Peas in the Diet

Elizabeth Driver notes that this booklet must date from at least 1928, when the Border Canning Company of British Columbia opened a new plant in Edmonton (Culinary 1114). A thousand acres of land were leased and seeded to supply the new plant, which produced Royal City brand peas, a label for which is tucked into the cover of the book. The text emphasizes the freshness and quality of the Royal City peas, as well as their vitamin content, which the commercial canning process, the company declared, preserved better than the home process. The specification of different sizes and qualities of peas and the statement that “the Canadian label law protects the consumer” point to relatively new developments in Canadian food legislation. While the first food grading in Canada was the Canada Fruit Marks Act in 1901 (Ferguson and Fraser 5), federal regulations in early 1928 established the size and quality grading seen here (“Regulations”).