Bread's role in politics, religion, technology, and beyond.

    Mary Emma Showalter compiled favorite recipes from hundreds of Mennonite women across the United States and Canada noted for their excellent cooking into this book of more than 1,100 recipes. These tantalizing dishes came to this country directly from Dutch, German, Swiss, and Russian kitchens. Old-fashioned cooking and traditional Mennonite values are woven throughout. Original directions like “a dab of cinnamon” or “ten blubs of molasses” have been standardized to help you get the same wonderful individuality and flavor. Showalter introduces each chapter with her own nostalgic recollection of cookery in grandma’s day—the pie shelf in the springhouse, outdoor bake ovens, the summer kitchen.First published in 1950, Mennonite Community Cookbook has become a treasured part of many family kitchens. Parents who received the cookbook when they were first married make sure to purchase it for their own sons and daughters when they wed.This 65th anniversary edition adds all new color photography and a brief history while retaining all of the original recipes and traditional Fraktur drawings.Check out the cookbook blog at mennonitecommunitycookbook.com

    Anya von Bremzen has vobla-rock-hard, salt-cured dried Caspian roach fish. Lovers of vobla risk breaking a tooth or puncturing a gum on the once-popular snack, but for Anya it's transporting. Like kotleti (Soviet burgers) or the festive Salat Olivier, it summons up the complex, bittersweet flavors of life in that vanished Atlantis called the USSR. There, born in 1963 in a Kafkaesque communal apartment where eighteen families shared one kitchen, Anya grew up singing odes to Lenin, black-marketeering Juicy Fruit gum at her school, and, like most Soviet citizens, longing for a taste of the mythical West. It was a life by turns absurd, drab, naively joyous, melancholy-and, finally, intolerable to her anti-Soviet mother. When she was ten, the two of them fled the political repression of Brezhnev-era Russia, arriving in Philadelphia with no winter coats and no right of return.These days Anya lives in two parallel food universes: one in which she writes about four-star restaurants, the other in which a simple banana-a once a year treat back in the USSR-still holds an almost talismanic sway over her psyche. To make sense of that past, she and her mother decided to eat and cook their way through seven decades of the Soviet experience. Through the meals she and her mother re-create, Anya tells the story of three generations-her grandparents', her mother's, and her own. Her family's stories are embedded in a larger historical epic: of Lenin's bloody grain requisitioning, World War II hunger and survival, Stalin's table manners, Khrushchev's kitchen debates, Gorbachev's anti-alcohol policies, and the ultimate collapse of the USSR. And all of it is bound together by Anya's sardonic wit, passionate nostalgia, and piercing observations.This is that rare book that stirs our souls and our senses.

    Ever since Magnolia Bakery opened its doors in 1996, people have been lining up day and night to satisfy their sugar cravings -- patiently waiting in line at the old-fashioned yet funky bake shop to buy cupcakes, layer cakes, pudding, and ice cream, much to the surprise and delight of owner Allysa Torey. Now, from the baker who brought cupcakes to everyone's attention, come even more recipes from Greenwich Village's favorite bakery and her home kitchen. Whether it's a birthday cake, weekend breakfast treats, or sweets for a bake sale, you'll find simple and delicious recipes to delight family and friends on all occasions in More from Magnolia: Recipes from the World-Famous Bakery and Allysa Torey's Home Kitchen. Beginning with the ever-popular cupcakes and frostings, you'll find the much-requested recipes for the mouthwatering Magnolia's Famous Banana Pudding and sinfully rich Red Velvet Cake with Creamy Vanilla Frosting, all with helpful hints that let you achieve the same sweet results as the bakery. In the well-loved Magnolia style, Allysa Torey brings you new twists on old favorites, such as Devil's Food Cupcakes with Caramel Frosting, Peaches and Cream Pie with Sugar Cookie Crust, and Apple Tart with Hazelnut Brown Sugar Topping. You'll also find breakfast treats like Cream Cheese Crumb Buns and Blueberry Coffee Cake with Vanilla Glaze; and afternoon snacks like Black Bottom Cupcakes, Walnut Brown Sugar Squares, and Oatmeal Peanut Butter Chip Cookies. From Banana Cake with White Chocolate Cream Cheese Icing to Heavenly Hash Ice Cream Pie, these are the desserts that Allysa makes for friends and family at home -- unfussy, straightforward, and simply delicious.Illustrated with eight pages of beautiful color photographs, as well as black-and-white stills that capture the daily life of the bakery, More from Magnolia is an irresistible collection of new classics that will inspire you to fill your kitchen with sweet things.

    Now you can enjoy Tea with Bea in your own home with these easy-to-follow recipes. Cookies & bars are made to enjoy with a cup of tea. Be it lavender shortbread or double chocolate chip cookies, there’s something here to fill the cookie jars. Imagine afternoon tea and what spring to mind are traditional English Scones & Small Cakes. Bea provides the ultimate scone recipe and other sweet fingerfood, such as French macarons. When teatime calls for something special, turn to the Tarts chapter. With recipes for two types of dough, and golden whisky pecan custard pie and key lime pie, you won’t be stuck for ideas. Bea’s key to cake success is a handful of failsafe recipes that she can always rely on. The Cake chapter is devoted to staple recipes which can be embellished or layered to create the dazzling ideas in the Special Cakes chapter. And when only a Cheesecake will do, you’ll find plenty of choice here—from the simple to the sublime.