‘Brownie’ Schrumpf cited in Press Herald story on origins of the dessert
In a story celebrating National Brownie Day, the Portland Press Herald noted it was former University of Maine instructor Mildred Brown “Brownie” Schrumpf who contended, for years, that Maine invented the yummy dessert. Over her roughly 70-year career, Schrumpf, who died in 2001 at age 98, taught home economics at UMaine and camp cookery to foresters through the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Extension Service. Schrumpf also ran 4-H programs, tested gas stoves and wrote a food column for the Bangor Daily News. As the Press Herald reports, Schrumpf cited a 1912 cookbook recipe for brownies, known at the time as “Bangor Brownies,” as proof that the dessert originated in Maine. But the newspaper goes on to note that recipes for Bangor Brownies were found in other community cookbooks around 1904.