Friday, December 4, 2009

Tray Gourmet or Pickled Herring and Pumpkin Pie

Tray Gourmet: Be Your Own Chef in the College Cafeteria

Author: Larry Berger

The college cookbook spiced with academic humor. Great gift idea.

Publishers Weekly

Dotted with cleverly named recipes, whimsical illustrations, even admonishments for parents--``the authors in no way mean to imply that ownership of Tray Gourmet by your child should cause you to interrupt or discontinue your regular care package schedule''--this thoroughly entertaining book is surprisingly accurate, entirely practical and professionally wrought. This work of Yale graduates--writers Berger ( Up Your Score: The Underground Guide to Psyching Out the SAT ) and Harris and cartoonist Kalb--will sit on the top of college freshmen packing lists, since it literally teaches students how to beat the system and eat ``gourmet'' (i.e., fun and healthy) meals out of their student cafeteria. The basic precept involves utilizing a combination of cafeteria-line fare, salad-bar ingredients, condiments and the ubiquitous microwave oven. Recipes range from the classic ``I Think Therefore I Ham Salad'' (made with condiments and salad-bar items) and ``Fond O' You Cheese Fondue'' (``great for entertaining large groups of friends in the cafeteria''), to a chapter entitled ``Solving the Mystery Meat,'' featuring ``Bitchin' Surf Burger'' and other lower-brow treats. The authors know college students' limitations, and leave little to chance. Ingredients are measured by teaspoons, soup spoons, heaping teaspoons or soup spoons, handfuls, cups, glasses, bowls or pats. (Feb.)



See also: Leprechaun in Late Winter or Pigeon Finds a Hot Dog

Pickled Herring and Pumpkin Pie: A Nineteenth-Century Cookbook for German Immigrants to America

Author: Henriette Davidis

Pickled Herring and Pumpkin Pie is the reprint of a best-selling nineteenth-century German cookbook that was adapted for Germans living in America. As several German-language editions were published in Milwaukee, the recipes and other information evolved considerably, and the book was eventually translated into English with the title Practical Cookbook.

The result is a fascinating mix of recipes from Old and New Worlds, ranging from traditional German fare (see the Beef Rouladen) to very American dishes (try the version of Strawberry Shortcake) to frontier cuisine-how about some roasted beaver tails? In addition to such culinary delights, Pickled Herring and Pumpkin Pie offers a glimpse into life in a nineteenth-century immigrant household and how immigrants tried to preserve the old ways while adapting to a new environment. Features of the cookbook include advice on how to use such "new" ingredients as corn or equipment like the Dutch oven, and how to shop in America, grow a proper kitchen garden, preserve food, cook medicinal dishes, and entertain properly.

Pickled Herring and Pumpkin Pie offers authentic immigrant recipes in their cultural, social, and historical context. It is a delightful resource for epicures with a historical bent as well as for those who enjoy learning more about the day-to-day life of their ancestors.

Distributed for the Max Kade Institute for German-American Studies

Author Biography: Henriette Davidis (1801-1876) is widely regarded as Germany's most famous and influential cookbook author. A minister's daughter from Westphalia, she spent her young adult years working as a house mistress at wealthy estates and as a teacher at a school for young women. Striving to educate her students to be good housewives and proper young ladies, she saw a lack of written guidelines in the education of young girls and women, especially in their education as young cooks.

In the middle of the nineteenth century, at a time when more than four hundred mostly regional cookbooks were already flooding the German market, Davidis created a cookbook of "tested recipes" from all over German-speaking Europe, recipes that were so clear "that even inexperienced young housewives and children could follow them and become good cooks." Her Practical Cookbook, first published in 1844, became an instant success. It went through twenty personally revised editions during her lifetime, and another forty-two editions before 1906. It was translated into Danish, Dutch, and English.



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