Early Jewish Cookbooks: Essays on Hungarian Jewish Gastronomical History

By András Koerner and Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett

Winner of the Association of Jewish Libraries' 2022 Judaica Bibliography Award.

The seven essays in this volume focus such previously unexplored subjects as the world’s first cookbook printed in Hebrew letters, published in 1854, and a wonderful 19th-century Jewish cookbook, which in addition to its Hungarian edition was also published in Dutch in Rotterdam. The author entertainingly reconstructs the history of bólesz, a legendary yeast pastry that was the specialty of a famous, but long defunct Jewish coffeehouse in Pest, and includes the modernized recipe of this distant relative of cinnamon rolls. Koerner also tells the history of the first Jewish bookstore in Hungary (founded as early as in 1765!) and examines the influence of Jewish cuisine on non-Jewish food.

In this volume András Koerner explores key issues of Hungarian Jewish culinary culture in greater detail and more scholarly manner than what space restrictions permitted in his previous work Jewish Cuisine in Hungary: A Cultural History, also published by CEU Press, which received the prestigious National Jewish Book Award in 2020. The current essays confirm the extent to which Hungarian Jewry was part of the Jewish life and culture of the Central European region before their almost total language shift by the turn of the 20th century.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Central European University Press
• Release date: May 10, 2022
• ISBN: 9789633864302

András Koerner

András Koerner was born in 1940 in Budapest. After receiving his degree in architecture he worked for several years as an architect. In 1967, he moved to the United States, where he continued the same career. Since his retirement, he dedicates his time mostly to writing and organizing exhibitions. He is author of the award-winning Jewish Cuisine in Hungary (CEU Press 2019).