The 7th of January commemorates the 1896 publication of the Boston Cooking School Cookbook, now simply referred to as the Fannie Farmer Cookbook after its author. ((CooksInfo.com has been unable to determine who decided to designate today, and if 7 January 1896 was perhaps the actual day of first sale.))
Written by Fannie Merritt Farmer, the cookbook would remain the definitive cookbook in the American kitchen until the Joy of Cooking started to displace it in the 1940s.
A cooking school teacher, Farmer even taught her readers how she wanted her measurements done.
She covered the basics — from white sauce to Sauce Béarnaise — in a simple, no-nonsense manner.
A single woman who never married, she was a feisty redhead who overcame partial paralysis as a teenager to become successful professionally and financially.
Mostly forgotten now except by food historians, her accomplishments still influence American cooking every day. Take a moment today to read about Fannie Merritt Farmer.