FIRST PRINCIPLES OF HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT AND COOKERY
Inscribed first edition of this landmark American culinary textbook by the pastry chef, lecturer, cooking school founder, early celebrity endorser, and charter member of the American Home Economics Association.
Very good.
Price: $950.00
FIRST PRINCIPLES OF HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT AND COOKERY
"Make it perfect."
In addition to laying out a course of instruction for culinary teachers, FIRST PRINCIPLES includes Parloa's early professional endorsements of Fleishmann's yeast and Baker's chocolate, recommended by name for their reliable quality in a pre-FDA marketplace where careful grocery selection and food preparation could (and did) make the difference between sickness and health. Parloa would later write specialty cookbooks directly for Baker's and other companies, as well as contribute to GOOD HOUSEKEEPING, LADIES' HOME JOURNAL, and publications from the US Department of Agriculture. Her reputation as an author and instructor (and the financial worth of her name to advertisers) rested on her high standards of health and hygiene, founded on scientific principles, as well as her fame and cooking skill; the Eleventh Lesson in this book is devoted to Sickroom Cookery, which, done properly, entails keeping a patient alive. "I am sure that many kind people would be terribly shocked if they were told that they had killed their friends," Parloa remarks, "and yet it is being done every day simply by the neglect of the simplest remedies." Remember: good cooks don't kill their friends. While Perloa's remarks on the potentially "injurious" nature of the cucumber and the necessity of boiling spinach for two hours must be considered mysteries of a bygone age, her well-founded warnings against cross-contamination of cleaning materials, impure drinking water, and storage of food at improper temperatures are still highly relevant to contemporary households whose managers wish to resist the nostalgic allure of listeria, cholera, and assorted foodborne diseases.
A scarce copy, inscribed by Parloa to a female friend.
Read more: Wild, "The Mysterious Early Life of Maria Parloa," The Bethel Grapevine; Shields, The Culinarians: Lives and Careers from the First Age of American Fine Dining; Dirks, Food in the Gilded Age; Hubbard, Connecticut Inventors and Innovators.
The Object
First printing. Boston: Houghton, Osgood and Company, 1879. 6.5'' x 4.25''. Original brown cloth. 133, [1] pages. Inscribed by Parloa on front free endpaper: "To H. N. Morris / from her friend / Maria Parloa / Boston / Oct. 27, 1879." Small ink stain to corner of front board and along top edge of text block, visible on upper edges of most pages but not affecting text. Light edgewear and a bit of rubbing, boards gently bowed, light scattered foxing to front endpapers.
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