94 DECEMBER 2018
ESSAY
HERE’S A GOETHE QUOTE at the
beginning of Joy of Cooking,
and it’s understandable if you’ve
skipped over it leafing toward
your go-to recipe for Country
Captain, blender hollandaise, or
lemon bars. But the quote means something
to the Rombauer-Becker family, so indulge
them (and me) for a moment and take it in:
“hat which thy fathers have bequeathed to
thee, earn it anew if thou wouldst possess it.”
hat might not seem especially joyful—nor
related to cooking—but think about the copy you
have in your possession. (With 18 million copies in print, you
almost certainly have one.) How did your Joy become yours?
he 1943 edition in my home belonged to my husband’s
grandmother and has the duct-taped cover and penciled-in
notes to prove it. We also have twin comb-bound copies of the
1997 edition, presents from friends or relatives as we each left
our childhood homes. Joy is a standard gift for brides and
grooms, graduates, first-time renters and homeowners—a
building block for a happy, nourishing life. It’s an unexpected
legacy for a book that sprung out of tragedy.JOHN BECKER AND MEGAN SCOTT are the present-day stewards
of Joy. he Portland, Oregon, couple is writing and editing the
next edition of the cookbook, which is slated for publication
in 2019. hey are proud, protective, and a little apprehensive
about the task at hand: Besides being a book that generations
have held dear, it also brought them together as a couple.
Megan first cracked open a copy of Joy one summer during
college, when she had a kitchen of her own for the first time. “I
had not grown up with Joy, but I knew that it was the bible for
cooking,” she recalls. When she returned to school in Asheville,
North Carolina, a colleague at Greenlife Grocery’s bakery told
her a member of the family behind the cookbook was on staff
at the coffee shop she frequented. She headed over to the
Dripolator Coffeehouse and asked the barista if this was true.
John turned beet red. He had noticed Megan at the bakery,
and his coworkers at the coffeehouse suggested that he ask out
the very nice “cheddar-scallion biscuit girl” (no one knew her
name, just that they loved those biscuits she made), but he had
yet to make a move.T
Megan asked John out, and soon after, he cooked a meal of
coq au vin for her. Within a week, Megan moved in. “It was
really fast,” she says. “I definitely broke a lot of my own rules
about, like, getting close, but when you know, you know.”
John knew it, too, and was grateful for the clarity. His own
path to Joy had been murkier up to that point. he cookbook
had been the family business since 1931, when his great-
grandmother, Irma Rombauer, self-published the first edition
of 3,000 copies using half of her $6,000 savings. his was, to
some in her circle, a baffling choice for a Depression-era
housewife known for her sparkling hosting skills but not her
culinary ambition. hen again, who was going to question her?
Her husband, Edgar, a prominent St. Louis lawyer who suffered
vicious bouts of depression throughout their marriage, had
killed himself shortly after Black Tuesday, leaving her in dire
financial straits. Irma lashed a life together from what she’d
always trusted: her remarkable wit, crowd-pleasing recipes,
and a social circle she could count on to buy copies. By most
accounts, she didn’t find particular rapture in the act of cooking,
but she liked showing people how to whip dishes together
quickly and get back to the party.
By 1936, the book attracted a publisher, Bobbs-Merrill (which
gave the smart but perhaps naive businesswoman a lemon of
a contract that persisted for decades). Irma devised a
groundbreaking “action” method of recipe writing that worked
the ingredients list into the step-by-step instructions, and the
book was a stunning success. Its eight subsequent editions (see
“90 Years of Joy,” p. 99) took into account wartime rationing,
technological breakthroughs (oh, how the Rombauer-Beckers
loved their blenders), new cultural influences, and shifting
perspectives toward nutrition. By 1951, Irma’s daughter, Marion,Joy of Cooking author
Irma Rombauer
(left) and her
daughter, MarionPHOTOGRAPHY: COURTESY THE JOY OF COOKING