The Fabulous Fannie Farmer: Kitchen Scientist and America’s Cook by Emma Bland Smith and Illustrated by Susan Reagan

Fannie Farmer was a cook who pioneered standardizing recipes. She was the first to use proper measuring techniques and noticed that recipes came out consistently when this was done. She taught this method at a cooking school and wrote one of the first, and to this day, most popular cook books. Without her, we’d still be cooking with recipes that said “butter the size of an egg” and ridiculous measures like that.

I’d actually give this one to middle school Family and Consumer Science (or whatever you call it in your state) classes to show the history of modern cooking methods and teach why we measure. Of course, it would be good for young ones who like cooking too, or maybe a girl scout troop working on a cooking/baking badge.