Sarah Lovell’s Meals of the day: a guide to the young housekeeper
Montreal: John Lovell & Son, 1904. 186p. (Driver Q54.1)
Sarah Lovell, née Kurczyn (1829-1917) was the daughter of a wealthy Montreal merchant of German origin. In 1849 she married printer and publisher John Lovell. In 1877 Sarah opened a school for young ladies on St. Catherine St. She was a charter member of the Montreal Women’s Club, founded in 1892. A friend described Sarah as “a woman of commanding presence and a great intellectual power as an educationalist.” At the time of the1901 census Sarah Lovell, a widow, headed a household at 49 Shuter Street that included a son, a daughter, son-in-law, 7 grandchildren and 3 domestic servants. That year Sarah hired Eliza, a 29 year-old cook who was newly arrived from Belgium.
A contemporary reviewer wrote of Meals of the Day that “The rare gift of knowing how to cook a meal is possessed by few young women to-day, and perhaps no accomplishment can be more easily obtained than by studying the pages of this little work. The author claims that every recipe in the work has been tested, either by herself, or by her friends, and certainly there are amazing and delicious novelties suggested all through it. The book is well printed, and contains a complete index.” (Bookseller and Stationer July 1904).
Following Meals of the Day Sarah Lovell published Reminiscences of Seventy Years (Montreal: 1908).
The digitization of the cookbook has been sponsored by Mary F. Williamson.