Adi Bittermann

Yes! Very good cookbook.

My two disappointments with it since we bought it in December were that there didn't seem to be recipes for Grammelpogatschen and Haluschka. The recipe for Grammelpogatschen is on page 28 - I assume the 20 in the index is from the illegible font used for the page numbers. The Haluschka recipe is on page 143 - the recipe title is more complicated than that and therefore somewhere else in the index. I have changed my index so that I can find these very important recipes.

I very much enjoyed the notes about the cooking of the various countries involved, how the recipes were adapted when they were adopted into the Viennese cuisine, and other historical aspects of the dishes described.

I particularly enjoyed the gulasch chapter, as I made gulasch yesterday without a recipe. My variation on the theme is just one of many differing opinions on how this ought to be made. Note: the packages in the freezer are marked 'Gulasch base'. I will add letscho and sour cream before serving the last portion for today's dinner. That's the way we - or at least I (and the men haven't complained yet)- like it best.

I think I will find the 'Zwischengerichte' chapter most useful. What the authors consider snacks, we will eat as main courses. But the meat chapters will also get used. I'm highly tempted to splurge on a rabbit after reading the recipe for 'Znaimer Kaninchen'.

Last, but certainly not least, the dessert chapter is full of things I would like to try out.

This is the 'Austrian' or 'Viennese' cookbook I've been looking for. It tries to tease out some of the influences that created the food I've learned to love, and make it easier to play the variations instead of simpllifying and declaring one variation to be 'classic'.… (altro)