Hello Historic Food Friends,

I am in search of information regarding the late Miss Maria Parloa.
Any information leading to personal papers, books or other curious
facts would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Amy Sherwood


Here is a basic blur...

Maria Paloa was on of the most popular cooking teachers and cookbook
authors of the nineteenth century, was born in Massachusetts and
orphaned sometime in her youth. Parloa became one of the original
instructors at Boston Cooking School in March 1879. She was also a
highly succesful magazine journalist. Beginning in 1891, she wrote
regularly for the ladies'Home Journal, of which she was also part
owner. Ellen Richards, the "mother of home ec" and trained chemist who
was the first women let into MIT, credits Maria for encouraging her
work and curriculum development in home economics. This work led to
the creation of the American Home Economics Association.

Amy -- Maria Parloa was the oldest and most respected of the generation of
domestic scientists that began with her and ended with Fannie Farmer. She
was active for quite a long time -- I have a culinary ms. of notes from her
courses of 1896 or so. Her first book was the Appledore Cook Book in the
early 1870s, based on her cooking at a prestigious NH resort. Her _New Cook
Book and Marketing Guide, available on the internet at both Gutenberg and
MSU, is richly illustrated and collects a lot of New England Home cooking.
She illustrated the cuts of a side of beef as butchered in Boston and again
as done in New York City. Few of these cuts are still sold under the same
names from either city. She also wrote a non-cooking book on Home Economics,
with illustrations of model kitchens and such. She wrote a book on "Camp
Cooking" which is short and where some comments indicate that Miss Parloa
had never actually camped. Her later works are commercial, for various
manufacturers, perhaps best for the Walter Baker chocolate company, as she
spans the birth of chocolate cakes and cookies.


--
-Mark H. Zanger, webmaster and chair of the 2005 Banquet Committee, Culinary
Historians of Boston;
author, The American History Cookbook, The American Ethnic Cookbook for
Students
www.ethnicook.com
www.historycook.com



> wrote in message
oups.com...
> Hello Historic Food Friends,
>
> I am in search of information regarding the late Miss Maria Parloa.
> Any information leading to personal papers, books or other curious
> facts would be appreciated.
>
> Thanks,
> Amy Sherwood
>
>
> Here is a basic blur...
>
> Maria Paloa was on of the most popular cooking teachers and cookbook
> authors of the nineteenth century, was born in Massachusetts and
> orphaned sometime in her youth. Parloa became one of the original
> instructors at Boston Cooking School in March 1879. She was also a
> highly succesful magazine journalist. Beginning in 1891, she wrote
> regularly for the ladies'Home Journal, of which she was also part
> owner. Ellen Richards, the "mother of home ec" and trained chemist who
> was the first women let into MIT, credits Maria for encouraging her
> work and curriculum development in home economics. This work led to
> the creation of the American Home Economics Association.
>