A Little Canadian 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.

“Little” is the key word here. With only 60 pages, it doesn’t
qualify for the traditional library-school definition of a book; yet it
has hard covers.

While the classification is a mystery, the content is simplicity
itself: 31 simple recipes for foods associated with Canada. The lineup
includes baked squash, Nanaimo bars, butter tarts, buttermilk pancakes,
pea soup, boiled lobster, pork and beans. Nothing surprising there. And
that leads to another mystery: Who is the target market for this
publication? Canadians don’t need these recipes. Who uses a recipe to
fry pea meal bacon, boil corn, or make coffee over a campfire? The only
answer seems to be that it must have been produced exclusively for sale
in airports. It’s small enough, colorful enough, and Canadian enough
to be the perfect last-minute souvenir to be snatched up by tourists as
they dash for their planes.