Product Description

In 1931, Irma Rombauer announced that she intended to turn her personal collection of recipes and cooking techniques into a cookbook. Cooking could no longer remain a private passion for Irma. She had recently been widowed and needed to find a way to support her family. Irma was a celebrated St. Louis hostess who sensed that she was not alone in her need for a no-nonsense, practical resource in the kitchen. So, mustering what assets she had, she self-published The Joy of Cooking: A Compilation of Reliable Recipes with a Casual Culinary Chat. Out of these unlikely circumstances was born the most authoritative cookbook in America, the book your grandmother and mother probably learned to cook from. To date it has sold more than 15 million copies.

This is a perfect facsimile of that original 1931 edition. It is your chance to see where it all began. These pages amply reveal why The Joy of Cooking has become a legacy of learning and pleasure for generations of users. Irma's sensible, fearless approach to cooking and her reassuring voice offer both novice and experienced cooks everything they need to produce a crackling crust on roasts and bake the perfect cake. All the old classics are here -- Chicken a la King, Molded Cranberry Nut Salad, and Charlotte Russe to name a few -- but so are dozens of unexpected recipes such as Risotto and Roasted Spanish Onions, dishes that seem right at home on our tables today.

Whether she's discussing the colorful personality of her cook Marguerite, whose Cheese Custard Pie was not to be missed, or asserting that the average woman's breakfast was "probably fruit, dry toast, and a beverage" while the average man's was "fruit, cereal, eggs with ham or bacon, hot bread, and a beverage," the distinctive era in which Irma lived comes through loud and clear in every line. Enter a time when such dishes as Shrimp Wiggle and Cottage Pudding routinely appeared on tables across America.

The book is illustrated with the silhouette cutouts created by Irma's daughter Marion, who eventually wrote later editions of The Joy of Cooking. Marion also created the cover art depicting St. Martha of Bethany, the patron saint of cooking, slaying the dragon of kitchen drudgery. This special facsimile edition contains both Irma's original introduction and a completely new foreword by her son Edgar Rombauer, whose vivid memories bring Irma's kitchen alive for us all today.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #98384 in Books
• Published on: 1998-04-29
• Format: Facsimile
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 448 pages

Amazon.com
Suddenly Aunt Eunice is on the phone explaining, "Aunt Mabel won't be with us for Christmas dinner, she's taking a holiday cruise with her bridge club. So would you be a dear and bring the Cheese Custard Pie this year? The family sure loves that pie." You ponder a moment and remember that the Cheese Custard Pie wasn't half bad, a stout and hearty dish with heavy Midwestern overtones, a bit like Aunt Mabel, in fact. You've eaten the same pie every year for as long as you can remember, your parents ate the same pie, and chances are your grandparents got a little crazy and had a slice or two à la mode. Small wonder Mabel has been wowing the family with Cheese Custard Pie since 1931.

Warm fuzzy memories go suddenly bad when you realize that the success or failure of the family holiday has just been placed squarely upon your shoulders in the form of a dessert you haven't a clue how to cook. Damn that bridge club! A quick call back to Aunt Eunice reveals, "It's simple, honey, all you need is The Joy of Cooking."

In 1931, Mrs. Irma von Starkloff Rombauer was newly widowed and in need of a way to support her family. The celebrated St. Louis hostess struck on the idea of turning her personal recipes and cooking techniques into a book. She self- published The Joy of Cooking: A Compilation of Reliable Recipes with a Casual Culinary Chat, and the legend was born. Aunt Mabels everywhere related to Irma's sensible, fearless approach to the culinary arts, and Chicken à la King, Risotto, and Roasted Spanish Onions found their way onto our tables. The Joy of Cooking quickly became a modern masterpiece, the stuff of legends, the foundation of family dinners everywhere.

This facsimile of the original 1931 edition offers ample proof why The Joy of Cooking, at 15 million copies and counting, remains one of the most popular cookbooks of all time. This is where it all began, and while her Shrimp Wiggle may not be in vogue anymore, a certain pie recipe just might save your family holiday. --Mark O. Howerton

From Library Journal
This is a facsimile of the original 1931 edition of what has become a standard. A good many of the recipes probably aren't as health-conscious as consumers prefer today, but the book will definitely find an audience.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About the Author
Irma Von Starkloff Rombauer was born in St. Louis in October 1877 of German stock, grew up and married, never expecting to earn her own living. But after her husband's sudden death in 1930, this celebrated hostess became a cookbook author. With the publication of the first Joy of Cooking in 1931, she began a family tradition that was passed to her daughter Marion Rombauer Becker in the 1950s and to Marion's son Ethan Becker in 1976.

Customer Reviews

But know what you're buying.
I don't know how one rates a reprinted book.

Cookbooks have changed considerably over the past century. This is a REPRINT of the original 1931 cookbook, meaning that the recipes, methods, and layout/instructional style are from 1931. It's not just "retro recipes". It is *not* a modern cookbook. The vagueness of some of the directions and the odd recipes are par for the course for cookbooks of this vintage. You think these are weird? Look up some late 19th century cookbooks and see how much sense they make.

If what you really want is a "daily driver" cookbook, give up the nostalgia and get one of the newer editions. I don't actually cook out of this thing much but I find it interesting to read.

A disappointment
I have a falling-apart edition of Joy of Cooking (I think 1964), so I thought I'd try the original edition. What a disappointment. The recipes are extremely brief, without any help as to how to do things, and they look very uninteresting. I sent it back, and (luckily) found the 1964 edition -- absolutely untouched -- don't these people use the book to cook? -- in a local bookstore.

20 minutes for string beans - LOL
I very much enjoyed this book and am encouraged to look into later editions. It's very interesting to see older versions of recipes. I like the smaller size of this hardcover which makes it easy to pick up and carry around for those moments when you want a light read while waiting on line in the post office or something. There is a scary part because there is a joke about a "colored man."