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IT is heart wrenching and yet it shows how the spirit of the Jews cannot be broken and that they didn't lose their humanity even under most harrowing conditions.
The horrors of the camps in World War II are among the worst humanity has ever seen. Many of the dishes (the original recipes written largely in broken, Czech-accented German, with a few in Czech) are what might be seen as party food, and more importantly a large number of them are desserts; Michael Berenbaum of the US Holocaust Museum, the writer of the foreword, points out that food was an obsession in the camps since the Nazis fed most of the inmates on starvation rations (if they bothered to feed them at all), and sweets are a human obsession even in the best of times. There is some poetry in the book as well, written by the book's original compiler Mina Pächter (who died in 1944), and a few art pieces done by other inmates at Terezin. But even then it's hard to focus on the humanity involved -- six million Jews alone, and millions more gays, Romani, "lesser races", "defectives", and dissenters murdered at the same time. Pächter's own story, as well as that of her daughter Anny Stern who worked to publish the book, is told in brief, including the peculiar odyssey that brought the book from the camps to 1970-ish New York. This book is a tiny spot of humanity in the masses of the dead, a memory of a few dedicated cooks who struggled to keep some kind of creativity going in a city that became the last stop before Auschwitz. It's hard to fathom just how little the people murdered by the Nazis seemed to matter -- visiting the New England Holocaust Memorial in Boston, with its towers of numbers etched in the glass and the creepy fog machines blowing over simulated cinders, proves that. There's still a lot for modern cooks to learn, though; the creators of this book made frequent use of potatoes for example, and liked their dumplings a lot (one recipe I found resembled a Germanized version of the Italian passatelli (bread gnocchi)).
I had wanted a copy since I first heard of it over a decade ago, and I stumbled across it in a Massachusetts bookstore notorious as a money vacuum for cookbook collectors. I had to grab it.Many of the recipes are in fragmented form; a cooking beginner would struggle with many of them, since they often assume intimate familiarity with a kitchen and style of cooking that most English-speaking readers have never seen. Sadly, a few intriguing recipes are completely lost, having evidently been mangled or torn out in the original manuscript. All in all, it's one of the most poignant cookbooks I've ever seen, rivaling Claudia Roden's The Book of Jewish Food (one of my all-time favorite cookbooks) as a marker of history.
I think it would make them smile to know that their history continues and I am teaching my daughters about their history as I teach them to cook.There is something wonderfully cyclical in that knowledge. Then I had to search for the book -- and it is now one of my most favorite cookbooks.I use the recipes often and each time I turn to the book, I think of the women who passed on these gems.
What caught my eye was a recipe for roast goose (a weakness of mine) and then I read the accompanying piece -- I was moved to tears and tore out the recipe and placed it on my refridgerator under a magnet. A few months later, I was preparing New Year's Day dinner -- I got up at 5am to boil chestnuts for the stuffing.
I first learned of this book when it was initially published and a small article about it was carried in The Parade Magazine appearing in The Boston Sunday Globe. and have cherished this recipe ever since.
and cursed my hangover as I was peeling the shells off and cutting up apples. I followed the recipe and made the most delicious roast goose I have ever eaten.
it gives me great pleasure to know that they live on and remembered every time I cook. and it brings a smile to my lips as I watch my daughters stir and taste and know that they will teach their daughters in this same way.
I am blessed beyond measure in comparison to the brave souls who lived their last days in a place of horror, yet kept alive their hopes and dreams of lovely times by recording their recipes. I now keep Cara De Silva's In Memory's Kitchen on my cookbook shelf, not for the recipes, since most don't translate well to a modern day kitchen. No, I keep this book there to remind myself that even on my toughest day, when conflicting family schedules and obligations pull me in all directions and cooking is a chore, I have it so good. I wept at the descriptions of conditions in this place and marveled at the faith and ingenuity born of such times. This book uplifts and exalts the women ~~ and men ~~ who preserved with such dignity the reflection of their spirits, and in so doing uplifts the spirits of those who learn their stories.
This book is an amazing document and is a important part of holacaust literature. Furthemore it is most moving and keeps us connected to the past.
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