Winner of the Association of Jewish Libraries' 2022 Judaica Bibliography Award.

The seven essays in this volume focus such previously unexplored subjects as the world’s first cookbook printed in Hebrew letters, published in 1854, and a wonderful 19th-century Jewish cookbook, which in addition to its Hungarian edition was also published in Dutch in Rotterdam. The author entertainingly reconstructs the history of bólesz, a legendary yeast pastry that was the specialty of a famous, but long defunct Jewish coffeehouse in Pest, and includes the modernized recipe of this distant relative of cinnamon rolls. Koerner also tells the history of the first Jewish bookstore in Hungary (founded as early as in 1765!) and examines the influence of Jewish cuisine on non-Jewish food.

In this volume András Koerner explores key issues of Hungarian Jewish culinary culture in greater detail and more scholarly manner than what space restrictions permitted in his previous work Jewish Cuisine in Hungary: A Cultural History, also published by CEU Press, which received the prestigious National Jewish Book Award in 2020. The current essays confirm the extent to which Hungarian Jewry was part of the Jewish life and culture of the Central European region before their almost total language shift by the turn of the 20th century.

Discovering Singaporean identity through cooking and cuisine

While eating is a universal experience, for Singaporeans it carries strong national connotations. The popular Singaporean-English phrase "Die die must try" is not so much hyperbole as it is a reflection of the lengths that Singaporeans will go to find great dishes.

In Eating Her Curries and Kway: A Cultural History of Food in Singapore, Nicole Tarulevicz argues that in a society that has undergone substantial change in a relatively short amount of time, food serves Singaporeans as a poignant connection to the past. Eating has provided a unifying practice for a diverse society, a metaphor for multiracialism and recognizable national symbols for a fledgling state. Covering the period from British settlement in 1819 to the present and focusing on the post–1965 postcolonial era, Tarulevicz tells the story of Singapore through the production and consumption of food.

Analyzing a variety of sources that range from cookbooks to architectural and city plans, Tarulevicz offer a thematic history of this unusual country, which was colonized by the British and operated as a port within Malaya. Connecting food culture to the larger history of Singapore, she discusses various topics including domesticity and home economics, housing and architecture, advertising, and the regulation of food-related manners and public behavior such as hawking, littering, and chewing gum. Moving away from the predominantly political and economic focus of other histories of Singapore, Eating Her Curries and Kway provides an important alternative reading of Singaporean society.

Ella E. Hall, a Black cook and landlord in Ann Arbor, Michigan, collected her favorite recipes in a journal between 1920 and 1939. Published for the first time, Hall’s recipe book contains not only recipes from family and friends, but also articles, clippings, and advertisements, which provide a glimpse into the food culture and daily life of the time. The book includes over 50 recipes that will interest and delight food historians, like sour milk griddle cakes, Lady Baltimore cake, pepper hash, green tomatoes pickles, campfire pineapple ham, and beverages such as root beer, ginger ale, and even home-brewed beer. This recipe book has been held in the Janice Bluestein Longone Culinary Archive within the Special Collections Research Center at the University of Michigan Library, and this first published edition makes Hall’s charming collection accessible to more readers. Introductory essays by Jessica Kenyatta Walker, scholar of African American history and foodways, and Susan Wineburg, who found and donated the recipe collection to the Special Collections Research Center, flesh out Ella Hall’s story and help position this book in the context of Ann Arbor in the first half of the twentieth century.

“Such a fun and fascinating book! Extra! Extra! Eat All About It! deftly delves into Wisconsin’s long-ago food fads, evolutions, and absurdities. Don’t be surprised if this book inspires new trends that are riffs on some of these century-old ideas. Pickled walnuts, anyone? Or mock pumpkin pie, with prunes?” — Mary Bergin, author of Wisconsin Supper Club Cookbook  

“Both cookbook and chronicle, Extra! Extra! Eat All About It! is an ingenious, illuminating tasting menu of our culinary past. Sourced from nineteenth and early twentieth century Wisconsin newspapers, its fifty vignettes serve up historical insights, forgotten fads and bygone recipes. From paper bag cookery and ‘oyster saloons’ to fire-baked eggs and maple taffy, I ate this book right up.” — Terese Allen, coauthor of The Flavor of Wisconsin  

“This beautiful, fun, and informative book is a masterclass in how historical cooking opens a window onto wider historical themes, including mechanization, the impacts of war, immigration, globalization, and changing nutritional advice.” — Eleanor Barrett, author of Leftovers: A History of Food Waste and Preservation

“Conway and Ramsden do a great job of using historical documents to demonstrate what people were eating and how they entertained. They describe recipes as interaction and community, as well as how food trends change over time. The writing is smart and clever. A wonderful read.” — Kimberly Wilmot Voss, author of The Food Section: Newspaper Women and the Culinary Community