Local Flavour: Eating in Toronto, 1830-1955

Credit: Canada Food Board, (Artist Unknown) Waste Not - Want Not, Hamilton: Howell Lithography, 1914-18.

About the Exhibit

Toronto Public Library presents Local Flavour: Eating in Toronto, 1830-1955, an exhibition of cookbooks, advertisements and photographs that look at Toronto’s history through cooking and dining. The exhibition traces 125 years of culinary history in Toronto from the publication of early cookbooks to the development of household appliances; the rise of manufactured and convenience foods; grocery stores; victory gardens and rationing during the war years; dining out and the growing sophistication of an urban palate.

Highlights from Special Collections include the first English language cookbook published in Canada in 1831, turn-of-the-century Toronto restaurant menus, an 1811 liquor licence, archival photographs of local food shops, markets and taverns, trade catalogues depicting stoves and fridges from the 19th century, promotional business cards, canned food labels and a wide range of cookbooks.

Loans

Paintings of Kensington Market and St. Lawrence Market on loan for the exhibition from the City of Toronto’s Art Collection; historical kitchen artifacts on loan from the City’s Museum and Heritage Services; a few digital photographic images provided by City of Toronto Archives and Library and Archives Canada.

Exhibition Items:

The Cook not Mad, or, Rational Cookery Kingston, U.C.: James Macfarlane, 1831
The Cook not Mad is the first known English-language cookbook published in Canada. It was originally published in 1830 in Watertown, New York, across the St. Lawrence River from Kingston. Receipts is another word for recipes that was used in the 19th century. They brought orderly methods to the science of what was then called domestic economy and later, home economics.
Restoration funded by the Culinary Trust of America.

The Return from the Insect Fair
Toronto: William Rennie Seed Co., 18--?
Trade card

John Atkinson in his Shop
Photographer: Unknown
ca. 1920
Photo reproduction
Acc: 974-6-2

John Atkinson serves from the counter of his shop on Yonge Street at the corner of Bedford Park Ave.