Mildred Brown "Brownie" Schrumpf (January 24, 1903 – March 2, 2001) was an American home economist, food educator, and author.

[2] After graduating from Winthrop High School in 1921, Schrumpfh attended the University of Maine – the first person in her family to go to college – and earned a bachelor's degree in home economics in 1925.

[4][5] In the 1940s, Schrumpf worked for the United States Department of Agriculture Extension Service, giving demonstrations and classes and also teaching "camp cookery to forestry students".

Schrumpf began writing a weekly food column called "Brownie's Kitchen"[6] for the Bangor Daily News on August 31, 1951.

[2][7] Although she initially eschewed the use of ready-made ingredients, Schrumpf later printed recipes using convenience foods, which were included in her second cookbook collection, Memories from Brownie's Kitchen (1989).

[a] In its first edition (2007), The Oxford Companion to American Food and Drink refuted her premise that "Bangor housewives" had created the brownie.

[12] However, in its second edition (2013), The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America said it had discovered evidence to support Schrumpf's claim, in the form of several 1904 cookbooks that listed a recipe for "Bangor Brownies".