The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book

Fannie Merritt Farmer

First printing, 1896 · Little, Brown and Company, Boston

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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Want to make your own card from a photo, URL, or recipe text? Turn a recipe photo into a card.

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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Soups, chowders, and soup preparations

Oyster Force-meat.

Name: Oyster Force-meat
Ingredients: one-fourth small onion, finely chopped; one-half tablespoon butter; one-third cup soft part of oysters, parboiled and finely chopped; one-third cup mushrooms finely chopped; one-third cup Thick White Sauce; to taste salt; to taste cayenne; one teaspoon parsley, finely chopped

133 · First Edition, 1896 · Report an issue

Ingredients

one-fourth small onion, finely chopped
one-half tablespoon butter
one-third cup soft part of oysters, parboiled and finely chopped
one-third cup mushrooms finely chopped
one-third cup Thick White Sauce
to taste salt
to taste cayenne
one teaspoon parsley, finely chopped

Method

To Fish Force-meat add one-fourth small onion, finely chopped, and fried five minutes in one-half tablespoon butter; then add one-third cup soft part of oysters, parboiled and finely chopped, one-third cup mushrooms finely chopped, and one-third cup Thick White Sauce. ( Fish Force-meat. ) ( White Sauce. )
Season with salt, cayenne, and one teaspoon finely chopped parsley.

From Fish Force-meat.

This recipe follows the method of Fish Force-meat. . Read the method above for any substitutions or additions specific to this recipe.

Method

Cook bread and milk to a paste, add egg well beaten, and fish pounded and forced through a purée strainer.
Season with salt.
A meat chopper is of great assistance in making force-meats, as raw fish or meat may be easily forced through it.
Bass, halibut, or pickerel are the best fish to use for force-meat.
Force-meat is often shaped into small balls.

Original 1896 Text

one-fourth small onion, finely chopped one-half tablespoon butter one-third cup soft part of oysters, parboiled and finely chopped one-third cup mushrooms finely chopped one-third cup Thick White Sauce to taste salt to taste cayenne one teaspoon parsley, finely chopped To Fish Force-meat add one-fourth small onion, finely chopped, and fried five minutes in one-half tablespoon butter; then add one-third cup soft part of oysters, parboiled and finely chopped, one-third cup mushrooms finely chopped, and one-third cup Thick White Sauce. Season with salt, cayenne, and one teaspoon finely chopped parsley.

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