The Joy of Cooking by Irma S. Rombauer
"The Joy of Cooking," authored by Irma S. Rombauer, is a seminal American cookbook first published in 1931. Born into a prominent German American family and facing financial challenges after her husband's death, Rombauer compiled and tested a collection of twelve hundred recipes to support herself. The original edition, released at her own expense, offered 395 pages of recipes alongside practical advice on table settings and entertaining, featuring unique silhouette illustrations by her daughter. The book quickly gained popularity, selling out its initial print run and leading to expanded editions in subsequent years.
Rombauer's work addressed the needs of middle-class housewives during the Great Depression, providing accessible recipes that utilized readily available ingredients. Its innovative format presented recipes in a step-by-step manner, making it user-friendly for those with little cooking experience. The success of "The Joy of Cooking" solidified its status as a cornerstone of American cooking literature, influencing household culinary practices for decades. Over the years, the cookbook has evolved through multiple editions, including contributions from Rombauer's daughter, ensuring its continued relevance in American kitchens.
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The Joy of Cooking by Irma S. Rombauer
Identification American cookbook
Author Irma S. Rombauer
Date Self-published in 1931; published commercially in 1936
The Joy of Cooking introduced home cooking to a generation of housewives who had no formal training and little time to devote to meal preparation. Its intimate style and innovative recipe format helped make it one of the best-selling cookbooks of all time.
Irma S. Rombauer, from a prominent German American family, was raised in St. Louis and briefly in Germany while her father served as a diplomat. Finding herself in financial difficulties after the death of her husband, Edgar R. Rombauer, she wrote a cookbook to earn money.
Rombauer was not known as a particularly good cook, but she was intelligent, energetic, and widely experienced as a host. She had a broad network of social contacts. From these contacts and her family she collected and tested twelve hundred recipes, publishing them at the end of 1931 as The Joy of Cooking: A Compilation of Reliable Recipes with an Occasional Culinary Chat. This edition was published at her own expense and contained 395 pages of recipes and advice on table settings, entertaining, and handling materials, with silhouette illustrations contributed by her daughter Marion Rombauer Becker. The three thousand copies sold out in about six months.
Encouraged, Rombauer sought a commercial publisher. Bobbs-Merrill Company published an expanded edition in 1936. It too was a success, selling more than fifty-two thousand copies before the second edition came out in 1943. The cookbook satisfied a growing need among middle-class housewives: with little or no training and no longer capable of hiring cooks during the Great Depression, they looked for help in cookbooks. Rombauer’s biographer, Anne Mendelson, argues that the amalgam of recipes based on easily attainable ingredients, chatty advice, and forthright opinion in The Joy of Cooking was ideal for these readers. Moreover, Rombauer’s book had an innovative, readable format for recipes that introduced ingredients step-by-step with the cooking instructions.
Impact
The Joy of Cooking came out in four editions during Rombauer’s lifetime, and her daughter, who became coauthor in 1953, produced another. Together, they accounted for millions of sales, making it the most prominent American cookbook and the touchstone for household cooks well into the 1960’s.
Bibliography
Mendelson, Anne. Stand Facing the Stove: The Story of the Women Who Gave America “The Joy of Cooking.” New York: Henry Holt, 1996.
Mindlin, Alex. “The Thirties Were Lean, Even the Recipes.” The New York Times, February 16, 2009, p. 3.
Rombauer, Irma S., Marion Rombauer Becker, and Ethan Becker. The Joy of Cooking: Seventy-fifth Anniversary Edition. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 2006.