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.

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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.

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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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Beverages

Boiled Coffee

41 · First Edition, 1896 · Report an issue

Ingredients

  • 1 cup coffee.
  • 1 egg.
  • 1 cup cold water.
  • 6 cups boiling water.

Method

  1. Scald a granite-ware coffee-pot. Wash egg, break, and beat slightly.
  2. Dilute with one-half the cold water, add crushed shell, and mix with coffee.
  3. Turn into coffee-pot, pour on boiling water, and stir thoroughly.
  4. Place on front of range, and boil three minutes.
  5. If not boiled, coffee is cloudy; if boiled too long, too much tannic acid is developed.
  6. The spout of pot should be covered or stuffed with soft paper to prevent escape of fragrant aroma.
  7. Stir and pour some in a cup to be sure that spout is free from grounds.
  8. Return to coffee-pot and repeat.
  9. Add remaining cold water, which perfects clearing.
  10. Cold water being heavier than hot water sinks to the bottom, carrying grounds with it.
  11. Place on back of range for ten minutes, where coffee will not boil.
  12. Serve at once. If any is left over, drain from grounds, and reserve for making of jelly or other dessert.
  13. Egg shells may be saved and used for clearing coffee.

Original 1896 Text

Boiled Coffee 1 cup coffee. 1 egg. 1 cup cold water. 6 cups boiling water. Scald a granite-ware coffee-pot. Wash egg, break, and beat slightly. Dilute with one-half the cold water, add crushed shell, and mix with coffee. Turn into coffee-pot, pour on boiling water, and stir thoroughly. Place on front of range, and boil three minutes. If not boiled, coffee is cloudy; if boiled too long, too much tannic acid is developed. The spout of pot should be covered or stuffed with soft paper to prevent escape of fragrant aroma. Stir and pour some in a cup to be sure that spout is free from grounds. Return to coffee-pot and repeat. Add remaining cold water, which perfects clearing. Cold water being heavier than hot water sinks to the bottom, carrying grounds with it. Place on back of range for ten minutes, where coffee will not boil. Serve at once. If any is left over, drain from grounds, and reserve for making of jelly or other dessert. Egg shells may be saved and used for clearing coffee.

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