The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book

Fannie Merritt Farmer

First printing, 1896 · Little, Brown and Company, Boston

Fannie Merritt Farmer

1857–1915

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.

1000+

Preserved Recipes

567

Original Pages

1896

First Edition

Card My Recipe

The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book

Name: Oysters à la Thorndike.
Ingredients: 1 pint oysters.; 2 tablespoons butter.; ½ teaspoon salt.; Few grains cayenne.; Slight grating nutmeg.; ¼ cup thin cream.; Yolks 2 eggs.

Fannie Merritt Farmer · 1896

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.

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Sandwiches, canapés, and chafing-dish dishes

Oysters à la Thorndike.

466 · First Edition, 1896

Ingredients

1 pint oysters.
2 tablespoons butter.
½ teaspoon salt.
Few grains cayenne.
Slight grating nutmeg.
¼ cup thin cream.
Yolks 2 eggs.

Method

Clean and drain oysters.
Melt butter, add oysters, and cook until plump.
Then add seasonings, cream, and egg yolks.
Cook until sauce is slightly thickened.
Serve on zephyrettes.

Original 1896 Text

Oysters à la Thorndike. 1 pint oysters. 2 tablespoons butter. ½ teaspoon salt. Few grains cayenne. Slight grating nutmeg. ¼ cup thin cream. Yolks 2 eggs. Clean and drain oysters. Melt butter, add oysters, and cook until plump. Then add seasonings, cream, and egg yolks. Cook until sauce is slightly thickened. Serve on zephyrettes.