Recipes for Victory: Great War Food from the Front and Kitchens Back Home in Canada

Published to mark the 100th anniversary of the end of WWI, this fascinating collection of historical recipes recalls the important role of food for wartime Canadians. Gathering food for the troops was a big part of the Canadian war effort, and those at home sent considerable amounts of food supplies, particularly flour, cheese, and canned salmon, to Canadian solders overseas and their British compatriots. Recipes, researched and tested by the volunteer historic cooks at Fort York National Historic Site, are presented both in original form and in a modified version with modern equivalents. They include authentic wartime recipes for Canadian stew (which included bacon and beans), American dry hash (the updated version swaps boiled beef and drippings for corned beef and butter), and medira cake (which called for currants, when available). Baked goods such as Canadian war cake (a kind of fruitcake) and Toronto loaf (a bread made with mashed potatoes) were devised to use fewer scarce ingredients such as eggs, flour, and fat. Photographs of wartime posters populate the work, depicting the national effort to preserve perishables, increase consumption of fish and vegetables, and reduce the production of bread. This combination cookbook and history lesson is beautiful and noteworthy. (Oct.)