Margo Oliver introduced fine cuisine to Canada

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MARGO Oliver, whose name was once synonymous with fine food and cooking, has died. She was 87.

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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 09/06/2010 (5977 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

MARGO Oliver, whose name was once synonymous with fine food and cooking, has died. She was 87.

From 1959 to 1982 Oliver served as food editor of Weekend Magazine and Today in Montreal. Both publications were in national distribution.

Oliver died Friday in Fergus, Ont., north of Guelph.

CANADIAN PRESS FILE PHOTO
Oliver: Canada’s first ‘Betty Crocker’
CANADIAN PRESS FILE PHOTO Oliver: Canada’s first ‘Betty Crocker’

A native of Winnipeg, she studied home economics at the University of Manitoba. After a year of graduate work at the University of Minnesota, she joined the staff at General Mills in Minneapolis.

When General Mills expanded its operations into Canada, Oliver was chosen as this country’s first "Betty Crocker." In that capacity, she spent four years travelling, appearing on radio and television, speaking to groups and giving cooking demonstrations.

Joining the now defunct Montreal Standard in 1959 as food editor, she had the newspaper build a proper test kitchen where she produced columns and recipes for the magazine.

Besides those duties, Oliver produced seven cookbooks which were happily snapped up by her many fans. These included The Good Food Cookbook, Margo Oliver’s Weekend Magazine Cookbook and Margo Oliver’s Most Treasured Recipes.

Her final cookbook, published in 1989, was Margo Oliver’s Cookbook for Seniors: Nutritious Recipes for One-Two-Or.

In 1993, Oliver was inducted into the Ontario Home Economists in Business Hall of Fame.

During her stint with Weekend Magazine, Oliver met and married Englishman Victor Morgan. In 1982, they retired to Elora, Ont., and spent 12 years together before Morgan died.

 

— The Canadian Press

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