Hall of Fame Award (Posthumous) | 2018

Constance Hatton Hart was born into a prominent Jewish family in Montreal in 1826. Very little is known about her early life apart from what can be gleaned from Household Recipes, or, Domestic Cookery by a Montreal Lady, which is featured in this case. Believed to be the only cookbook she authored (using the pseudonym “A Montreal Lady”) it was the first English language cookbook published in Quebec. While Hart was Jewish, her recipes do not conform to kosher dietary laws. She does include a recipe for matzah ball soup (Ball Soup), but the ingredients for the recipes in this cookbook contains pork, hare, and shellfish. Hart’s preface indicates that the primary audience for the cookbook was “ladies in the fashionable circles of Montreal.” Her cookbook appears to be unique for providing recipes for side dishes, such as oyster patties, which many cookbooks of the period omitted. A second edition of the cookbook was published in Montreal by John Lovell in 1867.