Irma Rombauer
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Irma Rombauer (, October 30, 1877 – October 14, 1962) was an American
cookbook A cookbook or cookery book is a kitchen reference containing recipes. Cookbooks may be general, or may specialize in a particular cuisine or category of food. Recipes in cookbooks are organized in various ways: by course (food), course (appetize ...
author, best known for ''
The Joy of Cooking ''Joy of Cooking'', often known as "''The Joy of Cooking''", is one of the United States' most-published cookbooks. It has been in print continuously since 1936 and has sold more than 20 million copies. It was published privately during 1931 b ...
'' (1931), one of the world's most widely read cookbooks. Following Irma Rombauer's death, periodic revisions of the book were carried out by her daughter, Marion Rombauer Becker, and subsequently by Marion's son Ethan Becker. ''The Joy of Cooking'' remains in print, edited by members of the Rombauer–Becker family, and more than 18 million copies have been sold.


Early life

Irma von Starkloff was born on October 30, 1877, in
St. Louis St. Louis ( , sometimes referred to as St. Louis City, Saint Louis or STL) is an independent city in the U.S. state of Missouri. It lies near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a populatio ...
,
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, the younger of two daughters born to Dr. Hugo von Starkloff, a German-born physician, and his second wife, Emma Kuhlmann von Starkloff, a teacher who also hailed from Germany. Her half-brother was Max C. Starkloff, the St. Louis Health Commissioner who introduced
social distancing In public health, social distancing, also called physical distancing, (NB. Regula Venske is president of the PEN Centre Germany.) is a set of non-pharmaceutical interventions or measures intended to prevent the spread of a contagious dise ...
during the
1918 flu pandemic The 1918–1920 flu pandemic, also known as the Great Influenza epidemic or by the common misnomer Spanish flu, was an exceptionally deadly global influenza pandemic caused by the Influenza A virus subtype H1N1, H1N1 subtype of the influenz ...
. Irma's father was active in civic and political affairs; between 1889 and 1894 he served as the United States Consul in
Bremen Bremen (Low German also: ''Breem'' or ''Bräm''), officially the City Municipality of Bremen (, ), is the capital of the States of Germany, German state of the Bremen (state), Free Hanseatic City of Bremen (), a two-city-state consisting of the c ...
, and during his tenure Irma received some informal education there and in
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, Switzerland. Upon returning to the United States, she took classes in fine arts at
Washington University in St. Louis Washington University in St. Louis (WashU) is a private research university in St. Louis, Missouri, United States. Founded in 1853 by a group of civic leaders and named for George Washington, the university spans 355 acres across its Danforth ...
in 1897.Papers of the Rombauer–Becker Family, 1795–1992.Schlesinger Library
Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University.
She frequently traveled to visit relatives in Indianapolis, where she met and was briefly courted by the young
Booth Tarkington Newton Booth Tarkington (July 29, 1869 – May 19, 1946) was an American novelist and dramatist best known for his novels ''The Magnificent Ambersons'' (1918) and ''Alice Adams (novel), Alice Adams'' (1921). He is one of only four novelists to w ...
. The family opposed the match, however, and in 1899 Irma married Edgar Rombauer, a lawyer whose father was a St. Louis judge who had clerked for Supreme Court Justice John Harlan. The couple's first child, Roland, was born in 1900 but died before his first birthday. The two children who followed lived to adulthood: Marion was born in 1903, and Edgar Jr. (known as "Put") was born in 1907. During the first 30 years of her marriage, Irma Rombauer busied herself with the activities of civic and cultural organizations, and she took pleasure in entertaining, from simple luncheons for members of the women's associations to which she belonged to more formal dinners for civic leaders and political associates of her husband, who became Speaker of the St. Louis House of Delegates. She possessed a sparkling personality that served her well as a hostess. Her biographer wrote, "No one could be long in her diminutive presence without sensing an air of concentrated intelligence, strength, self-possession, charm, and dignity that seemed to sweep all before it—except that she knew how to soften it with disarming feminine self-deprecation and sheer fun." As a cook, she was competent, but not extraordinary, although she showed considerable skill at making and decorating cakes. Her daughter Marion described her priorities:
Mother's early housekeeping days...gave little evidence of culinary prowess... Indeed, it is an open secret that Mother, to the very end of her life, regarded social intercourse as more important than food. The dinner table, in our childhood, frequently suggested a lectern rather than a buffet. What I remember better than the dishes it upheld—which, I must admit, constantly improved in quality—was the talk which went 'round it, talk which burst forth out of our richly multiple interests..
Through much of his adult life, Edgar Rombauer suffered periodic bouts of severe depression. He experienced one of these attacks in the winter of 1929-30 and had seemed to be recovering, but on February 3, 1930, he committed suicide, leaving his wife emotionally shattered and in dire financial straits. The Great Depression had been triggered by the stock market crash just three months earlier, Irma was 52 years old, had no job, and had savings amounting only to $6,000, . Her son Put had moved to Florida, and Marion was planning to be married and would soon leave home. It was clear that Irma would need to find something to occupy her mind and provide an income. Her solution was characteristically impulsive and bold. To the bewilderment of many who knew her, she announced that she was going to write a cookbook.


''Joy of Cooking''

The earliest origins of the material in ''Joy of Cooking'' are unclear. Marion considered that it evolved from a collection of recipes supposedly used by her mother as part of a cooking course for the First Unitarian Women's Alliance but later research raises questions about Marion's recollection, with no indication that the
mimeograph A mimeograph machine (often abbreviated to mimeo, sometimes called a stencil duplicator or stencil machine) is a low-cost duplicating machine that works by forcing ink through a stencil onto paper. The process is called mimeography, and a co ...
s of the Women's Alliance recipes pre-dated the first edition of ''Joy''. It is certain that Rombauer solicited from numerous friends and family members many of the recipes that she assembled under the title ''The Joy of Cooking: A Compilation of Reliable Recipes, with a Casual Culinary Chat.'' Marion designed a cover and provided silhouette chapter headings, and 3000 copies of the book were printed by the A. C. Clayton Company, a commercial printer of labels and packaging materials that had never before printed a book. The ''St. Louis Post Dispatch'' covered the book's 1931 launch with an enthusiastic feature article in which the reviewer remarked, "It does not insult my intelligence." With help from Marion, Rombauer sold copies personally and had copies placed in bookstores and gift shops throughout
St. Louis St. Louis ( , sometimes referred to as St. Louis City, Saint Louis or STL) is an independent city in the U.S. state of Missouri. It lies near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a populatio ...
and as far away as
Michigan Michigan ( ) is a peninsular U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, Upper Midwestern United States. It shares water and land boundaries with Minnesota to the northwest, Wisconsin to the west, ...
and
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, and by the summer of 1932 roughly two-thirds of the original print run of 3000 copies had been sold. It was the "casual culinary chat" that provided the book's major selling point. Rombauer added to the basic recipes bits of humor, friendly advice and homely anecdotes, projecting into the pages the same effervescent personality that had made her so successful as a hostess. A later cookbook author, Molly Finn, summed it up in these words:
The best thing about ''The Joy of Cooking'', however, is the voice of its author, Irma Rombauer. She engages in a constant dialogue with her readers, telling stories about herself and her family, sprinkling the text with genuine witticisms and excruciatingly corny puns, and making sure everybody knows that cooking is not an occult science or esoteric art, but part of the everyday work of the vast majority of women (and a few men) that can be turned into fun with her help.
The success of the initial ''Joy'' encouraged Rombauer to seek an established publisher for an expanded edition. For several years her inquiries brought only rejection letters; but in 1935 her manuscript was accepted (on the third submission) by the
Bobbs-Merrill Company The Bobbs-Merrill Company was an American book publisher active from 1850 until 1985, and located in Indianapolis, Indiana. Company history The Bobbs-Merrill Company began in 1850 October 3 when Samuel Merrill bought an Indianapolis bookstore ...
, an
Indianapolis Indianapolis ( ), colloquially known as Indy, is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Indiana, most populous city of the U.S. state of Indiana and the county seat of Marion County, Indiana, Marion ...
-based firm specializing in legal publications, children's literature, and trade books. They had limited experience with cookbooks, and Rombauer knew nothing about dealing with publishers. She represented herself in the negotiations, without help from an agent or a lawyer, and the resulting contract was highly prejudicial to her interests, planting the seeds for an author-publisher relationship that brought misery and rage to both sides, up to and beyond the end of Rombauer's life. However, Bobbs-Merrill mounted a vigorous sales campaign on behalf of ''Joy'', and the 1936 edition sold 6,838 copies within six months, on its way to an edition total of 52,151. The 1936 edition retained the author's anecdotes and witty comments (at Rombauer's insistence, despite Bobbs-Merrill's desire to cut them), and it added a new selling point in the format of its recipes. Traditionally recipes begin with a list of ingredients, after which come the preparation instructions. The 1936 ''Joy'' pioneered a different layout, in which the directions unfolded as a narrative, with ingredients being listed (indented and in boldface type) as the need for them arose. This "action format" reinforced the chatty "Irmaisms" to suggest that the recipes were really just conversations between the author and the book's user. In 1939, Rombauer published ''Streamlined Cooking'', featuring dishes that could be created in less than 30 minutes. The target audience included working women, students, vacationers, and campers, and, indeed, men pressed into a domestic version of
KP duty KP duty means "kitchen police" or "kitchen patrol" work under the kitchen staff assigned to junior U.S. enlisted military personnel. "KP" can be either the work or the personnel assigned to perform such work. In the latter sense it can be used ...
. For this population, speed and ease of preparation overrode other considerations, and the book's recipes made generous use of canned, packaged, and frozen ingredients. While the book was not a commercial success, a number of its recipes found their way into the phenomenally successful 1943 edition of ''Joy''. The 1943 edition boasted no innovation as revolutionary as the "action method" format introduced in 1936, but in addition to the recipes from ''Streamlined'' it included material on "herbs, nutritional tallies for common foods, cooking terms, table settings, and the serving of wines" and provided suggestions for dealing with wartime rationing, including alternatives to butter in some recipes. Also, the book's friendly, reassuring tone provided a form of relief to readers buffeted by "the hot and cold conflicts which raged outside its cozy covers...especially the 'War Bride. The resulting edition, aggressively marketed by Bobbs-Merrill, became a national bestseller. Between 1943 and 1946, ''Joy'' sold 617,782 copies, far surpassing sales of its principal rival, Fannie Farmer's ''
Boston Cooking-School Cook Book The ''Boston Cooking-School Cook Book'' (1896) by Fannie Farmer is a 19th-century general reference cookbook which is still available both in reprint and in updated form. It was particularly notable for a more rigorous approach to recipe writin ...
''. A 1946 reprint of the same edition deleted the material on rationing (substituting more recipes from ''Streamlined'') but was otherwise nearly identical. Also appearing in 1946 was an entirely new title: a children's cookbook written by Irma called ''A Cookbook for Girls and Boys''. By the mid-1940s Rombauer had become a national celebrity, a status in which she delighted. She also had more than enough income, and was able to provide some financial assistance to her children, and to pay more generously Mazie Whyte Hartrich, the secretary who had faithfully typed all of her manuscripts. But by the time the 1946 edition was printed, Rombauer was nearing 70, and her health was beginning to decline. A series of family crises and tragedies compounded the perpetual warfare with Bobbs-Merrill to leave Rombauer feeling weakened and concerned about the future of ''Joy''. Deciding that she would need a collaborator for the next edition, and hoping that the book would remain a family project, she asked her daughter Marion to help her with the next version of the text, and she negotiated a clause in her contract with Bobbs-Merrill specifying that Marion was to have sole authority to complete future revisions of ''Joy'' in the event of Rombauer's disability or death. Rombauer's daughter Marion initially worked primarily on the artistic design of the upcoming revision, but by 1949 she had become deeply involved in the negotiations with Bobbs-Merrill. She had no better luck dealing with the publisher than had her mother, and as author-publisher relations sank to a new low (involving legal threats), Marion assumed responsibility as co-author. The revised edition appeared in 1951 (with subsequent printings in 1952 and 1953 correcting errors and improving the index). It was both a critical and commercial success: in 1952 alone 201,394 copies were sold. Following the publication of the 1951 edition of ''Joy'', Rombauer was able to enjoy her status as "one of the eternal verities of American cooking". She and her daughter made frequent trips to New York where they were welcomed by a circle which included food writers
Cecily Brownstone Cecily Brownstone (18 April 1909 – 30 August 2005) was a Canadian-born American food writer, who wrote several cookbooks and articles about food over a period of 39 years. She was the Associated Press Food Editor from 1947 to 1986—for th ...
and
Jane Nickerson Jane Nickerson (May 19, 1916 ''–'' February 27, 2000) was an American food writer, newspaper editor, cookbook editor, and restaurant critic. She created the position of food editor at ''The New York Times'' and was instrumental in the professi ...
, and chefs
James Beard James Andrews Beard (May 5, 1903 – January 21, 1985) was an American chef, cookbook author, teacher and television personality. He pioneered television cooking shows, taught at The James Beard Cooking School in New York City and Seaside ...
, Marian Tracy, and Helmut Rippenger. Rombauer undertook a tour of Europe with Mark Becker, her grandson, during which she met
Julia Child Julia Carolyn Child (Birth name#Maiden and married names, née McWilliams; August 15, 1912 – August 13, 2004) was an American chef, author, and television personality. She is recognized for having brought French cuisine to the American pu ...
, a faithful fan of ''Joy''. Although Rombauer suffered some digestive disorders and tired easily, her health at this time was good for a woman now in her mid-seventies. Rombauer had started work on a history of her life when she suffered a stroke on May 26, 1955. While she quickly regained most of her physical and mental abilities, it was followed the next year by a more severe stroke, which caused progressive physical degeneration, and also resulted in extreme irritability, causing her to periodically lash out at those with whom she interacted, particularly Marion (who was herself recovering from a mastectomy). Rombauer's health continued to deteriorate during the next few years. By 1962 she was suffering a series of seizures, her left leg had become paralyzed and eventually had to be amputated.


Personal life

On October 14, 1899, Rombauer married Edgar Roderich Rombauer. They had three children, Roland Rombauer (1900–1901), Marion J. Rombauer (1903–1976) and Edgar H. Rombauer Jr (1907-1999). On October 14, 1962, Rombauer died in
St. Louis St. Louis ( , sometimes referred to as St. Louis City, Saint Louis or STL) is an independent city in the U.S. state of Missouri. It lies near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a populatio ...
,
Missouri Missouri (''see #Etymology and pronunciation, pronunciation'') is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking List of U.S. states and territories by area, 21st in land area, it border ...
. She was 84 years old. Rombauer was cremated and her ashes were buried at
Bellefontaine Cemetery Bellefontaine Cemetery is a nonprofit, non-denominational cemetery and arboretum in St. Louis, Missouri. Founded in 1849 as a rural cemetery, Bellefontaine has several architecturally significant monuments and mausoleums such as the Louis Su ...
in
St. Louis St. Louis ( , sometimes referred to as St. Louis City, Saint Louis or STL) is an independent city in the U.S. state of Missouri. It lies near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a populatio ...
,
Missouri Missouri (''see #Etymology and pronunciation, pronunciation'') is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking List of U.S. states and territories by area, 21st in land area, it border ...
.


Recognitions and honors

On February 23, 1956, Rombauer received a Founder's Day Award from Washington University, where she had attended classes in 1897, although she did not complete a degree program. In 1998, Rombauer was inducted into the
St. Louis Walk of Fame The St. Louis Walk of Fame honors notable people from St. Louis, Missouri, who made contributions to the culture of the United States. All inductees were either born in the Greater St. Louis area or spent their formative or creative years ther ...
. Rombauer was portrayed by
Frances Sternhagen Frances Hussey Sternhagen (January 13, 1930 – November 27, 2023) was an American actress. She was known as a character actress who appeared on- and off-Broadway, in movies, and on television for over six decades.Joy, Car"Frances Sternhagen i ...
in the 2009 film ''
Julie & Julia ''Julie & Julia'' is a 2009 American biographical comedy drama film written and directed by Nora Ephron starring Meryl Streep and Amy Adams in the title roles with Stanley Tucci, Chris Messina, and Linda Emond in supporting roles. The film ...
''.


Notes


References


External links


Biography by Rombauer's daughter.
Part of a series of Notable American Unitarian biographies. Includes online-accessible excerpts from ''Little Acorn'' and a brief essay by Molly Finn.
Papers of the Rombauer-Becker Family, 1795–1992.Schlesinger Library
Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University.
St. Louis Walk of Fame at stlouiswalkoffame.org (archived)

The Starkloff Family: Independent from Start at stlmag.com

4th Generation at jsonline.com

Cincinnati, Bauhaus Architecture & The Joy of Cooking
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rombauer, Irma S. 1877 births 1962 deaths American people of German descent American food writers Writers from St. Louis Washington University in St. Louis alumni American cookbook writers Burials at Bellefontaine Cemetery American women food writers American women non-fiction writers 20th-century American women writers 20th-century American non-fiction writers Mary Institute and St. Louis Country Day School alumni