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: Potato Soup.
Ingredients: 1½ teaspoons salt.; ¼ teaspoon celery salt.; ½ teaspoon pepper.; Few grains cayenne.; 1 teaspoon chopped parsley.; 3 potatoes.; 1 quart milk.; 2 slices onion.; 4 tablespoons butter.; 2 tablespoons flour.

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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Soups, chowders, and soup preparations

Potato Soup.

124 · First Edition, 1896

Ingredients

1½ teaspoons salt.
¼ teaspoon celery salt.
½ teaspoon pepper.
Few grains cayenne.
1 teaspoon chopped parsley.
3 potatoes.
1 quart milk.
2 slices onion.
4 tablespoons butter.
2 tablespoons flour.

Method

Cook potatoes in boiling salted water; when soft, rub through a strainer.
Scald milk with onion, remove onion, and add milk slowly to potatoes.
Melt half the butter, add dry ingredients, stir until well mixed, then stir into boiling soup; cook one minute, strain, add remaining butter, and sprinkle with parsley.

Kitchen Notes

Scald milk means heat it until very hot, not boiling.

Original 1896 Text

Potato Soup. 1½ teaspoons salt. ¼ teaspoon celery salt. ½ teaspoon pepper. Few grains cayenne. 1 teaspoon chopped parsley. 3 potatoes. 1 quart milk. 2 slices onion. 4 tablespoons butter. 2 tablespoons flour. Cook potatoes in boiling salted water; when soft, rub through a strainer. Scald milk with onion, remove onion, and add milk slowly to potatoes. Melt half the butter, add dry ingredients, stir until well mixed, then stir into boiling soup; cook one minute, strain, add remaining butter, and sprinkle with parsley.