Because Ideas Matter...
The faculty and staff of Butler University's College of Liberal
Arts and Sciences presents
Recommended Readings
Fannie's Last Supper:
Re-creating One Amazing Meal from Fannie Farmer's 1896
Cookbook
by Chris Kimball, New York: Hyperion, 2010
Reviewed by Jon Porter
Chris Kimball's delightfully over-the-top
Fannie's Last Supper: Re-creating One Amazing Meal from Fannie
Farmer's 1896 Cookbook is an account of his characteristically
meticulous, painstakingly tested, and frightfully expensive
re-creation of a twelve-course Christmas dinner with eight wines
for twelve guests, all prepared without most modern amenities in a
Victorian kitchen (complete with a cast iron Cyrus Carpenter № 7
coal cookstove, salvaged from the basement of Boston's exclusive St
Botolph Club, converted to burn wood, and installed in the
author's 1859 Boston town house). This is one of the finest
examples of food pornography I've ever encountered, and Kimball
clearly does not expect his readers to recreate parts of his
dinner; perhaps not all that surprising when one encounters his
recipe for mock turtle soup, which begins: "Split calf's head in
half, remove the brains (reserve for Crispy Brain Balls recipe) and
eyes (discard), cut out the tongue, and clean well, including the
nostrils." (The recipe for Crispy Brain Balls is available on the
book's website, www.fannieslastsupper.com). Part history and part
investigative food journalism, Fannie's Last Supper is a
fascinating voyage through the Victorian kitchen and the American
table.
- Jon Porter is an Instructor in the interdisciplinary Global
and Historical Studies at Butler University.