Canadian Wine In Your Cooking

Built in the late 80s, our building, while considered swank in its day, still boasts a shared laundry room. Inside the door of the laundry room is a small counter that serves as a makeshift swap shop. Got old books and magazines? Leave them there. Old dishes, baby clothes, or home decor items? Somebody wants them!

Greg returned from the laundry room this morning and handed me this little pamphlet, published in 1966 by the Canadian Wine Institute, which, as best I can tell, no longer exists.

Now, if you know anything about Canadian wine, you’ll know that it really wasn’t taken seriously until about a decade or so ago. Canadian wine, what little there was of it, was notoriously bad. More amusing is the fact that there are no wineries, regions or specific varietals mentioned at all. The recipes included call for things such as “Canadian sweet or cream sherry” or “Canadian dry white table wine”, never giving the reader a clue as to what they should be looking for when buying said Canadian wine. I’m also a little taken aback by the number of recipes calling for sherry, although that might be the flashbacks to the bottles of “Fine Old Canadian Sherry” my teenaged friends and I consumed on the wharves of the Halifax dockyards in the 80s.

Recipes in this fine tome are typical of 1966, ranging from jellied egg canapes and broiled tuna sandwiches to baked chicken rosé (made with Canadian rosé wine, natch), salmon salad molds and devilled crab. (C’mon! It’s not a party until there’s devilled crab.)

Canadian Wine in Your Cooking says that:

Canadian wine makes meals more exciting, gives zest to simple food. Cooking with Canadian wine is fun, it’s economical and it’s quick and easy.

Canadian wine adds new appeal to favourite old recipes and makes inexpensive dishes special. It gives glamour to the lowly hamburger, makes leftovers something to rave about.

On the last page of the pamphlet, the reader is advised:

If you have enjoyed reading “Canadian Wine In Your Cooking” you may also be interested in our other publications “Canadian Wine A Guide To Enjoyment” and “Canadian Wine At Your Party”.

“Canadian Wine A Guide To Enjoyment” is a guide to Canadian wines and their enjoyment, full of useful information.

“Canadian Wine At Your Party” is a guide to party entertaining with wine with many tips for better parties.

For these books, write to:

Canadian Wine Institute
Toronto, Canada

Note the lack of a street address. Presumably the Canadian Wine Institute was so well known in 1966 that something as inconsequential as a street name or postal code was unnecessary – every postman in the region knew exactly where it was. Google gives me various references to it, but no website, so I’m assuming that it morphed into something else at some point.

In any case, I’m guessing that this little pamphlet, if anyone even remembers it, is the cause of much amused embarrassment. Particularly since Canadian wines have come a long way since 1966. Something we should all thank our lucky stars for.

 

 

 

2 thoughts on “Canadian Wine In Your Cooking”

    1. Thanks Neil. I figured that might be the case but couldn’t find anything specific. Mind you, I didn’t look especially hard.

Comments are closed.