Review: Early Jewish Cookbooks: Essays on Hungarian Jewish Gastronomical History, by András Koerner

Abstract

Book Review| August 01 2023 Review: Early Jewish Cookbooks: Essays on Hungarian Jewish Gastronomical History, by András Koerner Early Jewish Cookbooks: Essays on Hungarian Jewish Gastronomical History, András Koerner, Budapest: Central European University Press, 2022, 272 pp. Illustrations. $75.00 (hardcover) Jonathan Brumberg-Kraus Jonathan Brumberg-Kraus Wheaton College (MA) brumberg-kraus_jonathan@wheatoncollege.edu Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar brumberg-kraus_jonathan@wheatoncollege.edu Gastronomica (2023) 23 (3): 90–91. https://doi.org/10.1525/gfc.2023.23.3.90 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Jonathan Brumberg-Kraus; Review: Early Jewish Cookbooks: Essays on Hungarian Jewish Gastronomical History, by András Koerner. Gastronomica 1 August 2023; 23 (3): 90–91. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/gfc.2023.23.3.90 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentGastronomica Search András Koerner’s Early Jewish Cookbooks makes an important contribution to our understanding of the diversity of Ashkenazic Jewish cuisine, namely, Hungarian Jewish cuisine. Furthermore, Koerner demonstrates how to use cookbooks as historical sources and notes the importance of cookbooks and cuisines as strategies for modern European Jewish acculturation. For those unfamiliar with Koerner’s work or with Hungarian Jewish cuisine, Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, who is probably better known to Gastronomica’s readers, provides an excellent preface to the book, situating Koerner’s work in the general study of cookbooks and the particular study of Ashkenazic Jewish food. Koerner’s book shows how late nineteenth- to pre-World War II twentieth-century Hungarian Jewish cookbooks represent Hungarian Jewish acculturation strategies expressed in middle- to upper-middle-class aspirations. Koerner stresses the importance of a close reading of the language of the cookbooks (usually German), their sources, the specifics of their publication, or in the case of his great-grandmother’s cookbook,... You do not currently have access to this content.