Product Description

The Purity Cookbook has long been part of family traditions in many homes, and rare first editions are collector's items. Carefully reproduced from the original 1967 edition, this cookbook contains the recipes for an incredible variety of dishes, as well as tiny gems of kitchen wisdom that have been passed on from generation to generation. Handy charts detail the times for cooking vegetables, roasting turkeys, and cooking meat. With the Purity Cookbook, you can create an era of good, wholesome food just like your grandmother used to make.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1367 in Books
• Published on: 2001-02-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 224 pages

Amazon.ca
Read this brave little reprint and realize what Canadian gastronomy sprang from. The 1967 edition of The All New Purity Cookbook was the latest of a sequence of competent promotional texts sponsored by the same company that began publishing them in 1917 and continued to do so through several editions until it amalgamated itself out of existence in 1961. From first page to last, the reader of this book is in a time warp. The recipes come from kitchens of a more homogeneously WASPy Canada, with instructions (despite the subtitle's claim of completeness) for only six pages of vegetable dishes and preparations with such names as "Barbecued Supper Surprises" (chicken in foil steamed over coals, with veggies), "Cheese Dreams" (broiled, crustless bread fingers topped with cheese), or the politically incorrect "Chinese Chews" (date-nut bars rolled in confectioner's sugar). Oh yum yummy.

As Elizabeth Driver points out in her introductory note, some successful recipes and other hints have been carried down through the years, notably the methods for baking bread and biscuits. She's right, of course. These haven't changed much since 1967, or since the first edition of this text for that matter. Given the overwhelming amount of information about baking that is available today, beginners would be wise to choose this simple little book instead of the huge, glossy, expensive volumes that cram bookstore shelves. Some cooking fashions change for the better, however. We know more now about how other cultures feed themselves--and some of them really do eat more healthily and interestingly than Canadians did 40 to 80 years ago. Use The All New Purity Cookbook for retro parties and for having fun and imagining life in Granny's day; you'll be wise to stick to the baked and roasted items: the breads, biscuits, cookies, cakes, and the big cuts of meat and fish. --Ted Whittaker

Review
The Purity Cookbook is a Canadian classic, part of the cooking tradition that I grew up with. (Jean Pare )

About the Author

Elizabeth Driver is an editor and writer who has spent over twenty years researching the culinary history of Canada and Britain. She is fascinated by the history of food and an avid collector of cookbooks and antique kitchenware. Elizabeth lives with her husband and two children in Toronto, where she is the Foodways Program Officer at Mongomery's Inn museum. She demonstrates such historic techniques as cooking on an open hearth, returning home most days with the smell of wood smoke on her clothes.

Customer Reviews

A fantastic cookbook
A Canadian of 23 years old, she packed her bags and headed off to be a nursing missionary in the highlands of Papua New Guinea, and her mother sent with her this cookbook. Well, the pages of the Purity Cookbook are torn and stained with dirt from PNG. Then across to Australia she came to settle down with a new husband. How often this cook book was used you would not believe, the pages have notes written on them (some are now almost impossible to read), some pages are torn, others are missing and almost all pages have been impregnated with ingredients!
This is the recipe book that all 3 of us children learnt to cook from, the recipes are so simple and so delicious that I don't think anyone could fail with this cookbook. Yes, I was going to try and retype the whole recipe book to make sure that the recipes would not be lost and I was overjoyed when I discovered that the original Purity Cookbook had been reprinted. I can't wait till my mid year break from studying nursing to cook a feast!
I have so many fond memories of this book from my childhood; making sugar cookies with my mum, licking out bowls from the chiffon cake batter and learning how to make bread from scratch. This, and my mum, are what made me the reasonably good cook I am today. This has to be my most prized recipe book. If you are looking for a reliable and tasty recipe book, then this one if for you. I cannot sing its praises highly enough.

This was the baking and cooking bible in our home
My father, who was and still is the cook in my childhood home, used this cookbook so much it is now beyond ragged. I bought a used original edition copy on EBay awhile ago for myself, but I was very excited to see that it was reissued and I bought two more copies for my brother and cousin. The recipes in this book are excellent. My husband swears by the pancake batter recipe. My father has made every pie, cookie, roll etc recipe. You will not regret ordering this cookbook.

Disappointed
Most people who bought the Purity Cookbook in the 1960's or '70's treasure it until it falls apart. That's why I failed to locate an old copy in any of the used bookstores I visited.
The new addition is just not the same. First of all, the spiral binding is gone - that was one of the big attractions. Secondly, most of my favourite recipes from the old version are gone - for example, Shepherd's Pie, and Coconut Drop Cookies.
I am very disappointed.