Fannie Farmer and Some Vintage Dinners

On August 23, 1902, Fannie Farmer left the Boston Cooking School where had served as principal since 1891. During that time, she brought regulation into how recipes were written - writing and publishing The Boston School Cookbook in 1896 making the information, recipes and menus taught at the school available to home cooks around the country. 

I started by checking Fannie Farmer's Book of Good Dinners, which is a 1972 revision of the 1905 book (Click HERE for a free pdf of the 1905 edition), but these were some hefty menus! Common in upper middle class families of the early 20th century, but a bit too much for me and Mr. Booklady - although maybe a great menu for a buffet one of these days. Most menus have 4 courses - a soup course, a fish course, a meat course and a dessert. Here's an example of one of her family dinners:

Onion Soup
Fried Smelts, Sauce Tartar    French Rolls    
Broiled Porterhouse Beef Steak
Maître d'hôtel Butter
Potato Strips            Creamed Turnips
Steamed Chocolate Pudding, Sterling Sauce

Smithsonian Libraries has a PDF of a 1919 edition  you can read HERE. I have a reproduction of the 1896 cookbook and I used that to create my menu for a day of Boston Cooking School eating in honor of Fannie Farmer. It was still a pretty hefty menu. I was able to reduce most of the recipes and I took a little help here and there - making a few semi-homemade dishes, too. A few notes about the dishes: H-O is Hornsby Oats - a popular quick cooking oatmeal. Dropped eggs are poached eggs, and Irish Moss is a plant-based way to create a jelled desert.