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Rating: 
Summary: More than just a great cookbook!
Review: Before I adopted my son from Romania, I went looking for resources about the culture, cuisine, and so on. What a great find Klepper's book was!I have prepared many of the dishes in the book, and they all compare very favorably to "the real thing" (or so says my Romanian colleague). Recipes are easy to understand, and substitute ingredients are given for hard-to-find items. What excited me about this book, though, is that Klepper mixes in stories, legends, humor, and many of the little cultural "pearls" that a child would get listening to the adults talking while preparing meals, or swapping stories after dinner. There are invaluable to me, as someone wanting to learn more about Romanian culture, and to my son, who will someday want to know more about the place from where he came. I can't say enough good about this book!
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Summary: New Wife
Review: I just married a Romanian while he was on tour in the U.S. for six months. Having only been here for a year he was terribly homesick. After ordering the book I was able to surprise him with a full Romanian meal, and it was so easy! Highly, highly recommended!
Rating:
Summary: Just like Mother makes
Review: My husband is from Romania and since I love to cook I bought this book to try to give him a taste of home, since he doesn't get to go back much. I made his favorite, sarmale and mamaligia, he was so impressed at how good it turned out he called his mom right away and told her what a great cook I am. He said it's amazing how I made something that tastes just the way his mom cooks it. This is a great book, it has suggestions for ingredients that may be hard to find and has easy to follow instructions that produce accurate tastes of Romanian cuisine. Also the facts and history of Romania add to the recipies and make them that much more fun to make.
Rating: 
Summary: Some fundamentals are still missing...
Review: Somehow, everyone in Romania seems to believe that their heaviest food is also the tastiest. In Romanian restaurants both in Romania and accross the US, in cookbooks -- all I'm finding are the stuffed grape or cabbage leaves, the pork products, the mamaliga. What happened to all those seasonal (in Romania) meals centered around the great vegetables that abound in Spring, stuff that a family would actually eat everyday at home? The light and flavorful zuchinni with yoghurt, the spinach puree, all the many ways to prepare mushrooms, celery roots, even the lowly potatoe? The great sour soups that wake one up with their taste? What about some of the staples, like bors (not to be confused with Russiona borscht), the sour grain vinegar that is so good in those soups? Or all the pickled vegetables that spice up ones winter meal? Also, there are all the holiday preparations, such as a stuffed goose, duck on sourkraut, and, for the kids, the "sweet bites", sort of like a gingerbread cracker, but thicker and with a soft, molasse-like consistency (turta dulce for those of you out there who know :-)...
I'm not a great Romanian cook myself and I bought this book hoping to fill in some of my childhood favorites. It does do a good job of the recipes it presents. I handed the stuffed grape leaves recipe to the chef in charge at my wedding and it ended up being a favorite with my (mostly non-Romanian) guests!
The other complain I have is that some of the ingredients have been "adapted" to suit most American supermarkets. I won't complain about getting some of the fat out (although most of it stayed...) but what about the tarragon, the lovage, dill --they're all available here, with a bit of effort. Why not do what many asian cookbooks do and require the original ingredient, with an easy-to-find alternative where in doubt? And what about those simple salads that "parsley-up" and liven up any Romanian family's dinner?
Maybe it depends on the region -- Transylvania does have its share of heavier food, and with no outlets to the Black Sea, people there don't really enjoy eating fish. But Romanian cuisine has so many other flavors that I constantly see neglected, yet they are the easiest to include in a balanced diet...
And a final word of praise: the romanian wine list at the end is worth the price of the book -- and brings the stars rating to 4. I've been looking for something similar for a while, and I was really glad to find it in this book.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent cookbook
Review: This book is an all-around great cookbook. To be honest, I had never heard of Romanian cuisine before and picked up the book on a whim. I'm glad I did because the book introduced me to a delicious culture that I had never sampled before. The recipes in the book are grouped into the following chapters: appetizers, salads, egg dishes, soups, polenta, fish dishes, meat dishes, poultry dishes, vegetable dishes, dumplings, sauces, desserts, wines, preserves, and Jewish dishes. I found good recipes in each chapter, some fancy, and some that can be whipped up in minutes. Interspersed throughout the book are short history lessons about Romania, fairy tales, and poetry, as well as Klepper's comments explaining the cooking culture. The book also includes a bibliography, a place and personal name index, and English recipe index, a Romanian recipe index, a brief pronunciation guide, an English-Romanian-French food dictionary, and even an American-British food dictionary (surprisingly useful!). If you're looking for a Romanian cookbook, this is a great one. And if you're just looking for some interesting and tasty new recipes, you'll find some here.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent cookbook
Review: This book is an all-around great cookbook. To be honest, I had never heard of Romanian cuisine before and picked up the book on a whim. I'm glad I did because the book introduced me to a delicious culture that I had never sampled before. The recipes in the book are grouped into the following chapters: appetizers, salads, egg dishes, soups, polenta, fish dishes, meat dishes, poultry dishes, vegetable dishes, dumplings, sauces, desserts, wines, preserves, and Jewish dishes. I found good recipes in each chapter, some fancy, and some that can be whipped up in minutes. Interspersed throughout the book are short history lessons about Romania, fairy tales, and poetry, as well as Klepper's comments explaining the cooking culture. The book also includes a bibliography, a place and personal name index, and English recipe index, a Romanian recipe index, a brief pronunciation guide, an English-Romanian-French food dictionary, and even an American-British food dictionary (surprisingly useful!). If you're looking for a Romanian cookbook, this is a great one. And if you're just looking for some interesting and tasty new recipes, you'll find some here.
Rating:
Summary: Read it from cover to cover !
Review: This is the cookbook to read from cover to cover for its wonderful content. The stories, poems and bits of culture repolish the tarnished image that Romania has aquired from the media... As a Romanian born American, I've been waiting for a book like this for years to share with my American born children and friends. There is no question regarding the authenticity of the recipies, and delicious results are almost guaranteed due to the "user friendly" format. I cannot praise this book enough, I just wish I can thank the author in person. The expanded edition that I purchased also has a delightful chapter on Romanian Jewish cooking.
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