46 of 46 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Very comprehensive! I'm impressed., January 6, 2002
This review is from: Hungary (Culinaria) (Hardcover)
Very comprehensive! I'm impressed.
I purchased this cook book for my father as a Christmas gift. My father is from Serbia. His mother came from small town nestled between Hungary and Romania called Novi Knezavac, so Hungarian cooking was very much apart of my fathers family upbringing. This cookbook was the perfect gift for him.
The book is comprehensive, in that it explains the differences and origins of certain ingredients, like peppers, and ground paprikas. I know my father only cooks stuffed peppers in Toronto when he is able to find certain stores in the city that carry Hungarian peppers towards the late summer and early fall seasons. There is a very good reason for that... and the book explains this. Some peppers hold their shapes better during cooking, but more importantly some don't over power the dish as virtually all other peppers would. The book also talks about many other ingredients such as plum brandy (and how it's made), cheeses, wines, and wild mushrooms etc etc.
"Terroir" is a word the French use to describe how the natural characteristics of a place influences the taste of whatever is grown there. This term is certainly not lost in this cookbook. Whether it be the cherries, apricots, plums, paprikas, wines or even wild mushrooms, this book describes the different varieties that are found throughout Hungary.
This book is a gem. Of special note are the recipes for goulash, dumplings, strudels, sauerkraut, beigels (walnut or poppy seed loafs), or my all time favorite cake "Dobos torta". The first time I had Dobos torta was in a Opatija Croatia back in 1965. I fell in love with this cake. There are perhaps only 5 bakeries in Toronto that make this classic cake. I only have one very old French cookbook that has a recipe for it... and at that there is only one picture. Well to my surprise this book has 15 pictures of the finished cake and photo's of how it's made. I've been looking for a comprehensive recipe for this torta for years. To my surprise this book has the best one I've ever seen. Not only that... the origins or history of this cake is in this book too. My fathers family had always known this cake was from Hungary... but no one seemed to know how it got it's name. My late uncle said it was derived from the word "drum" or "dob" in Hungarian, because the caramel topping when hard looks like the skin of a drum. Well this commonly believed story is not true. The cake is named after a late 19th century master chef called Jozsef C. Dobos. His famous recipe for the cake was passed onto the Budapest Trade Association after his retirement in 1906. So this famous torta, popular with the Austrian royal family finally became known to the world... a very interesting story behind the creation of one of Europe's classic cakes. This is just one of many tidbits this book contains.
The book contains a great deal of very colourful and beautiful photographs (a must for a good cookbook). To sum it up... this cookbook is one of the best I've purchased in years. If you are serious about Hungarian cuisine. Then this book is for you.
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31 of 31 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Culinaria Hungary, March 21, 2000
By A Customer
This review is from: Hungary (Culinaria) (Hardcover)
What an amazing book.I would give it a sixth star if I could. I grow up in Hungary and left the country 15 years ago. I have been searching high an low for a good cookbook.This is the one. But this book is so much more than a cookbook. The whole hungarian foodculture is there,the traditions, everything. I warmly recommend it to anyone who wants to try the hungarian cousine and are ready to learn a little bit about the country as well.
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22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Outstanding!, May 22, 2000
This review is from: Hungary (Culinaria) (Hardcover)
Of all the central european gastronomies, I think that cuisine of Hungary is far and away the most intriguing, and this book offers a gorgeous and detailed look at the mystique of Magyar foodcraft. To be honest, even if you never tried any of the well-detailed recipes included in this book, it would well worth your money just for the breath-taking photography and cultural insights included. I plan to visit Hungary sometime in the next year, so we'll see how the recipes stack up against the genuine articles (I'm very optimistic, this book is really well done!) I'm looking forward to checking out other books of the Culinaria series.
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