Practical Sanitary and Economic Cooking adapted to persons of moderate and small means. The Lomb Prize Essay.

[Rochester, NY]:: American Public Health Association, 1890., 1890. Small 8vo. xi, [1], 190 pp. Rear free endleaf excised. Original full mauve blind- and gilt-stamped cloth. Ownership signature of Arthur L. Frank. Very good. While Abel was living in Germany, she studied the latest European research on nutrition, and collected information about community kitchens - where basic prepared foods like soup and bread could be bought for pennies by local residents – and various consumer co-operatives. In 1888 she entered an essay contest sponsored by the American Public Health Association, a group of physicians, lawyers, teachers and others working for sanitary conditions and better hygiene. The subject was 'practical sanitary and economic cooking adapted to persons of moderate and small means,' and first prize, offered by Henry Lomb of Bausch & Lomb, was $ 500. Abel's submission, published in book form by the APHA (1890), was by far the best; the judges refused to award the second prize $ 200) to any of the others. Presenting the research into nutrition and digestion done by Dr. Atwater, Dr. Beaumont, and others, and combining it with her knowledge of community kitchens, she suggested a detailed approach on how to feed families inexpensively, and why selected foods would satisfy their nutritional needs. As the Journal of Home Economics said, at the time of Abel's death in 1938, "The movement which was later to be called home economics was making some headway, and Mrs. Abel's little volume was like a lamp in the wilderness showing the way through the darkness . . . for years an increasingly large number of teachers depended on it as a guide and its significance in the development of interest in nutrition and the preparation of food cannot be overestimated." – Anne-Marie Rachman, Michigan State University. REFERENCES: Brown 2172; Bitting p. 1.