Guides: Culinary History and Cookbook Collection at RBSC: Get Started

About the Culinary Collections

The Cookbook and Menu collection was formed in the late 1960s and is primarily devoted to cookbooks and menus, although it is augmented by books dealing with related subject matters as well as archival material. The collection is particularly notable for its food-related ephemera and community cookbooks. It now contains over 5,300 titles and some 470 menus. The core of the collection is primarily twentieth-century material, but there are significant nineteenth-century holdings including a long run of editions and revisions of Mrs. Beaton's Book of Household Management (first published in 1859). The collection includes a large number of ephemeral items produced by flour mills, sugar refiners and manufacturers that include recipes. To the original collection have been added some 400 cookbooks collected by Vanna Garnier, as well as some 545 cookbooks donated by Soeur Berthe Sansregret, longtime director of the cooking division of the Ecole supérieure des arts et métiers in Montreal. The Doncaster Recipes Collection contains over 1,300 handwritten recipes and related material (including table settings presented as riddles), from various places in South Yorkshire, England, dating from around 1780 to 1860. Elsewhere, the Julian Armstrong Fonds represents Armstrong’s career as a food writer, primarily for the Montreal Gazette, including detailed research files on regional Quebec foodways.

Access to the collection: Researchers are able to request catalogued material directly via the McGill Library catalogue, while all other material, including material catalogued on the McGill Archival Catalogue, may be requested by contacting the librarian. Requests can also be made by visiting the Rare Books and Special Collections reading room. A number of titles have been digitized and are available via Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/mcgilluniversityrarebooks.

Librarian & curator: Jacquelyn Sundberg, Outreach Librarian (e-mail: jacquelyn.sundberg@mcgill.ca)

Guides

There are many other McGill subject guides that may be of use to you.

McGill Guides

Archival Research Guide, by Jennifer Garland Last Updated Jul 19, 2023 291 views this year
Canadian History, by Kristen Howard, Last updated November 2023
Dietetics and Human Nutrition, by Dana Ingalls, Last updated September 2023
Food Security, by Dana Ingalls, Last updated September 2023

External Guides

Culinary Historians of Canada, Research Sources
University of Guelph Digitized Cookbooks collection, What Canada Ate?

Culinary Ephemera Research Guide - University of Michigan Library
The Janice Blusetein Longone Culinary Archive (JBLCA) holds an extensive collection of advertising pamphlets, government publications, and the publications of farmers co-ops and food boards that promote various food products, household appliances, kitchen equipment, and food-related products.

Reference Books

Selected reference sources for Canadian culinary history

Critical Perspectives in Food Studies by Mustafa Koc; Jennifer Sumner; Anthony Winson
ISBN: 9780199019618
Publication Date: 2016-11-01
Critical Perspectives in Food Studies is a compelling examination of the shifting interpretations, perspectives, challenges, governance issues, and future visions that shape the study of food and food issues in Canada and around the world. With new chapters on a diverse range of currentfood-related issues, this second edition continues to bring students original contributions by Canadian scholars that will inspire readers to consider the varied and complex means by which we bring food to the table.
Culinary Landmarks by Elizabeth Driver (Editor)
ISBN: 9781442687806
Publication Date: 2016-01-29
Culinary Landmarksis a definitive history and bibliography of Canadian cookbooks from the beginning, when La cuisinière bourgeoise was published in Quebec City in 1825, to the mid-twentieth century. Over the course of more than ten years Elizabeth Driver researched every cookbook published within the borders of present-day Canada.
Histories, Cultural Politics : Towards a by Franca Iacovetta(Author) Et al.
ISBN: 9781442661509
Publication Date: 2022
Just as the Canada's rich past resists any singular narrative, there is no such thing as a singular Canadian food tradition. This new book explores Canada's diverse food cultures and the varied relationships that Canadians have had historically with food practices in the context of community, region, nation and beyond.Based on findings from menus, cookbooks, government documents, advertisements, media sources, oral histories, memoirs, and archival collections, Edible Histories offers a veritable feast of original research on Canada's food history and its relationship to culture and politics.
Northern bounty : a celebration of Canadian cuisine by Jo Marie Powers, Anita Stewart
ISBN: 9780394224312
Publication Date: 1995
What's to Eat? by Nathalie Cooke
ISBN: 9780773577176
Publication Date: 2009-01-01
How we as Canadians procure, produce, cook, consume, and think about food creates our cuisine, and our nation of immigrant traditions has produced a distinctive and evolving repertoire that is neither hodgepodge nor smorgasbord.

Global Food History Sources

The Oxford Handbook of Food History by Jeffrey M. Pilcher (Editor)
ISBN: 9780199729937
Publication Date: 2012-10-16
The historical study of food, culture, and society has become established within the academy based on a generation of high-quality scholarship. Following the foundational work of the French Annales school, the International Committee for the Research into European Food History and the InstitutEuropeen d'Histoire et des Cultures de l'Alimentation have conducted wide-ranging research, particularly on the changes brought about by culinary modernization.
The Routledge History of Food by Carol Helstosky (Editor)
ISBN: 9781317621133
Publication Date: 2014-10-03
The history of food is one of the fastest growing areas of historical investigation, incorporating methods and theories from cultural, social, and women's history while forging a unique perspective on the past. The Routledge History of Food takes a global approach to this topic, focusing on the period from 1500 to the present day.

Culinary History and Cookbook Collection at RBSC