The Original Boston Cooking-School Cook Book 1896 by Fannie Merritt Farmer

The Original Boston Cooking-School Cook Book

by

Fannie Merritt Farmer

Since relocating to SW Ohio and getting married I have been cooking a lot more than I had the prior decade.   Having exhausted the couple of cook books I had unpacked and the couple of cook books Bruce had around here I was in the market for some new ideas.  I subscribe to several emailings of recipes but none were grabbing me and I have downloaded several ebooks to my kindle from the free list but none of those were really interesting me either.  Although I am sure I will I guess I have not graduated to e-recipes yet.  But then I have never been one to find good ones in magazines either so maybe not.  Then one day last week a contact on a social media web site had mentioned that she had found a steal from a vintage second hand store of the type of recipe boxes that people had in the 1970's where the cards came in the mail.  They looked like the image below.

She was having a ball looking through what she considered the old time type recipes.   That put in me in the notion to find my boxes of cook books although  I had not looked through any of them for quite some time.  I managed to unearth one plastic bin of cook books and have been finding lots of recipes to keep me busy for awhile.  Among the cook books was The Original Boston Cooking-School Cook Book 1896 by Fannie Merritt Farmer.   I was not able to find anything in it I wanted to make but very much enjoyed looking through the old time ways of doing things.  The book begins with a quote:   "But for life the universe were nothing; and all that has life requires nourishment."   It is full of interesting historical ways of cooking.  For example on page 18 it describes how fire is used and tells where one removes the ashes from the cook stove.  I had to google some of the terms used, for example "forced meat"  seems to be sausage stuffing type meat,  and overall it was just interesting to look through.  If you click on the book title above you will be directed to an online 1910 edition.  I could not find the 1896 edition available for free online.  If you click on the authors name above you will be directed to more information about her.  Please enjoy the video that follows in which one of the recipes is demonstrated.