The Books

In order not to let my blog die I decided to show some of the books from which I will draw some ideas. 

                                                      

The oldest one is "W staropolskiej kuchni" by Maria Lemnis and Henryk Vitry. I really enjoy this book as it contains legends and recipes from the 14th century (?!). Even though, the dishes which are described there, are quite similar to our contemporary Polish food. Of course, there are some differences, such as the way of preparing poultry. Nowadays, you just go to the shop or to your farmer (if you're eco-friendly) and simply buy a chicken. The book describes the tradition of feeding chicken with walnuts as it ensured a better taste of meat. Unfortunately, I will not be able to do such things, I have to rely on what I have at my fingertips which is pretty sad. One of my fav recipes is the one for "Kołduny litewskie" (a kind of Lithuanian meat dumplings). It's quite simple, and as the authors of the book claim: "it's a symbol of friendship between Poland and Lithuania".

Another good book is "Technologia Gastronomiczna". It's a book from the 80s and I would kill myself if I lost it. It's one of those books which aren't in bookstores anymore. It includes technical tips about food preperation (plus some recipes) and I guess it's quite uncommon in contemporary cooking books. You may find the whole instruction how to prepare the fish or how to organize your workplace when you want to make a cream puff. An interesting detail of this book is the place of publishing: DDR (German Democratic Republic)

      

The rest of the books are those for baking. The one in English "Glorious Cakes" was bought in the secondhand shop. I really like the recipes there however it has one big fault: it has a recipe for the SACHERTORTE which is a crime for any baking book. 

                                        

I don't know why but each baking book has the recipe for this cake and no matter how hard you try, the recipe sucks. The reason is that the ingredients seem to be simple but of course Mr. Sacher had some secret ingredient which isn't known to ANYONE. Naturally, this ingredient is the one which give the dough the consistence of mousse, not of a typical sponge cake. The only place where you can try the only, original Sacher cake is Vienna in Austria. More specifically I mean THE DEMEL probably the most beautiful bakery I have ever been to. Because of the respect for the author of the cake, I will not even try to do it on my own. As a pessimist I know it won't be good. Even better, I have an excuse to go to Vienna one more time just to try the taste of this delicious cake :) Besides this baking crime, you will find lots of traditional recipes for English cakes. If you are interested in American cakes, I strongly reccomend you two websites: 

www.wilton.com - just enter and you'll understand why you can't love it.

http://www.joyofbaking.com/ - traditional recipes for American cakes.

One more book which I'm about to buy is the book from 1927 and probably this will be the first Bible I'll start my cooking experiments. Ok; that should be enough. I hope it's not too boring, although I get the feeling I'm writing to the void. :D

Anyway, lots of love,

Agnieszka