Cherished Recipes, a cookbook published in Canada circa 1950, is a vital resource to understanding Canadian history as it provides the reader with dietary examples that illustrates the social, economic, and cultural factors that affected Canadian families during this time. Although the exact date of publication is not identified, factors such as ingredients, and the use of  modernized cooking appliances, leads the reader to believe it was likely published upon conclusion of the Second World War, somewhere between the years of 1960 and 1980.

Social factors that impacted Canadian families during this large window of time included everything from the introduction of government-run health insurance plans beginning in the 1960s (Medicare), to the creation of the Royal Commission on the Status of Women in Canada in 1967. The family dynamics inside the home were changing due to the changing political and social atmosphere occurring in Canada. Woman’s equality movements greatly impacted women’s roles inside the home as well as in the workplace. The cookbook provides us with evidence that more women became part of the workforce, as the recipes are simplistic and easy to prepare by all members of the household.

The diversity found inside Canada’s growing population can easily be traced to the diverse culinary choices found in a cookbook marketed to places rather rural in nature. Cherished Recipes, although published in a small community in Nova Scotia, still incorporated diverse elements such as those found for example, in the “Scallop Dish” recipe on page 12. These diverse ingredients were largely due to the influx of immigrants that came to Canada, many of whom were given status due to their professional achievements and economic affluence in and around the 1980s.

Cherished Recipes was likely published during a period when economic stability was not a primary concern for Canadians and their families. The use of modernized ingredients that focused on simple and accessible dining, as well as the frequent incorporation of modernized cooking appliances, leads the reader to believe that economic conditions inside the home were flourishing. The demand for consumer goods remained, as represented by the various kitchen tools used throughout the cookbooks recipes, such as the microwave and the slow cooker. Nevertheless, Cherished Recipes makes use of an array of ingredients that appear to be both simple and economically attainable for most middle-class households during the mid-late twentieth century.

As exemplified by the many modernized ingredients found in Cherished Recipes, the industrial food industry was an important part of the Canadian household. The food industry began incorporating manufactured goods, processed foods, and commercialized farming. Food products with longer shelf lives, cheaper ingredient mixtures, became commonly found in every household. Recipes in the book illustrated the use of processed foods including the “Molded Kraft Salad” recipe found on page six which clearly uses the company made product, Kraft Dinner. Additionally, the urban growth of Canada was also a prominent factor that may have affected this cookbook’s release and purpose. Between 1950 and 1960, there was both a population and residential housing boom. Canada was experiencing the highest birth rate of any industrial nation in the world during this era, with immigration rates also rapidly increasing. All of this can lead us to assume that the recipes found inside Cherished Recipes were meant to serve as simple, easily accessible, and readily available meal options for busy middle class families.