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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.

Winner of the 2019 National Jewish Book Award in the category of Food Writing & Cookbooks.

The author refuses to accept that the world of pre-Shoah Hungarian Jewry and its cuisine should disappear almost without a trace and feels compelled to reconstruct its culinary culture. His book―with a preface by Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett―presents eating habits not as isolated acts, divorced from their social and religious contexts, but as an organic part of a way of life.

According to Kirshenblatt-Gimblett: “While cookbooks abound, there is no other study that can compare with this book. It is simply the most comprehensive account of a Jewish food culture to date.” Indeed, no comparable study exists about the Jewish cuisine of any country, or―for that matter―about Hungarian cuisine. It describes the extraordinary diversity that characterized the world of Hungarian Jews, in which what could or could not be eaten was determined not only by absolute rules, but also by dietary traditions of particular religious movements or particular communities. 

Ten chapters cover the culinary culture and eating habits of Hungarian Jewry up to the 1940s, ranging from kashrut (the system of keeping the kitchen kosher) through the history of cookbooks, the food traditions of weekdays and holidays, the diversity of households, and descriptions of food and hospitality industries to the history of some typical dishes. Although this book is primarily a cultural history and not a cookbook, it includes 83 recipes, as well as nearly 200 fascinating pictures of daily life and documents.i

One woman’s quest for a great bagel becomes a poignant pursuit of culture and belonging.
Bagels have always been Jen Rubin’s cultural comfort food. Born and raised in New York City, she grew up on family gatherings anchored by sprawling bagel spreads. But after moving to Wisconsin thirty years ago, she struggled to maintain ties to her Jewish heritage—including a bagel worthy of her New York upbringing. When her mother’s death leads her to revisit her roots, Rubin embarks on a deeply personal mission: to discover whether the Midwest can produce a quality, authentic bagel. What begins as a search for comfort and connection becomes an enlightening exploration of food, identity, and belonging.
In The Great Midwest Bagel Quest, Rubin visits Chicago and St. Louis, Detroit and Ann Arbor, the Twin Cities, and Madison and Milwaukee—with a couple of side trips to New York City—sampling dozens of bagels, meeting artisan bakers, and exploring the histories of Jewish communities across the region. Along the way, she challenges the assumption that the Midwest has never produced truly authentic bagels.
Blending memoir, culinary history, travel narrative, and cultural reporting, Rubin uncovers a rich but overlooked bagel tradition while reflecting on her own complicated relationship with home. As she traces the evolution of the bagel from Jewish immigrant staple to mass-market commodity to the innovative artisanal varieties being produced today, she begins to see an evolution in her own relationship to her Jewish and familial traditions.
Warm, witty, and illuminating, The Great Midwest Bagel Quest is a fresh contribution to food writing that will appeal to readers of culinary history, immigrant history, and memoir. Most of all, it is a celebration of how food creates and sustains community—and how the search for the perfect bagel can lead us back to our true selves.