This cookbook was written and published shortly after the end of the Second World War. Emphasis was put on women to have a family, appear attractive, and complete household duties. “Soldiers returning home from war wished to settle down into family life with their sweethearts”, leading to 2.2 million marriages in the year 1946. In the home, cooking was an endless and tiresome job for a woman. Cookbooks often included helpful advertisements to sell their products and help lighten the mood for the reader. The cover of the Kindersley Cookbook has an image of a woman smiling while standing behind a counter full of food. This is an image that suggests to the woman reading the cookbook, that she is supposed to be happy, and love cooking for her husband and children. The Second World War had a profound effect on the birth rate as all the newlyweds started to have babies. The result of such a large increase in birthrates after the Second World War lead to the Baby Boom. “The language of cookbooks followed suit with the preexisting and conflicting notions of traditional gender roles” that were available to society.

It seems that cookbooks meant so much more than an assortment of recipes to the average woman. A cookbook provided gender role information and was an instruction manual for their lives. The Baby Boom increased the number of overall births in Canada by an average of 4.24 million every year. With so many women having children and creating larger families, there was more cooking to do. The role of a woman had changed, and cooking had become one of the main priorities. Prior to the Second World War, most families owned only one or two cookbooks. “Cookbooks were increasingly published and marketed to overwhelmingly female audiences during the aftermath of the Second World War”, allowing women to increase their knowledge of cooking. After the war, “community groups continued to publish enormous numbers of cookbooks”, and many of these groups included guilds of churches. Most soldiers wanted to return home to their normal lives.

The Kindersley Cookbook may have been created at this point in Canadian history to provide a large variety of recipes to women who needed to provide for their families and husband. In addition to this, women who were having new families and felt confident they would be able to support a large number of children would greatly make use of this cookbook. In the year 1942, “Food rationing began in Canada, as part of the war effort.” Rationing was stamps that were given for certain food items during the war such as meat, sugar, and canned goods. Foods could not be acquired without a ration stamp. Food was in short supply, mostly because it was being shipped overseas to the military. Rationing ended in 1947, making more types of food available to everyone. The Kindersley Cookbook contains many ingredients such as beef, oil, sugar, chicken and other items that would have been previously rationed during the war. The women who wrote the recipes for the Kindersley Cookbook may have wanted to return to the pre-war cultural norms and purposely included recipes that used the previously rationed items. Being able to have access to these items, would create a greater variety of foods to cook for their husbands and children. In addition, having access to these food items and taking advantage of them, shows the interest in providing a more nutritious meal for their families. Women were able to educate themselves with new knowledge from this cookbook, learning what foods provide a healthier and more beneficial meal.

From waffles to coconut cake, salmon loaf to cheese spread, and orange sherbet to castle cakes, the Kindersley Cookbook has a recipe for every occasion. With over 225 recipes created by a group of ladies across Canada, this book offered so much to the woman of the home in 1947.