Fannie's Last Supper Read Online Free PDF

seems extremely modern. The President’s Report of 1884 included the following language in describing the goals of the school: “to lift this great social incubus of bad cooking and its incident evils from the households of the country at large.” This was a social, not just a culinary, movement.
    By January 1884, the Boston Cooking School was now independent of the Women’s Education Association, and it soon became clear to those running it that the original goal—giving free lessons to the poor and training women to become professional cooks—was difficult to achieve, although they were determined to pursue their original charter. The money was to be found in giving lessons to the rich, not the poor. People wanted to be entertained; they wanted fancy cooking and did not want to be lectured about economy, health, hygiene, and science. Good cooking was easier to sell as a means of impressing one’s social peers than as a path to correcting the ills of society. Within a few years, a new teacher had shown up at the Boston Cooking School, a woman who understood the tastes and needs of Boston women. By the early twentieth century, this woman had gone out on her own, put the Boston Cooking School out of business with her own school, and published a cookbook that would sell a staggering four hundred thousand copies by the time of her death in 1914. The woman was Fannie Merritt Farmer.
    Fannie was born in Boston in March 1857 and grew up in Medford, Massachusetts. She was one of five daughters: Sarah died in infancy, leaving Fannie and three younger sisters, Cora, Lillian, and Mary. (Fannie was also a distant cousin of Diana, Princess of Wales.) Summers were spent in Scituate, the home of her mother; in the evenings they played cribbage or skat; on Sundays they attended church, and sometimes pulled taffy. Her father, John Franklin Farmer, was a former newspaperman, a Unitarian, and a printer who stuck to the hand press while times were changing. As a result, his business prospects slowly deteriorated, as did the family’s modest income. According to his grandson, Dexter Perkins (the son of Cora, the only sister to have children), John Farmer was also a smooth talker who managed to get in to see plays without paying and sneak a second helping of Aunt Jemima pancakes that were being given for free to attendees at Boston’s annual food fair. Fannie’s mother, Mary Farmer, was of an independent nature, knitting quietly, for example, after her husband had declared that he was going down to the basement to kill himself. (After a decent interval, he returned and inquired as to her sang froid. She replied, “There wa’nt anything I could do about it.”) As the family fortunes waned, John came home one day with a new buggy inscribed with the letter F in gold. Mary commented, “ F stands for Farmer, and F stands for fool.” When, in 1925, she was asked to opine on the wonderful qualities of her first grandchild, Mary replied tartly, “I’ve known his father longer.” Fannie had one other distinctive relative, her aunt Ella, who once took a football that bounced into her yard, cut it up, and threw the pieces back over the fence. She also cut Dexter Perkins out of her will, so Dexter’s less than fond memories of Great Aunt Ella may be suspect.
    Fannie was stricken with polio while at Medford High School. This meant abandoning further education and also greatly reduced her chances for marriage. She was an invalid for the better part of ten years and always walked with a limp. The family moved back to Boston, first to Rutland Square and eventually to Back Bay, a more upscale neighborhood. Mary became a schoolteacher, and Cora married and bore a son, Dexter, for whom Fannie had a great fondness. (After Fannie’s death, Dexter’s wife would edit future editions of the cookbook.)
    After a brief stint in retail Fannie worked as a mother’s helper in the Cambridge home of Mrs. Charles Shaw, where she managed to do a great deal of