Henriette Schønberg Erken

Maren Caroline Henriette Schønberg Erken (6 November 1866 – 22 October 1953) was a Norwegian cookbook writer and teacher of home economics. A Norwegian newspaper included her in its list of the 100 most important Norwegians of the last 200 years.

Early life, education and career in home economics Henriette Schønberg Erken's home economics school in Homansbyen, Oslo. C. 1905

Erken was born Schønberg in Christiania (now Oslo). Her father, Edvard Schønberg, was a professor of medicine who emphasized the importance of food. Her mother was an accomplished cook from whom Henriette first learned to prepare food.

Erken obtained a teaching position at a girls' school in 1893. To improve her qualifications, she took courses in home economics in Norway and later studied cookery in Berlin and Edinburgh.

She married Albert Erken, an officer, in 1901. After living in Levanger in central Norway from 1904 to 1905, where Henriette organized home economics courses, they settled on a farm in Vang Municipality in eastern Norway. There, Henriette began offering home economics education. She provided courses for future housewives (Norwegian: husmorskole) and a school for aspiring home economics teachers. She also gave lectures and demonstrations across the country, which she continued after closing her educational programs in 1927. Her presentations often focused on preparing food using inexpensive Norwegian products like milk and fish.

Publications

Her first cookbook, co-authored with Caroline Steen Kogebog for skole og hjem, was published in 1895.

Erken's book Stor Kokebok (English: Big Cookbook) was first published in 1914. The book had 700 pages and saw 18 new editions until 1951. In total, it sold more than 200,000 copies.

Awards and legacy Erken was awarded the King's Medal of Merit in gold in 1916.

While her big cookbook was promoted as being based on recipes developed in Erken's kitchen, food columnist and chef Andreas Viestad has speculated that parts of her books were copied from foreign cookbooks. As an example, he cites her comprehensive instructions on how to kill and prepare a turtle for soup, questioning whether live turtles existed in Norway at that time.