Prepared in Cincinnati, 'Joy of Cooking' books helped novice cooks make soufflés

Every home in America seems to have a copy of “The Joy of Cooking.”

At a time when cookbooks mostly had fancy recipes by famous gourmets, this was the first cookbook for Middle America, written by an amateur cook in a folksy, practical manner.

The first edition, self-published by Irma S. Rombauer in 1931, contained 500 kitchen-tested recipes from which “inexperienced cooks cannot fail to make successful soufflés, pies, cakes, soups, gravies, etc., if they follow the clear instructions given to these subjects.”

“The Joy of Cooking” has been continuously in print since, selling 20 million copies.

Creating the book has been a family affair, now in the hands of the fourth generation. For two generations, the updated editions were assembled here in Cincinnati.

Sad origin of 'The Joy of Cooking'

Despite the name, “The Joy of Cooking” was born out of sadness and pain.

Rombauer, a St. Louis housewife, was 52 years old when her lawyer husband died by suicide in 1930.

Her children urged her to expand the recipe collection she had created for the local Women’s Alliance group into a cookbook. She did so, chiefly as a distraction from her unhappiness.

Her daughter, Marion Rombauer Becker, helped with testing recipes and created the book’s illustrations. Becker also designed the original cover depicting St. Martha of Bethany, the protector of cooks, driving back the mythical beast Tarasque.

Irma paid $3,000 (roughly $60,000 today) to print 3,000 copies of her book. It quickly sold out. So, she found traditional publisher Bobbs-Merrill Co. to publish a new edition in 1936. Inexperience led Rombauer to ink a deal that also gave away the rights to the first edition.

What set “The Joy of Cooking” apart was Rombauer’s concise, yet personal style and what is known as the action method. Instead of listing the ingredients first, then the instructions, Rombauer wrote it all in a conversational tone, introducing the ingredients in bold in each step along the way.

Favorite recipes named for Cincinnati house

Rombauer wanted to keep the cookbook in the family, so she had a clause added to her contract naming her daughter Becker as her successor. The two were listed as co-authors of the 1951 edition. Resisting the push to use photographs, they recruited a new illustrator, Art Academy of Cincinnati graduate Ginnie Hofmann.

The 1962 edition, published a year after Rombauer’s death, was the first edited by Becker. She shifted the recipes away from the canned goods and leftovers of the Great Depression to more on whole grains and fresh produce.

Another addition was a way of notating her favorite recipes.

Becker wrote in the introduction: “Finally, in response to many requests from users of ‘The Joy’ who ask ‘What are your favorites?’ we have added to some of our recipes the word ‘Cockaigne,’ which signified in medieval times ‘a mythical land of peace and plenty,’ and also happens to be the name of our country home.”

Thus, her recipe for “Cincinnati Chili Cockaigne” was a favorite – and controversially includes chocolate as an ingredient.

The country home she mentioned was located off Newtown Road in Anderson Township. Becker moved to Cincinnati in 1932, then married architect John Becker, who designed their home himself in the modern Bauhaus style, a rectangular house of white stucco with flat roofs.

Becker assembled the 1951, 1962 and 1975 editions of “Joy of Cooking” (“the” was dropped from the title) in that house. The 1975 edition was the biggest seller, spanning more than 1,000 pages with 4,300 recipes.

She was noted locally for her conservation work and co-wrote “Wild Wealth,” a book on wild plants and flowers, with Frances Jones Poetker, the former owner and operator of Jones the Florist. Becker also served as the director of the Cincinnati Modern Art Society, which became the Contemporary Arts Center.

Her death on Dec. 28, 1976, prompted an Enquirer editorial: “From art to horticulture, from politics to education, from conservation to housing – there was scarcely a worthwhile cause in Cincinnati to which she did not contribute her time, her energies and her boundless talents.”

Her son, Ethan Becker, took over the “Cockaigne” estate and stewardship of “Joy of Cooking.” More than 20 years passed before a new edition was published in 1997, ghostwritten by teams of expert chefs.

Moving to Tennessee in 2004, Ethan Becker sold the family home to a developer, who tore it down to build new houses.

“With no fanfare and barely a goodbye, a legacy is leaving us,” Enquirer reporter Chuck Martin wrote.

The most recent edition of “Joy of Cooking,” published in 2019, was edited by Irma’s great-grandson, John Becker, and his wife, Megan Scott, of Portland, Oregon.

Sources: “Little Acorn: The Story Behind The Joy of Cooking, 1931-1966” by Marion Rombauer Becker, “Stand Facing the Stove: The Story of the Women Who Gave America The Joy of Cooking” by Anne Mendelson, Enquirer and Cincinnati Post archives, Wikipedia, Cincinnati Magazine.

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: The sad origin story of the famous 'Joy of Cooking' cookbooks