Eastern European Cookbooks

Eastern European Cookbooks

Today for Cookbook Wednesday, I decided to feature some ethnic cookbooks from Eastern Europe, not including my many Jewish cookbooks. Most of these are strictly cookbooks, that is, collections of recipes without a lot of narrative or historic material. I've tried at least one recipe from each of them. I have not researched whether there are better books on this topic. Any suggestions?

On my shelf I found:

• A Taste of Russia by Darra Goldstein.
• The Cuisine of Hungary by George Lang, who also wrote an interesting autobiography called Nobody Knows the Truffles I've Seen, covering his early life in flight from the Nazis and his later glamorous life as a restauranteur in New York.
• Gundel's Hungarian Cookbook by Karoly Gundel of the famous Gundel's restaurant, which was in business pre-Communist times, and was resurrected by George Lang after the fall of Communism. I received this as a gift.
• The Czechoslovak Cookbook by Joza Brizova.
• The Polish Country Kitchen Cookbook by Sophie Hodorowicz Knab. A kind gift from friends from Poland.
• The Eastern European Cookbook by Kay Shaw Nelson.
• Blue Trout and Black Truffles: The Peregrinations of an Epicure by Joseph Wechsberg. This is not a cookbook, but includes memoirs of eating at Gundel's and in other Eastern European restaurants in the middle of the 20th century.

Wanted but I don't have it yet: Please to the Table: The Russian Cookbook by Anya von Bremzen, author of Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking, which I very much like. The latter isn't in my photo because I read the Kindle edition.

Cookbook Wednesday is a great idea. Its inventor is Louise at Months of Edible Celebrations, where I get many ideas. Next week I'll feature another selection of ethnic or regional cookbooks from my collection. Maybe I'll even try some recipes.