Introduction

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The author of the cookbook is Kate Aitken, in sponsorship with Good Luck Margarine. The cookbook’s main objective is to promote the use of Good Luck Margarine, as all the recipes include ways to incorporate the use of the margarine. The intended audience of this cookbook is Canadian housewives, with the secondary purpose of this cookbook to help housewives prepare healthy and diverse lunches for their families.

The cookbook is subdivided into four sections: School Lunches, Office Girl’s Lunches, Husband’s Lunches, and Afternoon Tea. There are five menus for each section, which allows for a different lunch menu Monday to Friday. The ingredients used are all fairly generic, easily accessible goods for the time. All of the desserts are meant to be homemade by the housewife. The lunch menus include fresh fruit and vegetables, specifically promoting using Canadian apples.There are two letters from Kate Aitken to the readers. In these letters she outlines the importance of creating exciting lunch boxes for your loved ones, along with promoting her CBC radio broadcast and Good Luck Margarine.

This cookbook gives us insight into the life of a housewife in the 1950s. It clearly highlights gender roles in the household, and demonstrates the immense pressure housewives were under to ensure the happiness of their family and husbands. The cookbook reinforces the idea that a women’s place is in the kitchen and their role is to serve their husbands.

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