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Vintage Toronto Ads: Gunning for Good Pie

By Jamie Bradburn

20100323gunns.jpg
Source: The Toronto Star, February 2, 1915.

Mother’s joy that her son savoured her new apple pie recipe quickly turned to horror as the boy’s eagerness to wolf down the piping hot dessert without using a plate led to burns on his hands and oozy mounds of fruity filling creeping down his new school outfit.
Donald Gunn entered the Toronto food business in 1873 as a produce vendor near St. Lawrence Market. By the end of the nineteenth century he joined the meatpacking trade and, by 1907, had shifted operations to the Stockyards area. Through a series of acquisitions and mergers, Gunns became one of the founding components of Canada Packers in June 1927, lending its Maple Leaf brand to the new company’s meat products. The Gunns name lives on in the road and TTC loop near St. Clair and Keele.
As for how much this fine shortening set mother back, an ad for Arnold’s Markets in January 1927 listed a three-pound pail of Easifirst for forty-two cents (about $5.25 today).
Additonal material from the January 4, 1927, edition of the Toronto Star.

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  • David Toronto

    Jamie
    I wonder if it is shortening. I rather think it is lard.
    Lard comes from animals and shortening comes from (usually) vegetables.
    That three-pound pail would not have fitted in the refrigerators of the day–they were about 7 or 8 cubic feet. A property of lard is that it requires no refrigeration while shortening does.
    The Wikipedia articles on lard and shortening are very enlightening and I hope you have a look at them. You may want to change the text after your readings.

  • http://undefined C A Gunn

    It is shortening. I have a Gunn’s Easifirst Shortening pail. The pail might have held 3 pounds, however it states on the pail, “NOT SOLD BY WEIGHT”. It also says, “Use one quarter to one third less EASIFIRST than your recipe calls for of Lard or Butter.”.
    The Maple Leaf name, which came into being in the 1890′s, was used on the Lard pails and other products.
    Are you aware that Donald Gunn (my great-uncle) was Toronto’s first automobile fatality,Dec 19, 1909. He stepped off a tram, was struck by an auto and hit his head on the cobblestones.My grandfather, Andrew Gunn VS, succeeded Donald as President of Gunn’s.