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In Memory's Kitchen: A Legacy from the Women of Terezin
The sheets of paper are as brittle as fallen leaves; the faltering handwriting changes from page to page; the words, a faded brown, are almost indecipherable. The page are filled with recipes. Each is a memory, a fantasy, a hope for the future. Written by undernourished and starving women in the Czechoslovakian ghetto/concentration camp of Terezin (also known as Theresiens...more
Hardcover, 110 pages
Published
September 1st 1996
by Jason Aronson
(first published July 28th 1996)
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In the book Eat My Words: Reading Women's Lives Through the Cookbooks They Wrote, Janet Theophano wrote about In Memory’s Kitchen: “A group of Jewish women who were inmates in the Theresienstadt concentration camp in Czechoslovakia dreamed of home and family and a way of life that was being extinguished. The women wrote their memories of food into a cookbook that took over fifty years to reach publication in 1996.”
While starving and facing death, these women wrote their memories of food. Within...more
While starving and facing death, these women wrote their memories of food. Within...more
This book is a memoir told in recipes. I know that nothing I say here will do this book justice. This quote from the book's foreward by Dorothy Wagner explains:
"Their thoughts were inevitably and ceaselessly focused on food. Discussion of its preparation and the heated arguments concerning the superiority of one method over another served as more than an anodyne for their tortured nerves. It strengthened their resolution to survive, if only because it made more vivid, not what they sought to es...more
"Their thoughts were inevitably and ceaselessly focused on food. Discussion of its preparation and the heated arguments concerning the superiority of one method over another served as more than an anodyne for their tortured nerves. It strengthened their resolution to survive, if only because it made more vivid, not what they sought to es...more
view all 4 comments
Jan 25, 2010
Emily
rated it
5 of 5 stars
Recommended to Emily by:
Adam Gopnik--TOTN 12-03-09
Shelves:
5-star-read
A cookbook for reading rather than for following recipes. It's sad to contemplate the suffering of the people in Terezin, but so good to learn that they had lived. The women's act of preserving their beloved recipes made me feel a bond of humanity with them.
Can't say I "enjoyed it" but the horror and amazement I felt that a cookbook was made by these women in death camps is beyond description. I am awed to know the story.
Nothing like I have ever read-more novel than cookbook, more history of a very personal nature during a very horrific time. Unique and heartwrenching
A quick read, but a deep thought. These ladies are inspirational in a time that was anything but.
While the Introduction to this book is quite interesting, the rest of the book consists of recipes. Despite reviews indicating this fact, I thought there would be a prose commentary or explanation to make up a full book. But, it is simply recipes. It is an interesting concept but would make a better PhD thesis then it does a book.
This book is almost entirely a publication of a handwritten recipe book from the 'model' Nazi camp, Terezin. Its interest is chiefly as a historical document. I was expecting a book that dealt more directly with the lived experiences of the women in Terezin, so unfortunately I was disappointed.
Oct 01, 2007
Deb Hale
rated it
3 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
Those interested in the Holocaust
Food reveals much about people and their lives. And such was also the case for those who lived during the horrors of the Holocaust. Included are recipes and memories of Jewish women who lived during the Holocaust.
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