On
January 7, 1896 a book that revolutionized American kitchen and changed the lives of
women was published for the
first time. The Boston Cooking-School
Cook Book was compiled and written by the school’s 41 year old director, Fannie Farmer. It was comprehensive
in scope, and well organized. Packed with detailed, step-by-step directions
and specific measurements of ingredients,
it allowed home cooks—both hired help and homemakers—to create consistent meals that turned out the same
every time. Not only was it an immediate
best seller, but Farmer kept it up to date through 21 more editions
in her lifetime. It is still kept up to
date with regular editions by Farmer’s successors and is published today as the
Fannie Farmer Cookbook—the
one cookbook found in more homes than
any other.
Born in Boston,
Massachusetts on March 23, 1857, Farmer was the eldest daughter of a master
printer and his wife. She grew up in
Medford where, despite their class,
her parents prepared her for a college
education. It was a cultured, Unitarian home. But at age
15 Fannie’s dreams for higher
education were dashed when she
suffered a paralytic stroke. She was bedridden
for over a year and only slowly recovered the ability to walk,
although she had a limp there
after. As she was able, she began to help her mother around the
house. Eventually she developed a special interest in cooking. When her mother opened the home to boarders,
Fannie’s outstanding cooking attracted
more roomers than they could
handle.
To help bring cash
income to the home, Farmer went to work as a cook in the home of Mr. and Mrs.
Charles Shaw, a wealthy and influential family. Recognizing not only her gift in the kitchen,
but Farmers eagerness to learn, Mrs. Shaw encouraged her to
enroll in the Boston Cooking School,
an establishment for professional household cooks operated by Carrie M. Dearborn which emphasized not only kitchen procedures, but scientific nutrition, the chemistry of cooking, sanitation, and household management. Farmer
was 30 years old when she started at the school and was soon the star pupil and Dearborn’s top assistant. After she graduated in 1889, she became assistant director and the school’s top instructor. When Dearborn died, Farmer became Principal 1891.
In
1902 Farmer left the Boston School to found her own establishment, Miss Farmer’s School of Cookery. She soon expanded her interests,
and the school curriculum beyond basic cooking skills and kitchen management
for the gentlewoman to nutrition, and particularly to
preparation of palatable food for sick and infirm. She
considered this the most important work
of her lifetime. She published Food and Cookery for the Sick and
Convalescent which was so well
regarded that she lectured at Harvard
Medical School on diet and nutrition.
Detail oriented, precise, and taking nothing for granted, Farmer showed just what tools, utensils, and pots a well organized home kitchen required and explained just how and when to use them. Words like whisk, foreign to many housewives, became familiar.
Farmer’s influence spread through a regular column in the leading
magazine Woman’s Home Companion which ran for nearly ten years.
She also lectured widely and
contributed articles to daily newspapers
and other periodicals. Although she
suffered another disabling stroke, after a period of convalescence she returned
to her rigorous schedule.
Farmer gave her last lecture from a wheelchair just three weeks before she
died in Boston on January 15, 1915 at the age of
58. She was interred at historic Mt. Auburn Cemetery alongside Boston’s literary greats, important
statesmen, and Unitarian elite.
She
had no relationship at all with Fanny Farmer Candies founded in 1919 four years after her death
which was named to take advantage of
the reflected glory of Fannie’s reputation.
Nor, despite some Hollywood flack planted stories, was she any relation to 1930s and ‘40s
movie star Francis Farmer, now best remembered for being committed to a psychiatric hospital for schizophrenia.
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