A new pen pal and an old cookbook

I recently joined a secret pen pal exchange at Parsley's of Seasons Of My Mind and received my first correspondence today.

It was a most lovely letter written in a note card from a fellow animal lover who lives in Scotland. Thank you so much!

I've been thinking of Christmas lately which always brings me back to my German roots, the German Christmas cookies, Stollen, Strudel and of course, German accordion Christmas music... so I dug up my most angent possession (besides my body) namely a German cookbook that was given to me by my Great Aunt Anni (my grandpa's sister) called "Boehmische Kueche" meaning Bohemian Kitchen. I am from Bavaria, Germany and if you want to learn how Boehmen (or Bohemia) relates to Bavaria, just click here.

Here's the book by Ilse Froidl that's about 40 years old by now.

My great aunt Anni gave it to me as a wedding gift with this inscription:

I really loved that woman and I have many wonderful memories of our times spent together. She was a seamstress and from the left over materials, she sewed dresses for my dolls. I'm pretty sure that I had the best dressed dollies in town!

This cookbook is written in German (of course) and the recipes are in metric measurements. Some of the ingredients mentioned in it are probably hard to come by, if at all...but it's very thorough in explaining the various cuts of meat (types of fish) and covers everything from cooking and baking to canning and juicing, including how to preserve raw eggs and make alcoholic beverages like eggnog, which is entirely different than the American version. 

There's only a few black and white photos in there, but most of it is writing and explanation. I'm going to invest in a kitchen scale that also has the metric system and as soon as it starts cooling down a bit, I'll be cooking some of those old German recipes again. 

This book contains 1000 old-fashioned and newly tried recipes. I used it a lot when I was married and believe it or not, I even made my own doughnuts. They were great!

If anyone's interested in obtaining an unusual recipe for your next party, let me know and I'll be happy to share some with you from this book and translate and convert the recipes for you.

I think I will do an occasional DID YOU KNOW section about Germany for those of you with German heritage or  inquiring minds. By explaining and researching for my blog, I will refresh my memory as well.

So, I'll start my first DID YOU KNOW ... that Germany is comprised of 16 states and each has its own flag (Coat of Arms.) Also, the various cities have their own Coat of Arms as well.

Germany is a federation made up of 16 federal states, each of which has independent if constrained state authority

This is the Flag for Bayern (Bavaria.) One of the oldest states of Europe, it was established as a duchy in the mid first millennium. In the 17th century, the Duke of Bavaria became a Prince-elector of the Holy Roman Empire. The Kingdom of Bavaria existed from 1806 to 1918, and Bavaria has since been a free state (republic). Modern Bavaria also includes parts of the historical regions of Franconia and Swabia

This is the Wappen (Coat of Arms) for Nuremberg, a city located in Bavaria. I served my three-year apprenticeship there in a law firm before coming to the United States in 1971.

The Coat of Arms have changed somewhat over the years, depending on who was the Ruler at the time, but this is the current one.

Every state in Germany has its own traditions, foods, costumes and dialects which makes traveling through Germany quite interesting. When visiting my aunt in Berlin, it took me nearly the whole two weeks to become comfortable with the Berliner dialect. They speak very fast and have different words entirely for some common German words. We spoke High German around our house, in school and at work, but my cousin and her mother speak more in the Franconian (or Bavarian) dialect that I also know, having been raised there. I generally use it only in fun with other fellow Germans, but never in a professional setting because, to be honest, that dialect just sounds too funny (to me) than to be taken seriously. I've heard people talk professionally with that Nuremberger/Franconian dialect and I couldn't help but smile (albeit inside) the whole time.

If you have any questions I will try to answer them or find the correct answer for you, which should be easy since my whole family (except my daughter) lives over there.