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
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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Lamb and mutton

Mutton Curry.

196 · First Edition, 1896 · Report an issue

Ingredients

  • three cupfuls mutton from fore-quarter
  • as needed cold water
  • one quart boiling water
  • three onions, cut in slices
  • one-half teaspoon peppercorns
  • a sprig thyme
  • a sprig parsley
  • one-fourth cup butter
  • four cooked together flour
  • one-half tablespoon curry powder
  • one-half teaspoon salt
  • one-eighth teaspoon pepper
  • border steamed rice

Method

  1. Wipe and cut meat from fore-quarter of mutton in one-inch pieces; there should be three cupfuls.
  2. Put in kettle, cover with cold water, and bring quickly to boiling point; drain in colander and pour over one quart cold water.
  3. Return meat to kettle, cover with one quart boiling water, add three onions cut in slices, one-half teaspoon peppercorns, and a sprig each of thyme and parsley.
  4. Simmer until meat is tender, remove meat, strain liquor, and thicken with one-fourth cup each of butter and flour cooked together; to the flour add one-half tablespoon curry powder, one-half teaspoon salt, and one-eighth teaspoon pepper.
  5. Add meat to gravy, reheat, and serve with border of steamed rice. ( Steamed Rice. )

Original 1896 Text

three cupfuls mutton from fore-quarter as needed cold water one quart boiling water three onions, cut in slices one-half teaspoon peppercorns a sprig thyme a sprig parsley one-fourth cup butter four cooked together flour one-half tablespoon curry powder one-half teaspoon salt one-eighth teaspoon pepper border steamed rice Wipe and cut meat from fore-quarter of mutton in one-inch pieces; there should be three cupfuls. Put in kettle, cover with cold water, and bring quickly to boiling point; drain in colander and pour over one quart cold water. Return meat to kettle, cover with one quart boiling water, add three onions cut in slices, one-half teaspoon peppercorns, and a sprig each of thyme and parsley. Simmer until meat is tender, remove meat, strain liquor, and thicken with one-fourth cup each of butter and flour cooked together; to the flour add one-half tablespoon curry powder, one-half teaspoon salt, and one-eighth teaspoon pepper. Add meat to gravy, reheat, and serve with border of steamed rice.

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