Cover of The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book
The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book
Fannie Merritt Farmer
First printing, 1896 · Little, Brown and Company, Boston
Portrait of Fannie Merritt Farmer
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.

Hundreds
of recipes
Original
page scans
1896
first edition
Card My Recipe
The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book
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.

Browse the book ↓

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Articles

Timing and reference page from the 1896 first edition of The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book
History
How Fannie Farmer Standardized American Cooking

Why the 1896 first edition mattered, and how level measurements, sequenced method, and kitchen instruction traveled from the Boston Cooking School into ordinary recipe writing.

Read story
Portrait recipe card preview of Strawberry Short Cake I. from the Fannie Farmer collection
Preservation
From Historical Cookbook to Recipe Card

How a dense nineteenth-century cookbook page becomes a readable, source-linked card without quietly rewriting the historical record.

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Entrées

Birds in Aspic.

325 · First Edition, 1896 · Report an issue

Ingredients

  • bird
  • aspic jelly mixture
  • truffles
  • egg custard

Method

  1. Clean, bone, stuff, and truss a bird, then steam over body bones or roast.
  2. If roasted, do not dredge with flour.
  3. Put a pan in ice water, cover bottom with aspic jelly mixture, and when firm garnish with truffles and egg custard thinly sliced and cut in fancy shapes. ( Aspic Jelly. )
  4. The smaller the shapes the more elaborate may be the designs.
  5. When garnishing with small shapes, pieces are so difficult to handle that they should be taken on the pointed end of a larding-needle, and placed as desired on jelly.
  6. Add aspic mixture by spoonfuls, that designs may not be disturbed.
  7. When mixture is added, and firm to the depth of three-fourths inch, place in the bird, breast down.
  8. If sides of mould are to be decorated, dip pieces in jelly and they will cling to pan.
  9. Add remaining mixture gradually as in Tomatoes in Aspic. ( Tomatoes in Aspic. )
  10. Small birds, chicken, or turkey, may be put in aspic.

From Aspic Jelly.

This recipe uses the ingredients and method of Aspic Jelly. . Read the method above for any substitutions or additions specific to this recipe.

Ingredients

  • 2 tablespoons each Carrot, cut in cubes
  • 2 tablespoons each Onion, cut in cubes
  • 2 tablespoons each Celery, cut in cubes
  • 2 sprigs parsley
  • 2 sprigs thyme
  • 1 sprig savory
  • 2 cloves
  • ¼ teaspoon peppercorns
  • 1 bay leaf
  • ⅔ cup white wine
  • 1 box gelatine
  • 1 quart White Stock for vegetables and white meat
  • 1 quart Brown Stock for dark meat
  • Juice 1 lemon
  • 3 Whites eggs

Method

  1. Aspic jelly is always made with meat stock, and is principally used in elaborate entrées where fish, chicken,

Original 1896 Text

bird aspic jelly mixture truffles egg custard Clean, bone, stuff, and truss a bird, then steam over body bones or roast. If roasted, do not dredge with flour. Put a pan in ice water, cover bottom with aspic jelly mixture, and when firm garnish with truffles and egg custard thinly sliced and cut in fancy shapes. The smaller the shapes the more elaborate may be the designs. When garnishing with small shapes, pieces are so difficult to handle that they should be taken on the pointed end of a larding-needle, and placed as desired on jelly. Add aspic mixture by spoonfuls, that designs may not be disturbed. When mixture is added, and firm to the depth of three-fourths inch, place in the bird, breast down. If sides of mould are to be decorated, dip pieces in jelly and they will cling to pan. Add remaining mixture gradually as in Tomatoes in Aspic. Small birds, chicken, or turkey, may be put in aspic.

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