WATERLOO, Ont. - Old Order Mennonite cooking meets modern technology with a new app of Edna Staebler's famous "Food That Really Schmecks" cookbook.
Staebler's hugely successful "Food That Really Schmecks" series extolled the cuisine and lifestyle of Old Order Mennonites, and was based on her moving in with an Old Order Mennonite in the 1960s to learn about the culture and cooking.
The book was originally published in 1968 and became a classic, selling tens of thousands of copies.
She went on to write a series, which gave readers a better understanding of the Mennonites' respect for the land with its seasonal cycles and, in doing so, lifted Ontario's Waterloo Region into a culinary destination. Staebler died in September 2006 at age 100.
New material on the app includes photos and videos of Staebler and the Waterloo Region countryside. Recipes are searchable and users can upload photos and recipe comments and suggestions that will be shared with all users — just like your grandmother's scribbles in the margins of the family cookbook. It's also possible to upload one's own pictures to the recipes.
Staebler was a member of the Order of Canada and an award-winning journalist. She regularly contributed to Maclean's, Saturday Night, the Toronto Star, Chatelaine and many other newspapers and magazines. She established an award for creative non-fiction that is handed out annually and is administered by Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo.
This digital book is available for free for a limited time on iTunes.
