Customer Reviews

Yiddish Cuisine: A Gourmet Approach to Jewish Cooking

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book doesn't have the glossy pictures or fancy covers that you often see in cookbooks these days, but the content is superb. The recipes are beautiful, and strike me as authentic. The best part of the book, though, are the stories the author writes that put the food into the context of Ashkenazi Jewish culture. As a non-Jew, I found Sternberg's stories and sidebars both fascinating and intimate. I've other books on Jewish food, and this is the only one I use regularly.

I have enjoyed this book, both for its excellent recipes and its wonderful stories for about six years. Every recipe I've tried has been delicious (try the golden carrot soup -- you'll be hooked!). The stories, along with the incredible food, evoke a lost time and a lost civilization. It is a must have cookbook in every Jewish home, along with its companion "The Sephardic Kitchen."

This is a wonderful cookbook -- both for the recipes and for the rich cultural heritage it paints. We got this book half price a long time ago and liked it so much, we bought 8 more copies to give to friends and relatives. It's really that good.

Did your family eat prakke, holishkes, golobtzes, huloptches, or just staffed cabbage?? Read this book and learn what this means about your family's history. This book is complete. Let me put it this way; there are 22 noodle-kugel-lokshen recipes and 7, count them, 7 recipes for chicken soup in this definitive book of classic Ash-kenazic Jewish cuisine. He includes maps of the Yiddish speaking areas of Europe and a pronunciation guide. Not only is the book filled with recipes and Yiddish aphorisms, but the author analyzes the history of the Jews through their language and cuisine. For exmaple, in his analysis of Lithuania and Northern Poland (an area known as Litteh), the popular herbs are understated dill and sorrel. Salmon and herring were the fishes used, and the starch was potato. Thus Jews from the area made the best potato kugels. But for non-potato breads, the best Jewish area was the Ukraine, which perfected black breads, challahs and bagels. Beet borsht eaters were mainly in the Ukraine, fruit soup eaters were in Litteh. Get the idea? If your gefilte fish was peppery, think Litteh; if it was sugar sweet, think Galitzia and southern Poland and Hungary. Either way... u have good cooking ahead for u with this book

I have hundreds of cookbooks and dozens which contain Jewish and Yiddish recipes. This is the only Jewish cookbook I need! I purchased the book several years ago for my friends who are Parisian Jews and were having a difficult time finding Ashkenazi cookbooks in the Paris book shops. I have since purchased copies for myself and other friends. No matter the recipe I select, it is just like my Grandmother and Great Grandmother had prepared it! My father and cousins love everything I have prepared from this book. Even the simple recipes like the lokshen kugel with schmaltz is just like Bubbe made! The explanations are wonderful and I oft times find myself reading it just for the sake of enjoyment!

Many thanks for such a superb cookbook! It has brought a bit of nostalgia to my family table.

All recipes we have tried - and we have tried many - are excellent. The directions are detailed and the results are superb. Some recipes, the Bialysrtock-Style latkes, have become our family favorites.