SPEAKER_00: Hello! From Wonder Media Network, I'm Jenny Kaplan, and this is Womanica.
This month, we're pulling back the curtain to reveal women overlooked in their own lifetimes or in our historical accounts of the eras in which they lived. We're talking about
the activists, thinkers, leaders, artists, and innovators history has forgotten.
Imagine this. You're in the kitchen trying out a new dessert recipe. You have all the
right ingredients. You have all your cups and bowls and spoons. You consult the recipe, but there aren't any measurements. At least, not ones you can follow. You have no idea
how much a goodly amount of flour is. Your handful is surely a different size than someone else's. Once you take it all out of the oven, the result is your cake is a dry, crumbly
mess. This may seem silly today, but recipes might still have vague measurement descriptions
if it wasn't for the work of today's Womanican. Let's talk about Fanny Farmer.
Fanny Farmer was born on March 23, 1857 in Boston. When Fanny was a teenager, she experienced
what was likely a case of polio, which left her with some lower body paralysis. She had
to drop out of school and spent most of her time at home. When she was in her 20s, she
was finally permitted to work. She took a job as a governess for a family, where she
explored her culinary knowledge. When Fanny was 31 years old, she decided to expand her
cooking and enroll in the Boston Cooking School. She graduated in 1889, and her skills were
so impressive that she was asked to join the staff as the school's assistant director.
Five years later, Fanny was named head of the school. That's where she was working
when she changed everything for home cooks. In 1896, Fanny Farmer self-published the Boston
Cooking School Cookbook. While Fanny's cookbook was far from the first of its kind, it was
the first to standardize level measurements. Before Fanny's book, many recipes called
for handfuls of flour or pinches of salt. This vague measurement system made it difficult
for the everyday woman to follow recipes, leading to far from tasty results. Fanny stressed
the importance of precision, and her recipes called for cups and teaspoons. Because of that, her recipes just worked. Fanny's cookbook was a follow-up to Mrs.
Lincoln's Boston Cookbook, which was published by her teacher and colleague Mary J. Lincoln.
Others were skeptical Fanny's book would see any success. So they made her finance
the first printing. The initial 3,000-copy run quickly sold out. Luckily for Fanny, she
kept the copyright and the profits. This great success meant Fanny was sought
after for her expertise. She taught a course at Harvard Medical School on diet and nutrition.
She was also the food editor for the magazine Women's Home Companion. In 1902, she opened
her own cooking school, Miss Farmer's School of Cookery, to train housewives.
Fanny printed 21 editions of her cookbook, continuously updating it with new recipes. And the cookbook eventually gained a new name, the Fanny Farmer Cookbook.
During Fanny's lifetime, 360,000 copies were sold. The book has remained in print
ever since. And by the 1990s, it had sold 4 million copies, making it one of the best-selling cookbooks of all time. Fanny's systemization of measurements made
cooking more accessible and inspired generations of cooks. Julia Child herself remembered learning to cook as a child with her mother and Fanny's cookbook.
Over time, though, Fanny's cookbook lost its post as the singular kitchen bible. Notably,
it was eclipsed by The Joy of Cooking, which was published in 1931.
Fanny Farmer died on January 15, 1915, at the age of 57. While her name was largely
forgotten over time, her legacy is wide-reaching. Because of her, cooking evolved from an inherent
skill to a masterable science. By creating a structure to recipes and by stressing the importance of exact measurements, cooking became accessible.
All month we've been talking about women behind the curtain. For more information,
find us on Facebook and Instagram at Wamanica Podcast. Special thanks to Liz Kaplan, my favorite sister and co-creator. Talk to you on Monday!
