Recipe Cards
This recipe for "Waffles" is fairly straightforward with eight ingredients and a short cooking time. Naturally, one of the ingredients listed is Borden’s Eagle Brand Condensed Milk. All of the ingredients are baking staples, and most other recipes in the book contain similar ingredients. There are two things that stand out when it comes to this recipe: the use of a waffle iron and the absence of a Canadian staple, maple syrup. Located under the Pie and Pastries section of the book, waffles were not considered to be a breakfast food. Preparation calls for baking the waffles on a waffle iron. While waffle irons are popular today, in 1920 they were fairly new and not a common appliance. Often on the pricier side, only families with higher incomes could have afforded a waffle iron. The recipe does not mention maple syrup either in the ingredient list or as a suggested topping for the waffles. Today, when one thinks of Canada, they likely think of maple syrup. Maple syrup has, historically, been a Canadian delicacy and Canada is the largest producer in the world. Given that this is a Canadian cookbook, one would expect maple syrup to be included in this recipe!
This recipe for "Coffee Marshmallow Cream" also contains eight ingredients, including Borden’s Eagle Brand Condensed Milk. Most of the ingredients were common for the time period when the book was created, including staples such as sugar and vanilla. The method of preparation includes boiling coffee and mixing the ingredients together. It is located under the Ice Cream subsection in the booklet. This recipe is important to the history of Canadian cuisine as it demonstrates that coffee-based dishes during this period were considered a dessert. Tea remained, arguably, the most popular beverage in Canada in the early part of the 20th century. A dramatic increase in coffee consumption occurred in the 1960s, likely due to the invention of new and affordable coffeemakers, so coffee consumption in Canada rose considerably. The recipe for Coffee Marshmallow Cream could be considered the 1920s version of today's very popular iced coffee beverage.