This text is part of the special book Plaisirs
When the leaves fall, the cool days are well established and the light dims, many of us spend more time in the kitchen and bring out our recipe books. Quebec home cooking historian Michel Lambert tells the incredible story of these books that make us salivate.
The first family recipes date back 14,000 years and appeared simultaneously all over the world. Archaeological discoveries made in eastern Jordan reveal thatHomo sapiens was already making cereal pancakes with the wild grains he picked up in his environment.
For their part, the first recipe books that have been found date from 5000 years ago. They were produced in societies that had created a form of writing and were wealthy enough that their elites could afford to hire scribes. It was the latter who noted how the cooks of emperors and kings prepared certain dishes. Its richness was then expressed by the number of ingredients used in a recipe and by the exotic origin of these ingredients. Added to these factors was the difficulty of preparing the dishes, which justified the use of the services of a kitchen expert.
The old recipe books are therefore from great civilizations. Thus, we find some that come from China, Mesopotamia, Egypt, Persia, Greece, Rome, medieval Islam (which gave birth to the Ottoman Empire), France medieval, the Inca Empire in Peru, the Mayan Empire, then the Aztecs in Mexico, and Renaissance Italy. Within all of these societies lived a large contingent of cooks, vendors, and servants connected with food service. Note that the first recipe books written in French date from the 12the century.
People from the working classes did not write, but they knew how to cook the products of their wild or agricultural environment. Archaeological excavations bear witness to their cooking abilities. A few authors from the lower classes have also written about the way people ate on a daily basis, in novels and folk tales. Then, when the instruction of children became widespread in the West, in the nineteenthe century, we began to see books of family recipes appear, which were given to the person who liked cooking the most in each family.
The first Quebec books
In Quebec, it was women’s groups, such as the Cercles des Fermières, the Filles d’Isabelle, then the Women’s Association for Education and Social Action who wrote the most cookbooks, starting in 1930.
Religious communities, including the Congrégation de Notre-Dame and the Ursulines, preceded them at the end of the 19th century.e century. Most of the nuns who shared the recipes came from rural Quebec, so the dishes they offered reflected the traditional cuisine of our region. They were later found on TV and in bookstores. This is the case of Sister Berthe, from the Congrégation de Notre-Dame, and Sister Angèle, from the Congrégation des Soeurs de Notre-Dame du Bon-Conseil de Montréal.
Recipes were passed down first in the immediate family. They were most often the result of a crossbreeding between the culinary heritages of the two parents, with a touch inherited from our founding cultures. Most of our best-known recipes indeed combine influences from our European and Aboriginal origins: pea soup with leached Indian corn, baked beans with small game or shepherd’s pie are the most obvious examples. These dishes tasted in our early childhood are often emotionally charged and correspond to our comfort recipes.
In 19th century Quebec familiese century, only recipes for pastries and desserts were transmitted in writing, because they were very precise; recipes for soup and main courses were rather mentioned orally or noted in a few words in notebooks.
Even today, new recipes are often born from the fact that an ingredient is missing and replaced by another, a manufacturing error that gives an amazing result, or even a cultural or religious restriction. which obliges us to modify the recipe without it losing too much taste. This is how recipes evolve and multiply.
Most people who buy cookbooks today do not do so to follow them to the letter, but to give themselves ideas for menus, or because they are often beautiful, colorful books that inspire fantasies. After all, you taste as much with the eyes as with the mouth!
For more than a century, popular recipe books have reflected our culinary culture, our collective food preferences, the choices of the greatest number… They are the most faithful witnesses to the evolution of our cuisine.
This special content was produced by the Special Publications team of the To have to, pertaining to marketing. The drafting of To have to did not take part.