Streamlined Cooking (Irma Rombauer)

Bobbs-Merrill Company, New York, 1939. Hardcover. First Edition. 

Before there was Rachel Ray’s 30 Minute Meals, there was Irma Rombauer’s Streamlined Cooking. In the follow up to her smash hit The Joy of Cooking, Rombauer sets her sights on the housewife in a hurry. Recipes include canned, packaged, or frozen ingredients and she shares techniques for cooking fresh foods in a flash. Although not particularly well received when it was published, many of the recipes show up in later editions of The Joy of Cooking. 

Come for: A remarkable snapshot of the US’s convenience food landscape in the 1930s 

Stay for: Rombauer’s direct and delightfully unapologetic style (see the anecdote about her manicurist on pg 13)