The Canadian Receipt Book: Containing over 500 Valuable Receipts for the Farmer and the Housewife First Published in 1867

At the time of Canadian Confederation many Canadians were their own doctors cooks farmers veterinarians beekeepers and even rat catchers. This survival guide compiled fifteen decades ago is a fascinating glimpse into Canadian life before modern conveniences. Melissa McAfees fascinating preface notes that receipt is an older term a set of instructions not only for cooking but also for medicine and food preservation. In The Canadian Receipt Book these receipts cover many tasks some of which may seem hair-raising to the modern reader: removing worms from a cows bronchial tubes may have been as important in 1867 as knowing how to make English-style tea cakes. Recipes for lemon pudding and rice snow-balls are found in one chapter; remedies for pig leprosy and a cows mad staggers in another. The Receipt Book also contains business advertisements a dizzying array from the moderately recognizable (insurance and jewellery) to the more dubious ( a drug warehouse advertisingcocoaine and liver syrup). Set to become a classic of early Canadian cooking and household management alongside Catherine Parr Trail this page-turning collection reminds Canadians of the long distance we have travelled in 150 years.