Cookbooks are documents that can surely tell us much about specific points in time, providing clues and insights into the past through the composition of the writing and the images that are included. The Art of Sandwich Making: A Collection of Famous and Fashionable Sandwiches is one of those books that provides a window into the past. The Art of Sandwich Making was published twelve years after the start of the First World War in 1914. With the war having ended in November of 1918, and the Great Depression not beginning until around 1929, the year the cookbook was published was quite coincidentally sandwiched in between the period of the First World War and the Great Depression. The Canada Bread Company was based out of the city of Toronto and was likely influenced by its cultural and societal norms at the time. The company’s marketing strategies, products, and campaigns likely would have also catered specifically to Torontonians.

Connections can be made between this period in Canadian history and the publication of the cookbook in that women were still very much tied to and associated with the home and domestic tasks. In Mark Rosenfeld’s article about working class women living in the railway town of Barrie, Ontario during the 1920s, women are described as having to accommodate the schedules of their own domestic routines with the needs of their husbands, who were often working very scattered hours on the railway. It was not unusual for wives to prepare the meals that their husbands would take to work every day. The Canada Bread Company likely would have been very aware of the situations of people at the time. Though the cookbook appears to be perhaps catered to more wealthy or middle-class women who would have had more time on their hands and the resources and money to purchase some of the ingredients listed, it is entirely possible that the sandwich was a feasible and commonly prepared food in working-class families as well.

Another important point to be made about the era has to do with the accepted gender roles at the time and feelings of personal identity. Indeed, it seems as though women’s work in the home, though expected of them, also carried with it a certain degree of identity and pride, according to Rosenfeld. As described in the article, “It was a Hard Life”: Class and Gender in the Work and Family Rhythms of a Railway Town, 1920-1950, domestic labour, though at times stressful and frustrating for a Canadian railway worker’s wife, she often experienced a lot of pride in the work that she did in the home, and additionally, much of her identity was tied to this. It is definitely clear in the cookbook that sandwiches are being framed as a beautiful piece of work, almost like a piece of art rather than an edible meal. There is much emphasis placed on the presentation of the sandwich. Even the title of the book, The Art of Sandwich Making, speaks to its desire to frame food preparation as a form of expression. The cookbook, having been published in this time period, may therefore have been catering to the feelings of pride and identity that women often tied to their work in the home.

Another piece that ties in well with this cookbook and its publication at this specific point in history is the greater emphasis that was beginning to be placed on cleanliness and health. It is interesting to look at the individual home and kitchen space as a representation of the larger landscape of the city. Many trends and social habits and patterns can be read by looking at the state of the home in relation to the state of the city. According to Chris Hurl, in North America, “Toronto was considered to be a leader in spearheading an innovative public system for street cleaning and waste disposal.” Toronto was beginning to build a reputation for being innovative and being run by a “clean” government. Hurl further describes how Toronto was considered one of the two “cleanest” cities in North America, next to New York City. Cleanliness in the streets likely translated to expectations of cleanliness in the homes of people living in and around the city. Many of the recipes in The Art of Sandwich Making certainly emphasize the importance of preparing meals in a clean environment and being neat and tidy in presentation.