The Hungarian Cookbook

I bought my first copy of this book over thirty years ago, and even then had to special order it. In the last couple of years I have bought four more copies for family and friends as many of the recipes are identical to those of my mother-in-law whose family was from Croatia. Any one whose family originated in the Slavic area of Europe, including Austria, may find some family favorites in this wonderful, entertaining and reliable book.

`The Hungarian Cookbook' by Susan Derecskey may be one of the easiest cookbooks I have yet reviewed, as this is quite literally exactly the food I grew up on. My comfort food, as a kid, was goulash, dumplings, Hungarian crepes, strudel, cabbage and noodles, and chocolate walnut cake, each and every one of these dishes made in exactly the same way as described in this book. All of these dishes came to by from my paternal grandmother who emigrated to the United States just before World War I, from a small town in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, forty miles east of Vienna, which is now in Hungary. From this background, I can say with certainty that this is an exceptionally good evocation of Hungarian cuisine. This is also an exceptionally good evocation of a national cuisine in general, even when compared to some of the leading treatments I have seen recently of the cuisines of Turkey, Lebanon, Germany, and Armenia. It is also as good as many treatments of French and Italian regional cuisines, although it may not be quite as good as the best of these, and it is certainly not as good as Paula Wolfert's classic work on Moroccan cuisine. It is also just a bit less than the classics on national cuisines such as Diana Kochilas on Greece or Penelope Casas on Spain. But, it is exactly all you need to recreate the great Hungarian dishes I remember from my childhood. Aside from finding recipes for my long lost chocolate nut birthday cake, the first thing which impressed me about the book was the care in which the author pointed out that some recipes were simply difficult to get right the first time. This fact is probably obvious for strudel dough, but it is less obvious with recipes for potato dumplings. For those of you who may be totally ignorant of Hungarian cooking, its most distinctive characteristics are noodles, dumplings, and soup. Egg noodles and dumplings essentially serve for Hungarians the role of pasta and risotto has for Italians. This is really carb central in that in addition to the white flour, potatoes are also an important ingredient for many dumpling recipes. And, these dumplings are real gut grenades. They are guaranteed to spike your blood sugar in record time. Since soup is such an important part of the Hungarian cuisine, I paid special attention to the recipes for stock in Ms. Derecskey's book and found them entirely to my liking. They are not long cooking, the vegetables are put into the simmering stock for just an hour, and the author is more careful than most in advising the cook to be very careful not to boil the stock and to skim off scum as quickly as it appears. I usually don't see as much care given to stock making in books on `minor' national cuisines. Vegetable dishes are always a special interest of mine and this book has several especially good ones. Like most of central Europe, the king of the vegetables was the cabbage. There are several good asparagus and beet and cucumber recipes, but no sign of artichokes or rapini.

Although my mother was a Hungarian national,she did not prepare many Hungarian dishes.Learning to cook Hungarian food has become a hobby that has helped me to connect with my own roots. However, as I seek to learn how to prepare Hungarian food, I do not have the luxery of having watched someone prepare it, and, in some cases, I am 'flying blind' with no idea how a given recipe is supposed to look or taste. This book has provided me with a helpful orientation, and enabled me to branch out with other Hungarian recipes. I have also found that once I prepared a favorite dish, that I was able to adapt the seasonings and spices to fit personal tastes. The Hunter's Pot Roast and Noodle pudding (complete with walnuts, raisons and apricot jam) have become family favorites.

I grew up in a household where the cooking was almost exclusively Hungarian, and these recipes match closely to what my mother made. Whenever I have a yen to make something from my childhood, I consult all four of my Hungarian cookbooks, but inevitably, I end up using a recipe from this book. The only "americanization" that I can see is the use of butter or shortening in the place of lard, which is one of the staples of Hungarian cooking.Although some reviewers have found these recipes to be bland, that has not been the case for me. I should point out, though, that one of the keys to good flavor is to use authentic Hungarian paprika, which is simply not available in most supermarkets -- not even in large urban areas. I'm lucky, I have relatives who send me some, but I can also recommend mail order from Penzeys.com. Paprika also comes in "sweet" or "hot" flavors. I prefer the "sweet" kind, but I have known Hungarians who think that's for wussies, and who prefer the "hot" kind. At any rate, true Hungarian paprika has an overwhelming fragrance, and a little goes a long way; if you put in too much of this stuff, the dish will have a bitter taste to it. (Looking at Mr. Lang's cookbook, a book that I find to be somewhat pretentious, I can see that the quantities of paprika that he recommends are for the bland, American kind of paprika.)

I'm a second generation Hungarian who grew up on down-home Hungarian cooking. This cookbook has all of my favorites from simple dishes you can whip up in minutes to the best of Hungarian cuisine. If you are of Hungarian descent you must have this book. If you have never had Hungarian food, buy this book, pick a recipe at random and enjoy