Farmer, Fannie Merritt, 1857–1915, American cookbook author and teacher and writer on cookery, b. Boston. A paralytic stroke prevented her from attending college, and she turned to cooking, at home and at the Boston Cooking School, from which she graduated in 1889. She was director of the school from 1891 until 1902, when she opened Miss Farmer's School of Cookery, established to train housewives and nurses, rather than teachers, in cookery. One of her contributions was accurate measurement in recipes. For 10 years she contributed a popular page on cookery for the Woman's Home Companion. She edited The Boston Cooking School Cook Book (1896), one of the best-known and most popular of American cookbooks.
See W. L. Perkins, The Fannie Farmer Cookbook (11th rev. ed. 1965).
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