The Fabulous Fannie Farmer: Kitchen Scientist and America's Cook

"When Fannie Farmer learned to cook in the late 1800s, recipes could be pretty silly. They might call for 'a goodly amount of salt' or 'a lump of butter' or 'a suspicion of nutmeg.' Girls were supposed to use their 'feminine instincts' in the kitchen (or maybe just guess). Despite this problem, Fannie loved cooking, so when polio prevented her from going to college, she became a teacher at the Boston Cooking School. Unlike her mother or earlier cookbook writers, Fannie didn't believe in feminine instincts. To her, cooking was a science. She'd noticed that precise measurements and specific instructions ensured that cakes rose instead of flopped and doughnuts fried instead of burned. Students liked Fannie's approach so much that she wrote a cookbook. Despite skepticism from publishers, Fannie's book was a recipe for success"--