Robin Hood Flour Cook Book: Recipes by Mrs. Rorer

Sarah Tyson Heston Rorer and Robin Hood Mills - [1915?]

Francis Atherton Bean, owner of the International Milling Company, purchased a Moose Jaw flour mill in 1908 and renamed it Saskatchewan Flour Mills. Of the company’s four flour brands, Robin Hood, marketed for domestic use, soon became an iconic symbol of Canadian baking. This book, which took over two years and ten thousand dollars to make, specifically promoted the “Robin Hood” flour icon, setting the company apart from rivals like Five Roses. With American artist L. Moen commissioned to do the illustrations, the result was an art-nouveau and prairie-milling revision of a medieval classic (Driver, “Historical”). The “seven beautiful three-color process plates,” according to the introduction, were the first example of this printing technique in a Canadian cookbook, suggesting that this publication preceded the 1915 Five Roses Cook Book. Philadelphia-based Sarah Tyson Rorer, a noted home economist, editor, and cookbook author, was commissioned to write the book, and Elizabeth Driver points out Rorer's American bias in the notable shortage of recipes for English and French-Canadian specialties such as baked goods made with dried fruit, butter or maple sugar tarts, and doughnuts and other fried treats (“Historical”). But, recognizing that cooks do not rely on published recipes alone, this book also allowed space for women to write in their own additions. In this copy, inscribed as “Belonging to Kate Isabel (Ramsey) Leversedge (1873–1944), used 1917—,” the owner has included recipes for “Rhubarb Preserve,” “Raisin Bread,” and “Muffins,” attributed to women who were likely friends and neighbours.