Canadians at Table – Food, Fellowship and Folklore: A Culinary History of Canada (review)

A Course for Victory: Gender, Class and Nation Depicted Through Food in Chatelaine Magazine

“…49 Globe and Mail,4 May 1938, ("The Homemaker Kitchen Library" section), 13. 50 Nor has this by any means ceased in the present day.…”

“…Another Rice Krispies ad from only two months later appealed more directly to fun and taste to the exclusion of any concerns regarding economy, nutrition, or wartime concerns, marketing the cereal as "like a dish from some never-never land." 50 The choices open to even just Kellogg's, in terms of the ways they could discuss the reasons to buy their cereal, demonstrate the multiple ways that food itself was considered. By extension, certain women's responsibility to provide food to family members was a complex choice that involved the consideration of a growing number of factors, some of which stood quite as far apart from one another as fun, economy, nutrition, and patriotism.…”

“…49 Mosby argues that women viewed rationing as not necessarily temporary measures, but as a genuine alternatives to the "depression, unemployment, and poverty" of the 1930s. 50 Polls conducted even as late as March and July of 1945 indicated that, "more than 90 percent [of] Canadians agreed that rationing had done a good or fair job in achieving equitable distribution." 51 Widespread public support of rationing reflected not only the desire for democratic distribution of scarce food resources, but also Canadians' willingness to curtail their food habits for international stability and peace.…”

“…This qualification is meant to recall the "stickiness" of the magazine and the fact of its wider distribution than its circulation figures may suggest. Whether in the barber shop or hair salon, the coffee shop, or the doctor's office, the magazine was sure to reach many more Canadians than necessarily could afford to subscribe to it 50. Bovril, Chatelaine, January 1939, 37.…”