Cooking Up History

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In 1970, in Canada, the Jewish population was approximately 2.4 million. In the Jewish community of Montreal, there were an estimated 121,000 Jewish people.  In 1961, in Montreal, 56.9% of the Jewish people were born in Canada and over half spoke English as their main language.  Today, the Jewish community of Montreal is the 2nd largest in all of Canada.  Over the years, in Montreal, the Jewish community has created many organizations in areas such as education, health care, social welfare and culture in order to support and fund their activities in the community.

When immigrants settle in communities, the families tend to attach themselves to familiar traditions in order to adjust to the new environment where new food customs are challenging. It is common for immigrants to follow their own historic and traditional food ways in new environments.  In order to transition to a new language, new society and climate, immigrants prepared their ethnic foods to help adapt to this challenge. “Canada is often spoken of as a country of immigrants, and we take pride in our multicultural heritage. As each ethnic group settled here, its particular foods and special ways of cooking became a part of the way we cook and eat”.

The decade of the 1970’s was a time of turmoil. The most serious terrorist act that happened in October of 1970, occurred in Quebec. This was known as the October Crisis. According to Smith, this crisis began in the early 60’s when there was nationalist unrest and unemployment was rising. As a result, the FLQ which stands for the Front de Liberation du Quebec came together in 1963 which turned Quebec into a Quebecois state independently. In 1970, under the War Measures Act, the FLQ was banned and anyone becoming a member would be held criminally responsible.

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Another important development occurred especially for women in the seventies: “Royal Commission on the Status of Women, which produced its report in 1970 and established the National Action Committee on the Status of Women”. As a result, gender roles changed, women’s power shifted positively with the establishment and creation of an Office of Equal Opportunities in the Public Service Commission.  In 1978, the “Canadian Human Rights Act'' came into effect, ensuring that “equal pay for equal work be reflected in the workforce”. This time in history reflects the importance of human rights and how B’nai B’rith adopted this objective through advocacy and emphasized their purpose of defending human rights. 

Through the reading of cookbooks, one can be educated about the role of women in that particular society and what it means to be a member of that community. Cookbooks can be seen “as a literary exhibit of women’s culinary labour in particular, providing a glimpse into the relationships among gender, food ways and community identity”. As many migrants who experienced having to leave their homelands under duress, the cookbooks served as a tool to keep food traditions alive and help with feelings of loss over their home and rich cultural traditions.  The cookbook is a historical text that displays a connection between culture, identity and it helps ease the integration into a new community. “Cookbooks, associated with the mundane, with the material, and with women’s work, have not always been regarded as having any serious historical value”. Nevertheless, the study of cookbooks as a genre of writing and their usage as a historical source is increasing. Barbara Wheaton defines them as “cultural artifacts” and proposes that they are “peculiar documents” because they “are the exceptional written records of what is largely an oral tradition”. 

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