Favorite recipes of My Mother and Grandmothers

By Renate Becker

This cookbook was assembled for my children. My old Davidis cookbook is printed in German Fraktur font, the pages have yellowed, and the terms are often hard to understand even in modern German.
The recipes I selected were used in my home. Most of the instructions in this cookbook were listed for households that had several kitchen helpers

• Language: English
• Publisher: Global Summit House
• Release date: Jan 8, 2020
• ISBN: 9781647134679

Renate Becker

I was twenty-one years old when I came to the American continent. I had no experience in cooking. My brother pitied my new husband. He would only get a record played for dinner. I would not even be able to boil water. There was no problem with cooking during the first months of homemaking. My husband and I ate at inexpensive restaurants, and in the workplace cafeteria. Later, we had an apartment with a kitchen. We bought pots and cooking utensils. Shopping for food was thrilling. There were so many wonderful vegetables, meat, and fruit. However, except for tea and coffee, many cooked dishes had to be discarded. They were inedible—undercooked, overcooked, impossible combinations of spices and ingredients. I had to look into the only cookbook I had—my mother’s cookbook from the turn of the last century, given to her at a convent school in 1912. It was compiled for ignorant young housewives who eventually had to take charge of cooking and baking, menu preparation, and special holiday specialties for an entire household. Therefore, the result was that I cooked as my mother and grandmothers did, remembering the taste and appearance of the dishes. Watching Julia Child in the seventies demonstrating many cooking methods and techniques now made sense to me and completed the mere list of ingredients. Later on, my dinners with friends and family had to have German dishes. They were a special treat since they could not have these meals anywhere else. To pass on the recipes and techniques of cooking, making jams and pickles, and of course, baking, I had to compile these for my children and young family members. This was the beginning of writing down my German recipes. They are basically Alsatian and Rhenish dishes. After retiring and not having a family to cook for anymore, my interest moved on to growing food. In California, in the Mother Lode Country, I have a fruit orchard with special varieties, vegetable beds, and bees. I am passionate about homegrown vegetables, being active in the local farmers’ market.

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Favorite Recipes of My Mother and Grandmothers

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Renate Becker

Copyright © Renate Becker.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by reviewers, who may quote brief passages in a review.

ISBN: 978-1-64713-477-8 (Paperback Edition)

ISBN: 978-1-64713-485-3 (Hardcover Edition)

ISBN: 978-1-64713-467-9 (E-book Edition)

Some characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

Book Ordering Information

Phone Number: 347-901-4929 or 347-901-4920

Email: [e-mail]

Global Summit House

www.globalsummithouse.com

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

SOUPS

SALADS

SKILLET DISHES

VEGETABLES

MEAT DISHES

DESERTS

COOKIES

CAKES

SOUPS

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BREAD SOUP

¾  3/4 cup of dry bread, half white, half whole wheat

¾  1 1/2 cups of cream

¾  2 tablespoons of butter

¾  1 beaten egg

¾  Handful of raisins

¾  Nutmeg, some salt and sugar

Cook bread and raisins in 6 1/2 cups of water for 15 minutes on low heat.

When the puree is still hot, but no longer boiling, add the mixture of egg and cream. Add butter and spices.

CHERRY SOUP

¾  16 ounces of sour (tart) cherries

¾  4 biscuits or 1 table spoon of cream of wheat (semolina)1/2 cup of sugar

¾  1 glass of red wine

¾  Almond extract

Boil the cherries with a wedge of lemon in enough water to separate the cherries from the stones. Press through a sieve to leave behind the pits.

Bring back to the boil,