Today has been designated -- by sources unknown -- as the day to commemorate the publication in 1896 of the Boston Cooking School Cookbook. ^‡

Written by Fannie Merritt Farmer, the cookbook would remain the definitive cookbook in the American kitchen until the Joy of Cooking started to displace it in the 1940s.

A cooking school teacher, Farmer even taught her readers how she wanted her measurements done.

She covered the basics -- from white sauce to Sauce Béarnaise -- in a simple, no-nonsense manner.

A single woman who never married, she was a feisty redhead who overcame partial paralysis as a teenager to become successful professionally and financially.

Mostly forgotten now except by food historians, her accomplishments still influence American cooking every day. Take a moment today to read about her life.



‡ Practically Edible has been unable to determine if 7 January 1896 was perhaps the actual day of first sale.

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