The Five Roses Cookbook

Janet Arnett is the former campus manager of adult education at Ontario’s Georgian College. She is the author of Antiques and Collectibles: Starting Small, The Grange at Knock, and 673 Ways to Save Money.

This accurate, complete reproduction of a cookbook issued in 1915 to
promote Five Roses flour provides a fascinating glimpse into the past.
As the title page proclaims, it is “a manual of Good Recipes” and
includes “Useful Notes on the various classes of good things to eat,
all of which have been carefully checked and re-checked by competent
authority.”

Although of more value in terms of social history than a cookbook, many
of its 500-plus recipes remain useable today. The ingredients lists will
cause some raised eyebrows (most call for such items as cream, butter,
and lard), and, of course, Red Roses flour is an essential ingredient
for nearly every recipe. The ads for Red Roses are charming in their
unsophisticated style. The collection reflects the food issues of its
era, acknowledging the high cost and “great scarcity” of eggs.
Eggless recipes abound (sometimes called bachelor versions), together
with instructions on how to tell if an egg is fresh enough to use and
how to preserve eggs.

The essays on making bread and pastry are delightful reading, full of
history lessons for the young and nostalgia for others. And the
collection itself speaks of a bygone age (what cook, today, would want
six different recipes for gingerbread or be interested in making baking
powder?). Numerous recipes call for oysters, once as common as hamburger
is today.

Trying a few of the recipes would make an interesting experiment;
others can be enjoyed simply by reading them, such as the one for peanut
sandwiches.