The Yiddish Cookbook
Edited and translated by Bracha. B. Weingrod
Self-published, 2010. 154 pages.
Can be ordered at http/www.createspace.com/3457400 or through Amazon.com $19.99
Reviewed by Barbara Abraham

Bracha Weingrod has obviously devoted much time and effort to her translation of Dos Familien Kokh-Bookh by H. Braun. The original cookbook was written back in 1914 to assist East European Jewish women who had fled as immigrants to America with their families from the late 1800s to adapt their cooking habits to life and ingredients available in the shops and markets of their new abodes. The book and its fascinating contents can bring the reader back to those days and into the changing minds and attitudes of Jewish immigrant women.

As I turned the pages and read, the years turned back for me as well. I could imagine my own grandmother’s kitchen and not only the picture of the foods prepared appeared clearly in my mind but also the specific odors of cooking that wafted from her kitchen on a Friday.  There are descriptions of the preparation of gefilte fish balls, mincemeat khlops, mandel kuchen and strudel, which she too prepared. What also makes the book fascinating reading are the tips given to the then new American housewife to teach her how to cook and prepare food that is light, easy to digest and healthy to eat, using up-to-date equipment. This was an attempt to change some of the detrimental eating habits of the shtetel.

I doubt whether we would try the recipes ourselves, as our methods, tastes and eating habits have again been changed over the decades.  However, I recommend the book. Its contents are a record of culinary history. Many of the snippets of good advice still hold strong and the contents are indeed a “taste of history.”