Introduction
The Cowan Cocoa Company of Toronto published the cookbook Dainty and Delicious Recipes Prepared from Cowan’s Cocoa and Chocolate in 1918, as a method of selling their Cocoa-based products to Canadian housewives. The Cowan Company was established in 1885 by John Warren Cowan, with the founding policy of “quality—first and last—and let the people know it by judicious advertising.” The Cowan Company focused on creating products that looked good; the packaging of chocolates and baking supplies were developed to be as visually appealing as possible, in paper-labeled tins and distinctive designs. The intent of the aesthetically pleasing packaging was to demonstrate the quality of the product to the customer, as well as to have a product which was easily identifiable.
The Cowan Company changed ownership one time, after the death of its founder John Warren, and was inherited by his son, Herbert Norton Cowan, in 1908; the company was sold to Rowntree and Company Canada Limited in 1926 (Rowntree and Company having developed the Kit Kat, Aero, and Smarties chocolates which persist today), a company that later would become acquired by Nestlé in 1988.
The Cowan Company produced only the one cookbook in three editions; the first in 1915, the second in 1916, and the third in 1918. The first edition and the second edition differ in minor ways, and shared the same cover, while the third edition differed the most with a new cover that depicted a young child on a dark blue background. The first edition also lacks an advertisement for a Cowan chocolate product which is featured in the second edition; the “Cowan’s Active Service Chocolate,” which was a product developed for the purpose of sending chocolate overseas to soldiers fighting in the first world war.
