Cooking the books: Developing an “Academic” cookbook collection

As food studies expand at UTSC, the library is playing an important role in meeting the growing demand from faculty and students for an array of resources that complement food research and coursework. In 2015, the UTSC Library began developing a cookbook collection to reflect the diverse communities and foodways of Scarborough. Why focus on Scarborough? Scarborough is home to many large immigrant groups from different parts of the world, which are represented in the restaurants and markets throughout the suburb. Much of the food studies work being done on campus engages with these local culinary communities and their global ties, examining how socio-economic and cultural systems impact food, and exploring sensory experiences. The cookbook collection supports that work by providing a variety of primary sources to be mined for scholarship across disciplines, as well as for personal experimentation. This poster explores the contents of the budding collection and discusses the specifics of developing this special collection (selection, assessment, etc.). The poster also considers how the cookbook collection contributes to experiential learning of food studies students at UTSC, by allowing them to actively engage with foods from the surrounding community and beyond, both in and out of the classroom.