Community cookbooks are collaboratively created books often used as fundraisers for charities, religious institutions, schools, and community projects. The cookbooks earned money not only through their physical sale, but also by selling advertising space inside the cookbooks. Contributors were mostly women who were home cooks rather than professional chefs, and for many of them these cookbooks would be the only time they would see their names and contributions in print.

The earliest known Canadian Jewish community cookbook is The Economical Cook Book created by the Ottawa Ladies Hebrew Benevolent Society in 1915. It includes recipes (without naming the contributors), the aforementioned advertisements, and a section of "household rules". 

The name Northern Noshes was inspired by a 1996 cookbook that brought together recipes from communities in northern Ontario including Timmons, North Bay, Sault Ste. Marie, and Sudbury. On this website, you will find Canadian Jewish Community Cookbooks, organized by province. Over time, I will create an individual page for each cookbook outlining its specifics, including pictures, links to digitized copies if available, and where possible indexing the names of each woman who contributed. 

If you know of a Canadian Jewish community cookbook that isn't listed on this website, please feel free to reach out. If you have pictures or other information you'd like to share, I'd love to include those as well.