Fannie Farmer Mother of Level Measurements
Chefs and cooks today follow tested recipes. But until a Boston cooking teacher insisted on measuring ingredients precisely, cooking instructions often were full of guesswork.
Fannie Merritt Farmer was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on March 23, 1857. She was the eldest of four girls. A fifth sibling died in infancy. Her father was a printer by trade, but he did not earn much money. Still, Fannie’s parents wanted their daughters to be educated.
As a teenager, Fannie was stricken with an illness that paralyzed her left leg. For months, she couldn’t get out of bed. The
