The arrival of industrialization and urbanization prompted major changes in Canadian food and culture, including the growth of the food processing industry and the move towards purchasing mass-produced household goods rather than relying on self-sufficiency.

     The contents of these cookbooks reflect the diversity of local populations in the nineteenth-century. Through them, contemporary readers are able to get a glimpse into the past citizens’ desire to be more cosmopolitan. Many of the books go so far as to offer suggested appropriate tchniques for throwing dinner parties which became an important part of nineteenth-century sociey.