The Canadian Heritage Cookbook

Patricia Morley is professor emerita of English and Canadian studies at
Concordia University, and the author of Kurlek, Margaret Laurence: The
Long Journey Home, and As Though Life Mattered: Leo Kennedy’s Story.

This small book—almost pocket-sized—is attractively illustrated with
drawings of ingredients and archival family photographs, both in warm
sepia tones. In style, it seems a cross between a memoir and a cookbook.
There are more than 100 recipes, interspersed with memories and
anecdotes from the writer’s past.

Edna McCann lives in Southern Ontario and has published the annual
Heritage Book for 21 years, volumes that included recipes without
focusing on them. The Canadian Heritage Cookbook is her first published
collection of recipes, one that continues the anecdotal tone of her
earlier publications.

McCann’s recipes have been handed down from family meals and church
socials. The recipes, evoking smudged index cards spattered with spills,
go well with anecdotes from times when such fare belonged to a
community’s way of life. Arranged by the months of the year, some look
quaint (Old Fashioned Scrap Soup) and most look delicious (Honey-glazed
Carrots, Sour-cream Peach Pie). This cookbook should satisfy body and
soul.