╔PARA ┴PAR@ ` yTEXT ` kRombauer, Irma von Starkloff
1877╨1962
cookery expert
Born in St. Louis on October 30, 1877, Irma von Starkloff was educated in private schools in Switzerland. In October 1899 she married Edgar R. Rombauer, a lawyer. In the course of her early married life she developed an interest in cooking, an unusual leaning in that day for one of her social standing, and the Rombauer home soon became known for its fine table. In 1931, after her husband had died and her children had left home, she compiled and had privately printed a small volume of favorite recipes called The Joy of Cooking. The brisk sales of the book induced her to rewrite and expand it, and in 1936 a trade edition was published. The popularity of the book warranted revised editions in 1943, 1951, and 1953, the last with the aid of her daughter, Marion Rombauer Becker. By that time The Joy of Cooking had sold over 1.3 million copies. Subsequent editions continued to appear and to include up-to-date information on new foods and new kitchen processes.
The book╒s enormous success in the highly competitive field of cookbooks was traceable to its wealth of basic information on foods, measurements, menu planning, and the like, to its explicitly written, step-by-step instructions, and to the variety and time-tested reliability of its recipes. Numbers of professional chefs and authors of rival cookbooks attested to its virtual indispensability. Rombauer also wrote a Cookbook for Girls and Boys, 1946, and contributed to newspapers and magazines. She died in St. Louis on October 14, 1962. By 1975 The Joy of Cooking had sold more than 8.9 million copies.
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