A new edition of America’s favorite, classic cookbook, Joy of Cooking, rolled off the press on November 2019. This edition was nine years in the making under the guide of John Becker and wife, Megan Scott. John Becker is the great grandson of Irma Rombauer, the original author of Joy of Cooking.
The cookbook began eighty-eight years ago when Irma Rombauer, a German immigrant and recent widow, needed a means to support her family during the Great Depression. To do so, she compiled her favorite recipes, wrote a cookbook, and self-published it in November 1931. She enlisted the help of a St Louis, MO company that printed labels for shoe companies and Listerine mouthwash to print her book, a first for the company. She paid $3000 to print 3000 copies of the Joy of Cooking: A compilation of Reliable Recipes for a Casual Culinary Chat. The book was illustrated by Rombauer’s daughter, Marion Rombauer Becker.
As the 3000 copies began to dwindle, a commercial printer was sought and with it came, a second edition in 1936. This edition expanded to 640 pages and set a new style for writing recipes—a conversational style, later known as the “action method.” Instead of listing ingredients and following with instructions, ingredients were interspersed with directions appearing as they were needed. This edition became popular quickly prompting six printings and selling 52, 151 copies by 1942.
A third edition was rolled out in 1943 and included a collection of recipes that could be prepared in less than 30 minutes using canned and frozen foods. This edition also included information intended to help readers deal with wartime rationing. Once again sales were phenomenal with nearly 620,000 copies sold by 1946. As the WWII came to an end, an update was made to the 1943 edition in 1946 with the elimination of the rationing information and the addition of more quick recipes.
The newly released edition is the 9th edition of the cookbook and marks the first update in 13 years. Joy has remained a family project passing from Irma to her daughter Marion, to Marion’s son, Ethan Becker, and now to Ethan’s son, John and his wife, Megan Scott. Through the various editions, Joy has remained a mainstay of American home cooking by adapting and evolving to the popular tastes and trends of Americans yet remaining basic. Marketing of the 2019 edition touted ingredients from the wider world and chapters on sous vide, fermentation, and cooking with both traditional and electric pressure cookers. John and Megan developed more than 600 new recipes for this edition with a focus on international, vegan, vegetarian and gluten-free recipes and tweaked many of the classics of former cookbooks. Lastly, this edition includes information about food history and science making it more than a collection of recipes.
Updated 4/2024 mg.
The temperature is so cold today that it is a perfect day to stay inside. I like to take advantage of these kind of days to mix up some spice blends that I will use year round. One of my favorites is a fajita seasoning mix from a recipe that I found on the internet years ago. I have been making it ever since. The combination of spices and the addition of cornstarch make great flavor and it thickens up sauces when used on both meats and vegetables. I now provide jars of this seasoning to my extended family as well! You can be assured that they let me know when their jars are getting empty! There are many combinations of spices that can be put together, but here is the 
February is National Cherry Month. Cherries are a summer fruit so why are they celebrated in February? Here’s some fun facts about cherries and why we celebrate them in the month of February.
Baking bread is a creative outlet for me and satisfies that “need to bake”. I started searching for the perfect white bread recipe last November. I’ve been baking two loaves a week since then. The first recipe I tried made a loaf that we thought was a bit dry. I’ve been using 
this recipe, ensures a similar result every time.
I recently wrote about the inventor of the Green Bean Casserole. It piqued my interest in finding out more about other inventors of some of my families favorite foods. One of those foods is the Rice Krispie Treat. I love that it’s invention is credited to an Iowa State University graduate!
Originally called “Green Bean Bake”, we know the recipe as 
June is National Iced Tea Month! I didn’t know we celebrated iced tea nationally but after reading that iced tea makes up 85% of all tea consumed in the U.S., I concur that Iced Tea should be celebrated. Further, I learned that iced tea was born in America. Wikipedia relates that iced tea started to appear as a novelty in the U.S. during the 1860s. (Prior to that, very little tea was consumed as it was thought to be unpatriotic after the Revolutionary War.) By 1870, iced tea was quite widespread as it was available on hotel and railroad station menus. Its popularity increased quickly after being introduced at the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis by Richard Blechynden.
