The Harrowsmith Cookbook: Classic & Creative Cuisine, Volume Two

Dean Tudor is a journalism professor at the Ryerson Polytechnical
Institute and founding editor of the CBRA.

Volume One of this basic cookbook was published in 1981. Again in Volume Two, the recipes are drawn from Harrowsmith magazine, its editors, contributors, and staff, and its readers. Harrowsmith, in case you didn’t know, is the major success story of Canadian magazine publishing. Stressing country living and alternatives, it has good support from its readers. The 719 recipes here were culled from 6,000 that were submitted; there are no duplications with Volume One. Coloured photographs accompany some of the dishes, and all of the preparations have been sourced as to contributor. If something goes wrong, blame them.

The recipes are arranged by category, from soup to nuts, with appropriate subsections arranged alphabetically (e.g., the vegetables and salads section contains material about artichokes, asparagus, beans, beets, broccoli, and so forth). This is useful, but there is only one Swiss chard recipe. Yet Swiss chard is easy to grow and has a good, distinct flavour. There is also no reference here that spinach recipes can also be used for Swiss chard.

The book concludes with a chapter of twelve menus, for skiing dinners, large parties, candlelight meals for two, and so forth. The recipes used for these meals are drawn from Volume One as well as Volume Two. (Except for this, Volume Two can stand alone.) Please note that this is not a vegetarian book; there are excellent meat recipes here.