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Irma Starkloff Rombauer was born in St. Louis, Missouri, United States, the daughter of Hugo Maximilian von Starkloff, a physician, and of Emma Kuhlmann. In 1889 she accompanied her parents to Europe, where her father served as American consul in Bremen, Germany.
Reared, as she once put it, "to be a 'young lady, '" she attended fashionable boarding schools in Lausanne and Geneva, became fluent in French and German, and spent much time traveling, going to the opera, visiting galleries, and writing letters - "all utterly delightful, " she recalled, "and almost useless from a practical standpoint. "In 1894 the family returned to St. Louis. For several years Irma studied drawing and painting at the School of Fine Arts of Washington University.
She married Edgar Rombauer, a lawyer, on October 14, 1899, they had three children. For the next thirty years Rombauer devoted herself to the roles of wife, mother, and hostess. As a bride she was admittedly even more "ignorant, helpless and awkward" around the kitchen than the average upper-middle-class woman of her generation. But memories of many wonderful meals in Europe and at family gatherings made her dissatisfied with the dreary, antiseptic fare prepared by her kitchen help. "In self-defense" Rombauer decided to try her hand at cooking. By trial and error, using recipes and techniques gleaned from relatives and friends, culled from newspapers and books, and pried out of secretive restaurant chefs, she taught herself to cook--but not before she had "placed many a burnt offering upon the altar of matrimony. " With an intellectual rather than an intuitive approach to food, Rombauer took copious notes on her successes and failures, recording the precise weights and measures of ingredients, oven temperatures, and cooking times in a manner similar to that of a scientist. She thereby built up a considerable store of virtually foolproof recipes that she gladly shared with friends and colleagues in the many civic and cultural organizations to which she belonged in St. Louis. In 1922, invited by the First Unitarian Women's Alliance to conduct a cooking class, she mimeographed a collection of seventy-three of her favorites, ranging from borscht to Spanish tripe, for the students. With her husband, who was active in Republican reform politics (he served for many years as president of the St. Louis Urban League and, for a brief term, as speaker of the city's House of Delegates), Rombauer spent nearly every summer vacation - except in 1925, when they traveled to Europe - in a rustic cabin in Bay View, Mich. There she and the children attended Chautauqua popular education classes while her husband spent his time fishing. Although the enjoyment of good food constituted an important part of her life, Rombauer was equally enthusiastic about good conversation, gardening, music, and the arts--enthusiasms that often transformed the family dinner into a colloquium on the latest novel or opera. Edgar Rombauer died in 1930, leaving Irma depressed and at loose ends. Partly to fill the void left by his death and partly to meet her children's request for a volume of cookery advice as they prepared to raise families of their own ("I realized, " she explained, "they didn't know how to poach an egg"), she began to elaborate upon the handout she had compiled for her cooking class. The result, entitled The Joy of Cooking, was printed at her own expense in 1931. It contained more than 500 recipes that ran the gamut from appetizers to desserts and a promise that "inexperienced cooks cannot fail to make successful souffles, pies, cakes, soups, gravies, etc. , if they follow the clear instructions given on these subjects. " The book sold fewer than 3, 000 copies. With the help of her daughter, Marion Rombauer Becker, who from the beginning tested and researched many of the dishes, Rombauer soon turned out an expanded manuscript that featured an innovative step-by-step recipe format embedded in a relaxed, humorous commentary about food and drink. "A turnip is not necessarily a depressant, " she wrote. "The novice should remember that there are bold mushroom hunters and old mushroom hunters, but no bold old mushroom hunters, " she warned. The enlarged book caught the attention of Lawrence Chambers, president of Bobbs-Merrill, who frequently dined at the home of Rombauer's Indianapolis relatives. Enchanted as much by the vivacity and wit of the author as by the scope and clarity of her work, he agreed to publish it. The first trade edition of Joy appeared in 1936; Streamlined Cooking, dealing with impromptu dining done on a potluck basis, followed in 1939. It was incorporated into a 1943 rewriting of Joy, a hefty tome that quickly became the best-selling cookbook in publishing history, eclipsing the record formerly held by Fannie Farmer's Boston Cooking School Cookbook. A third revision came out in 1946, as did Cookbook for Boys and Girls. The fourth edition, The New Joy of Cooking, appeared in 1951, with Rombauer's daughter cited as coauthor. By then Joy had grown into a legendary, awesome motherlode of culinary facts. Its 1, 000 pages were crammed with 4, 000 recipes and 150 explanatory drawings. It covered everything from how to prepare a beaver tail to cooking at high altitudes. Virtually no cook, beginner or experienced, felt secure without one to consult. One eloping bride is reported to have cabled her family: "Am married. Order announcements. Send me a Rombauer cookbook at once. " Even skilled French chefs were known to keep sauce-stained copies handy for emergencies, though carefully placed out of sight. Although a few food authorities faulted some of Rombauer's cooking techniques and shortcuts, complaining that they violated established culinary principles, only two buyers of the more than 6 million books sold during the author's lifetime ever took advantage of the publisher's money-back guarantee. Rombauer loved to travel in search of fresh ideas and original recipes. In 1954, after returning from Mexico, where she found cooks eager to confide their secrets to her but many of their dishes "too hot for comfort, " she suffered a stroke and withdrew from active collaboration on the book. Her last years were spent in bed at her St. Louis apartment, which housed a fine collection of American antiques, or at her country cottage in the Ozarks. Rombauer passed her days answering fan mail or thinking of new ways to enliven, yet simplify, old dishes. Under her daughter's direction Joy continued to be updated and enlarged, but some of Rombauer's ingratiating personal touch was lost in the process. Yet her larger accomplishment, taking the subject of everyday American home cooking and lifting it from the commonplace to the imaginative, remained.
Her husband was active in Republican reform politics (he served for many years as president of the St. Louis Urban League and, for a brief term, as speaker of the city's House of Delegates)
After a brief romance with the novelist Booth Tarkington, she married Edgar Rombauer, a lawyer, on October 14, 1899. They had three children. She died in St. Louis, Missouri, United States
With the help of her daughter, Marion Rombauer Becker, who from the beginning tested and researched many of the dishes, Rombauer soon turned out an expanded manuscript that featured an innovative step-by-step recipe format embedded in a relaxed, humorous commentary about food and drink.
she married Edgar Rombauer, a lawyer, on October 14, 1899.
