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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Veal, sweetbreads, and pork

Veal Birds.

204 · First Edition, 1896 · Report an issue

Ingredients

  • veal from leg
  • for every three birds fat salt pork, one inch square and one-fourth inch thick
  • one-half their measure cracker crumbs
  • season highly salt
  • season highly pepper
  • season highly cayenne
  • season highly poultry seasoning
  • season highly lemon juice
  • season highly onion juice
  • moisten with beaten egg
  • moisten with hot water or stock
  • sprinkle with salt
  • sprinkle with pepper
  • dredge with flour
  • hot, enough to fry butter
  • one-half cup cream
  • garnish with parsley

Method

  1. Wipe slices of veal from leg, cut as thinly as possible, then remove bone, skin, and fat.
  2. Pound until one fourth inch thick and cut in pieces two and one-half inches long by one and one-half inches wide, each piece making a bird.
  3. Chop trimmings of meat, adding for every three birds a piece of fat salt pork cut one inch square and one-fourth inch thick; pork also to be chopped.
  4. Add to trimmings and pork one-half their measure of fine cracker crumbs, and season highly with salt, pepper, cayenne, poultry seasoning, lemon juice, and onion juice.
  5. Moisten with beaten egg and hot water or stock.
  6. Spread each piece with thin layer of mixture and avoid having mixture come close to edge.
  7. Roll, and fasten with skewers.
  8. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, dredge with flour, and fry in hot butter until a golden brown.
  9. Put in stewpan, add cream to half cover meat, cook slowly twenty minutes, or until tender.
  10. Serve on small pieces of toast, straining cream remaining in pan over birds and toast, and garnish with parsley.
  11. A Thin White Sauce in place of cream may be served around birds. ( Thin White Sauce. )

Original 1896 Text

veal from leg for every three birds fat salt pork, one inch square and one-fourth inch thick one-half their measure cracker crumbs season highly salt season highly pepper season highly cayenne season highly poultry seasoning season highly lemon juice season highly onion juice moisten with beaten egg moisten with hot water or stock sprinkle with salt sprinkle with pepper dredge with flour hot, enough to fry butter one-half cup cream garnish with parsley Wipe slices of veal from leg, cut as thinly as possible, then remove bone, skin, and fat. Pound until one fourth inch thick and cut in pieces two and one-half inches long by one and one-half inches wide, each piece making a bird. Chop trimmings of meat, adding for every three birds a piece of fat salt pork cut one inch square and one-fourth inch thick; pork also to be chopped. Add to trimmings and pork one-half their measure of fine cracker crumbs, and season highly with salt, pepper, cayenne, poultry seasoning, lemon juice, and onion juice. Moisten with beaten egg and hot water or stock. Spread each piece with thin layer of mixture and avoid having mixture come close to edge. Roll, and fasten with skewers. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, dredge with flour, and fry in hot butter until a golden brown. Put in stewpan, add cream to half cover meat, cook slowly twenty minutes, or until tender. Serve on small pieces of toast, straining cream remaining in pan over birds and toast, and garnish with parsley. A Thin White Sauce in place of cream may be served around birds.

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