What do and did we eat? What do our food stories tell us about who we are or were? What's to Eat? serves up twelve preliminary answers to initiate and nourish the discussion of food in Canada.
How we as Canadians procure, produce, cook, consume, and think about food creates our cuisine, and our nation of immigrant traditions has produced a distinctive and evolving repertoire that is neither hodgepodge nor smorgasbord. Contributors, who come from the diverse worlds of universities, museums, the media, and gastronomy, look at Canada's distinctive foodways from the shared perspective of the current moment. Individual chapters explore food items and choices, from those made by Canada's First Nations and early settlers to those made today. Other contributions describe the ways in which foods enjoyed by early Canadians have found their way back onto Canadian tables in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Authors emphasize the expressive potential of food practices and food texts; cookbooks are more than books to be read and used in the kitchen, they are also documents that convey valuable social and historical information.
Through a close examination of our shared past and by taking notice of something that often goes unnoticed, What’s to Eat? explores how we can better understand our own food practices to create both a sustainable and healthy future and a renewed sense of the pleasures afforded by the daily meal in Canada.
Contributors include Shelley Boyd (McGill University), Nathalie Cooke (McGill University), Victoria Dickenson (McCord Museum, Montreal), Gary Draper (retired, Saint Jerome's College, University of Waterloo), Elizabeth Driver (Campbell House Museum, Toronto),
Margery Fee (University of British Columbia), Sneja Gunew (University of British Columbia), Jean-Pierre Lemasson (Université du Québec à Montréal), Catherine Macpherson (McCord Museum, Montreal), Marie Marquis (Université de Montréal), Sarah Musgrave (Concordia University), Rhona Richman Kenneally (Concordia University), and Andrew F. Smith (New School, New York).
Review quotes
“One article explores traditional Aboriginal food, another delves into Chinese food in Canada, yet another is about the history of Canadian Thanksgiving (much more recent and flexible than the American version) and, of course, there’s an essay devoted to the distinct society’s pride and joy — tourtière. The article with the most contemporary angle […] was also one that most piqued my interest: Nathalie Cooke’s ‘Home Cooking: The Stories Canadian Cookbooks Have to Tell.’ Cooke explores the myth of the importance of the family meal to the physical and mental well-being of our children, our families and our society at large. It’s nice to hear somebody finally state the obvious — that the responsibility for hunting, gathering, preparing and cleaning up falls almost entirely to women. Cooke looks at old cookbooks and magazines and discovers that it has always been one of the most stressful parts of a woman’s day, which, of course, means that it contributes to everybody’s well-being except hers.” Christine Sismondo, The National Post
"There is virtually no Canadian content available regarding everyday food practices, the development and meanings of domestic cooking, and the roles of food and meals in family life. This book is a welcome addition and makes a highly significant contribution to the field of Canadian food studies." Gwen Chapman, Faculty of Land and Food Systems, University of British Columbia
"What's to Eat? has something for everyone on its menu. It gives the new interdisciplinary field of food studies in Canada a strong sense of where we've come from, who we are, and where we're going." Elaine Power, School of Kinesiology and Health Studies, Queen's University
“[A] fascinating collection of essays on Canadian food culture and culinary history… the book embraces the current interest in local foods and our putative ‘movement of culinary introspection.’” Quill & Quire
“What’s to Eat? is a well-researched and informative – dare I say, enlightening – look at Canadian food history and the culture surrounding it.” Mise en Place
Nathalie Cooke is associate dean of arts at McGill University and editor of CuiZine: The (e)journal of Canadian Food Cultures.
