Cooks, Biographies, and Eating Well

This week I made Devil's Food Cake Cockaigne, a lush chocolate cake that I hadn't thought about for several years.  The occasion was Elin's birthday, and while we'll be celebrating with  joint party in a few weeks time, it seemed that Friday was a good night for a mini-fête.  Jeanne particularly liked sprinkling little candy stars on top after the cake was iced, but apart from that I was a little disappointed.

Not sure if that is due to changing ability to taste things or to a more developed appetite for exotic food.  Whatever the cause, it made me start thinking of The Joy of Cooking, the first good cook book I ever got, and the delightful biography of the book's authors, Stand Facing the Stove: The Story of the Women Who Gave America the Joy of Cooking  by Anne Mendelson.

Left a widow with a small legacy, Irma Rombauer decided to collect recipes and publish a cook book for women like herself  who found themselves at the beginning of the Great Depression with the necessity to cook for their families for the first time in their lives.  Some of them literally did  not know how to boil water, hence the step by step directions which included "stand facing the stove." Aided by  her daughter, Marion Rombauer Becker, Mrs. Rombauer created a cook book that  became one of the most successful ever.  It did not bring her the fortune that it should have, though, which is one of the most fascinating portions of this biography.

Stand Facing the Stove  appeared shortly before the book was completely revised by Mrs. Rombauer's grandson with the aid of a host of professional cooks.  It removed much of the lively commentary that made earlier editions such fun to read. I remember thinking bah humbug when I saw it, and when I went looking for cook books for my kids when they started out on their own, I sought out earlier versions. The 1964 version, which is the one I have, gave me many evenings of entertaining reading when I putting a lot of energy into learning how to cook well because I had discovered that eating well is, next to love,  the greatest pleasure in life.

But I guess my taste for chocolate just isn't what it was.  For the next birthday, I'll seek out some other dessert, I think.