Publishers under the title The American Home Cook Book. The American edition was written by “An American Lady.” Adam Miller similarly published a Canadian edition of the British cookbook Health in the House a few years later. In fact, thirty-seven of the ninety-six cookbooks published in Canada between 1825 and 1900 were reprints of foreign books − American books were particularly favoured for this as the same ingredients were available in Canada and the United States. The typical nineteenth-century cookbook barely resembles its twenty-first century kin, and The Dominion Home Cook-Book is no exception. Instead of presenting one or two recipes per page, usually accompanied by ingredient lists, descriptions of the results, and photographs, the recipes here are written in paragraph form with simple instructions and are crammed onto the page. The general organization of the book, however, resembles a modern cookbook exactly, beginning with introductory remarks and tips for selecting …