1/25/2025

Random Saturday - Cookbooks, part 1

I have probably mentioned one or the other time that I'm not much of a cook. That doesn't mean I'm not cooking at all or that I can't cook at all, but I rarely ever had the passion or the patience for elaborate recipes, and to be honest, these days it's even more difficult, also because I can't stand for too long and also don't really see why I should do some big cooking just for myself.

A few days ago, a friend mentioned having many cookbooks, but not using them anymore because of online recipes.
That made me think of my own cookbooks. Yes, I have a bunch of cookbooks, old vintage ones and new vintage ones. No, honestly, that makes sense. I bought vintage cookbooks at fleamarkets or online and I bought new cookbooks so long ago that they are also vintage now
😉 at least most of them.

I remember when we got a new kitchen. The saleslady showed us a hanging cabinet for cookbooks, very uncomfortable for me to use because I would have needed a footstool to open and close it. I said I'd prefer an open shelf and she said that the cookbooks would get greasy that way. She was so surprised when I said that that was absolutely fine for cookbooks in my opinion if they were used. She was even more surprised when she heard I was a librarian, but being used to what textbooks look after long use, a bit of grease can't shock me.
Actually, the cookbooks in my kitchen are not very greasy, but tend to get dusty on top because I hardly use them. Some of them have never been used except for looking at recipes and thinking how nice they looked.
At the moment I don't need the space they are taking up and they add to the kitchen look.

Of course only the "new vintage" and younger are there, not the really old ones.
I thought I could share one of my vintage ones with you every, now and then, something I haven't done often on the blog. I fear it will be completely theoretical, though. While I like the thought of trying out some of the old recipes, I'm very well aware it's probably not going to happen. Gotta stay realistic.

Today I brought you "Die fleischlose Küche für Gesunde und Kranke" by chef Kurt Klein, "The meatless kitchen for healthy and sick people".


You may see from the Fraktur typeface (not something everyone can still read, especially without practice) that this is an old book - and from the mold stains, fortunately the book doesn't smell bad - and although there's no year of publication, an inscription in the front tells us that Walter G. got it from his mother "for perpetual remembrance" in May 1937. I wonder if he was just interested in cooking or if he was or wanted to be a vegetarian and if he moved out from home at the time.


This book would have been a good start because it has 769 recipes including beverages (some longer, some just two or three sentences long, such as the one for lemonade for example)! I even found a few online recommendations for this book from not ten years ago.

Vegetarianism is nothing new.
I have to admit, however, that I hadn't been aware when they started making veggie meat, sausage, and cheese. Now there are so many companies jumping on the trend. When I stopped eating meat in the late 80s, there was nothing like that in sight. It was hard to get something vegetarian in restaurants and sometimes still is, depending on what kind of restaurant it is.
I remember my first visit to the US when in one place the waiter said he could only offer me a shrimp cocktail as vegetarian and was confused because I politely declined and in another place the waiter said they would just whip up a veggie plate for me if I was okay with that, and it was so good it made the others jealous.
In the Klein book there's an ad for "plant meat" by De-Vau-Ge, a company that still exists today. From what I have seen, some of their products are used in the book's recipes, not just veggie meat etc., but also granola and other cereals.


I thought I'd choose a random recipe to share with you. Just a second .... poke .... my finger chose recipe 292 "Kartoffelkruspeln". I didn't even know what that means, but it seems "Kruspeln" is an Austrian word for "cartilage", here used in the sense of "crunchy". If you suspect something now, you may be right. This is a recipe for potato croquettes (from the French "croquer" = "crunch").
- 1 kilo potatoes - peel, wash, boil until soft, and mash
- add 3 egg yolks, 100 g butter, salt and some grated nutmeg
- make little ball or sausage shapes, use egg and breadcrumbs or granola (semolina-like and of course from De-Vau-Ge) to bread them and deep fry them 3 to 4 minutes

Yeah, I also would have wished for something more exotic, but that's random choice for you. Maybe we will have more luck with the next cookbook.

2 comments:

  1. I love that you collect cook books but don't use them! I have lots of little church published cookbooks, but I only have one true cookbook. I got it as a wedding or shower gift almost 50 years ago. You can tell the recipes I've used because the pages are greasy and creased! It's actually a 3 ring binder so you could take the page out for the recipe you were using. The sugar cookie one is greasiest! I could read (as in pronounce) the title of the cookbook, but I only recognized Die and fur! Of course, the others made sense once you put up the translation. I also recognized Kartoffel!

    https://marshainthemiddle.com/

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    1. Yeah, I'm a little weird that way, but some things can be perfectly fun just in theory!
      I have the Dr. Oetker (don't know how known that is in the US) "Schulkochbuch" in various editions, the first one (which I don't have) was published in 1911. I honestly think with the Klein book and the Dr. Oetker I could easily get through a lifetime of cooking.
      I'm going to get you reading German again in no time! 😉

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