Saskatchewan Homemakers' Kitchens

Saskatchewan Homemakers’ Clubs and Saskatchewan Golden Jubilee Committee - 1955

Dating from 1955, Saskatchewan’s Golden Jubilee, this book was produced by the Saskatchewan Homemakers’ Clubs. Founded in 1911 under the parentage of the University of Saskatchewan’s Extension Division, the organization was a key part of the province’s farm women movement (University of Saskatchewan Archives). Homemakers’ Clubs focused on education in domestic skills, as well as activist causes like improved health care for rural women. They were also affiliated with the Federated Women’s Institutes of Canada and the Associated Countrywomen of the World. They were replaced by the Saskatchewan Women’s Institutes in 1972 (Taylor). Handwritten and spiral-bound, the book was truly a collective community effort, with little editing aside from arrangement. Contributing clubs providing their own recipes and illustrations, which were not necessarily culturally accurate or appropriate, as with the recipe for “American Chop Suey,” featuring macaroni and a stereotyped portrait of an Asian man. But the recipes and illustrations reflected Prairie surroundings as well, as evident in the brands decorating the “Cowboy Casserole” recipe, or the sketch of a chicken on another page (although the recipe it accompanies uses only canned chicken soup).