The Farm and City 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 work is one of the best examples of a 1990s trend in cookbook
publishing—that of sandwiching recipes and philosophies. MacDonald and
Morgan use the cookbook as a vehicle to carry their voices into the
home.

The authors’ interest in food is not limited to its preparation.
They’re concerned with the ethics, sociology, and politics of food
production in Canada, with the business of agriculture, the role of the
family farm, and the issue of marketing boards. “Eating,” they say,
“is an agricultural act.” Morgan, a food retailer, brings a big-city
perspective to the work, with all the multicultural influences that
implies. MacDonald’s background is rural, with a strong interest in
equality for farm women. Each contributes essays and recipes to the
book.

In the essays, they ask consumers to explore how they can take
responsibility for the food on their tables—to look at delivery
systems that eliminate intermediaries and cooperative arrangements that
bring the consumers and the farmer into a closer partnership. They also
provide information on FoodShare (a Toronto group dedicated to ending
hunger) and Field to Table and Good Food Box (two distribution systems
that eliminate waste yet bring the products of the harvest to the inner
city). Food, they say, has become a source of anxiety and stress, and
consumers need to find ways of making it a source of joy and daily
celebration.

The recipes, a mix of traditional Canadian and international favorites,
stress using local produce in season. The emphasis is on vegetables,
grains, and fruit, with meat used quite sparingly. Most are for dishes
that take little time to prepare.

The recipe collection is substantial in both size and variety; most
cooks will find in it at least a few irresistible ideas.