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
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Original
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1896
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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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Poultry and game

Broiled Venison Steak.

230 · First Edition, 1896 · Report an issue

Ingredients

  • Maître d'Hôtel Butter

Method

  1. Follow recipe for Broiled Beefsteak. ( Broiled Beefsteak. )
  2. Serve with Maître d'Hôtel Butter. ( Maître d'Hôtel Butter. )
  3. Venison should always be cooked rare.

From Broiled Beefsteak.

This recipe follows the method of Broiled Beefsteak. . Read the method above for any substitutions or additions specific to this recipe.

Method

  1. The best cuts of beef for broiling are, porterhouse,
  2. sirloin, cross-cut of rump steaks, and second and third
  3. cuts from top of round.
  4. Porterhouse and sirloin cuts
  5. are the most expensive, on account of the great loss in
  6. bone and fat, although price per pound is about the same
  7. as for cross-cut of rump. Round steak is very juicy, but,
  8. having coarser fibre, is not as tender.
  9. Steaks should be
  10. cut at least an inch thick, and from that to one and one-
  11. half inches .
  12. The flank end of sirloin steak should be re-
  13. moved before cooking.
  14. It may be put in soup kettle,
  15. or lean part may be chopped and utilized for meat cakes ;
  16. Το Broil Steak.
  17. Wipe with a cloth wrung out of cold
  18. With some of the fat
  19. grease a wire broiler, place meat in broiler (having fat
  20. edge next to handle), and broil over a clear fire, turning
  21. every ten seconds for the first minute, that surface may
  22. be well seared, thus preventing escape of juices.
  23. After
  24. the first minute, turn occasionally until well cooked on
  25. both
  26. sides.
  27. Steak cut one inch thick will take five
  28. minutes , if liked rare ; six minutes, if well done. Remove
  29. to hot platter, spread with butter, and sprinkle with salt
  30. and pepper.

Original 1896 Text

Maître d'Hôtel Butter Follow recipe for Broiled Beefsteak. Serve with Maître d'Hôtel Butter. Venison should always be cooked rare.

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