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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Salads and salad dressings

Lobster Salad III.

299-300 · First Edition, 1896 · Report an issue

Ingredients

  • large claws of lobster
  • lobster
  • equal quantity to celery lobster meat
  • equal quantity to lobster meat celery
  • to taste salt
  • to taste pepper
  • to taste vinegar
  • to moisten Mayonnaise Dressing
  • as needed liver and coral
  • a few drops anchovy essence
  • as needed lettuce leaves
  • to sprinkle finely chopped parsley

Method

  1. Remove large claws and split a lobster in two lengthwise by beginning the cut on inside of tail end and cutting through entire length of tail and body.
  2. Open lobster, remove tail meat, liver, and coral, and set aside.
  3. Discard intestinal vein, stomach, and fat, and wipe inside thoroughly with cloth wrung out of cold water.
  4. Body meat and small claws are left on shell.
  5. Remove meat from upper parts of large claws and cut off (using scissors or can opener) one-half the shell from lower parts, taking out meat and leaving the parts in suitable condition to refill.
  6. Cut lobster meat in one-half inch cubes and mix with an equal quantity of finely cut celery.
  7. Season with salt, pepper, and vinegar, and moisten with Mayonnaise Dressing.
  8. Refill tail, body, and under half of large claw shells.
  9. Mix liver and coral, rub through a sieve, add one tablespoon Mayonnaise Dressing and a few drops anchovy essence, with enough more Mayonnaise Dressing to cover lobster already in shell.
  10. Arrange on a bed of lettuce leaves, and sprinkle top with finely chopped parsley. ( (finely chopped). )

Original 1896 Text

large claws of lobster lobster equal quantity to celery lobster meat equal quantity to lobster meat celery to taste salt to taste pepper to taste vinegar to moisten Mayonnaise Dressing as needed liver and coral a few drops anchovy essence as needed lettuce leaves to sprinkle finely chopped parsley Remove large claws and split a lobster in two lengthwise by beginning the cut on inside of tail end and cutting through entire length of tail and body. Open lobster, remove tail meat, liver, and coral, and set aside. Discard intestinal vein, stomach, and fat, and wipe inside thoroughly with cloth wrung out of cold water. Body meat and small claws are left on shell. Remove meat from upper parts of large claws and cut off (using scissors or can opener) one-half the shell from lower parts, taking out meat and leaving the parts in suitable condition to refill. Cut lobster meat in one-half inch cubes and mix with an equal quantity of finely cut celery. Season with salt, pepper, and vinegar, and moisten with Mayonnaise Dressing. Refill tail, body, and under half of large claw shells. Mix liver and coral, rub through a sieve, add one tablespoon Mayonnaise Dressing and a few drops anchovy essence, with enough more Mayonnaise Dressing to cover lobster already in shell. Arrange on a bed of lettuce leaves, and sprinkle top with finely chopped parsley.

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