Hungary (Culinaria)

Rating:
Summary: Best I have seen...
Review: The best book on authentic traditional Hungarian cuisine I have seen so far. Very well written and illustrated. Aniko Gergely did an excellent and thorough job on covering the origins and traditions of temporary Hungarian cooking that developed during the last centuries. The list includes ALL the food that I would consider Hungarian and enjoyed when grew up in Budapest. I found the information accurate, the photos abundant and of very good quality. Any serious culinary traveler planning to visit the country and stay away from burgers would benefit too. If you need a single book to understand the soul and culinary traditions of the Magyars, this is it.
Recommended without hesitation.

Rating:
Summary: Culinaria Hungary
Review: This has got to be the best Hungarian cookbook I have ever seen! The layout and photograpy is just so beautiful. Having a Hungarian background, it brings a smile to my face everytime I look through it as I did not grow up with all the traditions.I am happy that being the second generation in Canada; I can look at this book and know what I have missed. I have made the Lecso twice now and it isn't even my book! It was so delicious! I recommend it to give as a gift for the younger Hungarians that can learn about the food and culture of their background.

Rating:
Summary: Must have if you want to know Hungarian Cusine & Culture
Review: This is a really useful book. My wife is not Hungarian and I wanted her to know what it's like to live & eat in Hungary. The book talks about the people and has very common hungarian cusines. This is a really good gift idea for everyone. The pictures are really nice. The book is worth a lot more for what it's being sold for.

Rating:
Summary: Very comprehensive! I'm impressed.
Review: Very comprehensive! I'm impressed.

I purchased this cook book for my father as a Christmas gift. My father is from Serbia. His mother came from small town nestled between Hungary and Romania called Novi Knezavac, so Hungarian cooking was very much apart of my fathers family upbringing. This cookbook was the perfect gift for him.

The book is comprehensive, in that it explains the differences and origins of certain ingredients, like peppers, and ground paprikas. I know my father only cooks stuffed peppers in Toronto when he is able to find certain stores in the city that carry Hungarian peppers towards the late summer and early fall seasons. There is a very good reason for that... and the book explains this. Some peppers hold their shapes better during cooking, but more importantly some don't over power the dish as virtually all other peppers would. The book also talks about many other ingredients such as plum brandy (and how it's made), cheeses, wines, and wild mushrooms etc etc.

"Terroir" is a word the French use to describe how the natural characteristics of a place influences the taste of whatever is grown there. This term is certainly not lost in this cookbook. Whether it be the cherries, apricots, plums, paprikas, wines or even wild mushrooms, this book describes the different varieties that are found throughout Hungary.

This book is a gem. Of special note are the recipes for goulash, dumplings, strudels, sauerkraut, beigels (walnut or poppy seed loafs), or my all time favorite cake "Dobos torta". The first time I had Dobos torta was in a Opatija Croatia back in 1965. I fell in love with this cake. There are perhaps only 5 bakeries in Toronto that make this classic cake. I only have one very old French cookbook that has a recipe for it... and at that there is only one picture. Well to my surprise this book has 15 pictures of the finished cake and photo's of how it's made. I've been looking for a comprehensive recipe for this torta for years. To my surprise this book has the best one I've ever seen. Not only that... the origins or history of this cake is in this book too. My fathers family had always known this cake was from Hungary... but no one seemed to know how it got it's name. My late uncle said it was derived from the word "drum" or "dob" in Hungarian, because the caramel topping when hard looks like the skin of a drum. Well this commonly believed story is not true. The cake is named after a late 19th century master chef called Jozsef C. Dobos. His famous recipe for the cake was passed onto the Budapest Trade Association after his retirement in 1906. So this famous torta, popular with the Austrian royal family finally became known to the world... a very interesting story behind the creation of one of Europe's classic cakes. This is just one of many tidbits this book contains.

The book contains a great deal of very colourful and beautiful photographs (a must for a good cookbook). To sum it up... this cookbook is one of the best I've purchased in years. If you are serious about Hungarian cuisine. Then this book is for you.