Book Review: Classic German Cookbook, by Catherine Atkinson, Lesley Chamberlain, Trish Davies

The seventy traditional recipes fall into the categories of:

• bakes and desserts;
• fish;
• grains, pasta, vegetables;
• meat, poultry; and
• soups, starters.

For example, baked goods get triple billing as such breakfast, dessert, or snack edibles as:

• almonds, hazelnuts;
• apple, apricot, cherry, plum jams and pie fillings;
• baked apples stuffed with rum-soaked raisins and toasted hazelnuts and topped with honey, mint, rum, and whipped cream;
• cheese dumplings;
• egg noodle pudding with cherry brandy, fresh cherries, and ground walnuts; and  
• ground walnut squash sprinkled with day-old white breadcrumbs and topped with chopped raisins and cocoa powder.

Fish dishes have as super-common ingredients such respectively freshwater and saltwater denizens as:

• bream, carp, pike, salmon, trout, wels catfish; and
• cod, mackerel. 

Any compilation of seasonal favorites is determined by respective catches and harvests of:

• fish; and
• grains, pasta, and vegetables.

Lists of fishy favorites juxtapose:

• baked mackerel, salmon, or trout;
• carp or haddock with mustard in home-made stock of allspice berries, bay leaves, cabbage leaves, and white peppercorns; and
• Christmas Eve carp in black sauce.

Lists of grains and vegetables keep dark and pale rye breads busy cleaning plates of:

• bacon-fried, mayonnaise-dressed, or sausage-simmered potatoes;
• poached celery or kohlrabi with dry white wine and grated, hard, medium- or vintage-flavored cheese;
• potato salad with bacon rashers, chives, cucumbers, and dill;
• protein-enhancing dried beans and pulses; and
• spiced red cabbage with bacon rashers, caraway seeds, onions, pears, and red wine. 

Meat leads as:

• bacon-, beef-, pork-filled meatloaf;
• bacon-, egg-, ham-filled veal roast;
• bacon-larded roast beef fillet/sirloin marinated in vegetables; and
• lamb goulash with peppers and tomatoes.

Soups manage as:

• main dishes (caraway with dried pulses and root vegetables, cauliflower, fish with dumplings, pork shoulder); and
• starters.

Fried potato pancakes served with tomato salad and topped with soured cream number among snacks, starters, and street food.

So Classic German Cookbook offers culturally enriching, deliciously nutritional, educationally entertaining adventures with:

• Catherine Atkinson, Lesley Chamberlain, Trish Davies (authors);
• Shannon Beare, Marion McLornan (stylists);
• Julie Beresford, Sascha Brodie, Clare Lewis, Sara Lewis (chefs);
• David Cook (mapmaker);
• Ian Garlick, Dave Jordan (photographers);
• Joanna Lorenz (publisher);
• Margaret Malone (editor); and
• Angela Woods (art-worker). 

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Frühstück: breakfast in Germany
Dresden, Saxony state, east central Germany: Torsten Seiler from Cologne, Germany, CC BY SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Buffet_Germany.jpg; savv, CC BY SA 2.0, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/79065649@N00/172068710/

German cuisine appreciates baked goods filled with fruit jam or jelly.
Berliner Pfannkuchen (jelly donut): J. Triepke (piropiro3), CC BY 2.0, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/piro007/16336667012/

Aromatic, tasty breads such as rye-wheat (roggenmischbrot) soak flavors as plate cleaners.
roggenmischbrot in Austria: Rainer Zenz, CC BY SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mischbrot-1.jpg

White asparagus (spargel) is appreciated as a side dish or as a main dish.
There definitely is more to German cuisine than bratwurst and Black Forest Cherry Cake (Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte).
typical serving of spargel with Hollandaise sauce and potatoes: Elya, CC BY SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Spargel_sauce_hollandaise.jpg

Asparagus is featured in a strong soup.
Germany celebrates Spargelsaison, which lasts from spring to Midsummer Eve, or St. John's Day (June 24) and emphasizes asparagus recipes.
ribbons of white asparagus (Asparagus officinalis): 3268zauber, CC BY SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Schalen_des_Gemüsespargel.JPG

Chamberlain, Lesley, with Catherine Atkinson and Trish Davies. 2007. Classic German Cookbook: 70 Traditional Recipes from Germany, Austria, Hungary and the Czech Republic, Shown Step by Step in 300 Photographs. Previously Published in 2000 as From Stroganov to Strudel. London, England: Southwater, imprint of Anness Publishing Ltd.