Principal of the Boston Cooking-School. Author of the first American cookbook to require level, standardized measurements. Published the first printing at her own expense after Little, Brown doubted it would sell.
Preserved from a verified first printing and organized as a working browser of recipes, menus, and reference sections. Recipe text remains verbatim to the 1896 book, with Kitchen Notes kept separate from the source text.
The book first appeared in 1896 after Farmer financed publication herself when Little, Brown doubted that a manual built on precise level measurements would find a wide readership. Its success brought the book into regular trade publication and helped fix cups, tablespoons, and teaspoons as the standard language of American recipe writing.
Born in Boston in 1857, Farmer went on to lead the Boston Cooking-School and to codify the level cup, tablespoon, and teaspoon that still structure American recipe writing. Her book is both a practical manual and a record of how domestic instruction was formalized at the end of the nineteenth century.
The book below keeps the table of contents, recipe cards, scanned page links, and menu structure together so the original volume can still be read and cooked from as a whole.
Browse the book ↓Oyster Rarebit. 1 cup oysters. 2 tablespoons butter. ½ lb. soft mild cheese cut in small pieces. ¼ teaspoon salt. Few grains cayenne. 2 eggs. Clean, parboil, and drain oysters, reserving liquor; then remove and discard tough muscle. Melt butter, add cheese and seasonings; as cheese melts, add gradually oyster liquor, and eggs slightly beaten. As soon as mixture is smooth, add soft part of oysters.