Welcome to “Cuisine & Culture”, the first leg of this bibliographic marathon! There are still plenty of chapters (and snacks) ahead.
Viennese Cuisine
This type of cuisine constituted the daily fare of the assimilated Viennese Jewish families, like the Freuds. See Katja Behling-Fischer‘s Zu Tisch bei Sigmund Freud: Lebensweise, Gastlichkeit und Essgewohnheiten des Gründers der Psychoanalyse. Mit vielen Rezepten. (At the Table with Sigmund Freud: Lifestyle, Hospitality, and Eating Habits of the Founder of Psychoanalysis. With Many Recipes.) published in Vienna by Brandstätter in 2000. The family’s cook, Paula Fichtl, had trained with the gentlefolk. No doubt, this is where a Viennese salonière like Bertha Zuckerkandl or her cooks, for that matter, would have looked for inspiration too.
Hence, there are quite a few very Viennese recipes preserved in a famous book written against all odds, In Memory’s Kitchen – A Legacy from the Women of Terezin, edited by Cara de Silva (New York: Aronson, 1996).
Then there’s the infuriating story of Alice Urbach’s So kocht man in Wien! (How to Cook in Vienna). Urbach, a Jewish cooking teacher, published her successful cookbook in 1935. After the Anschluss, she fled to England—and her cookbook was stolen, “aryanized,” and republished under someone else’s name with Jewish recipes systematically removed. Krautfleckerl (caramelized cabbage and noodles) was apparently too Jewish to survive the edit. Her granddaughter Karina Urbach uncovered the full story in Alice’s Book: How the Nazis Stole My Grandmother’s Cookbook (London: MacLehose Press, 2022). The original by the grandmother, Alice Urbach, is sadly out of print, but you can read Alice Urbach’s 1935 edition at the Austrian National Library.
Essential Cookbook Readings
A beautiful Time-Life series volume. Wechsberg, a Jewish journalist and writer, provides a sophisticated overview that connects Viennese cuisine not just to the city, but to the entire Habsburg culinary map, capturing the cosmopolitan nature of the former empire.
An early American interpreter. Written by a former editor of Gourmet magazine, this cookbook offers a crucial perspective on how Viennese cuisine was introduced and established in American kitchens in the post-WWII era. (Incidentally, Marcia Colman Morton’s husband was the Austrian-born American writer Frederic Morton.)
A pre-WWI benchmark. This book provides a key look into the German-language culinary world of Vienna before the wars, serving as a baseline for understanding what “assimilated” Viennese cooking looked and tasted like at the turn of the century.
Kurt Gutenbrunner is the chef at, among others, Wallsé and café Sabarsky at the Neue Galerie, as well as the former Blaue Gans.
Peter Grunauer is a well-known Austrian chef in New York City. He was the proprietor of Vienna 79, one of the few four-star restaurants in New York City, and Vienna Park, a three-star Austrian concept located on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.
The modern authority. Plachutta is Vienna’s most famous restaurant group, known for its focus on Tafelspitz (boiled beef). This book is the definitive, contemporary reference for high-end, traditional Viennese classics.
More books in German:
The culinary encyclopedia. Often considered the most exhaustive and authoritative collection of traditional Austrian and Viennese recipes, covering regional specialties beyond the capital. Essential for serious study.
Ruhm was an influential figure in Austrian culinary media (radio, magazines). This book reflects his mid-20th-century interpretation of the classic canon, making it a valuable historical snapshot.
Focuses on tavern food. Beisel is the Viennese term for a simple, traditional pub or bistro. This book is a great source for rustic, hearty, working-class Viennese dishes, reflecting the simple fare found outside of grand restaurants.
A historian’s perspective. This book offers a deeply researched cultural history of Viennese cuisine, looking beyond just recipes to explore the sociological and historical context of the food. Highly relevant to your blog’s focus.
Kaffeehaus: Viennese Café Culture
The central cultural and intellectual role played by the Viennese coffee house is stressed in several texts already referenced here, for example, in Timms’ Karl Kraus and Johnston’s The Austrian Mind. The Viennese coffee house, the Kaffeehaus, is a very special beast, remotely related to the Parisian café and the American coffee shop. It was flourishing in Fin-de-Sciècle Vienna, and it still is a very important institution today. Though today it is a pale reminder of what pre-Second World War coffee-house culture used to be, before the aryanisation, expulsion, and murder of Vienna’s Jews, intellectuals, and every other undesired element.
The coffee-house, this extension of one’s living room and office, is the only true public space for Viennese (Read Jürgen Habermas‘ 1962 text The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere on this. The original German title is Strukturwandel der Öffentlichkeit: Untersuchungen zu einer Kategorie der bürgerlichen Gesellschaft). It’s where press conferences are held, where lovers meet, where the arts and politics are made.
Centered on the sweet side of things and the corresponding recipes, there’s Rick Rodgers‘ Kaffeehaus: Exquisite Desserts from the Classic Cafes of Vienna, Budapest, and Prague. (see here) Unfortunately, most noteworthy publications are in German:
The academic core. An essential scholarly collection focusing on the café’s role as a laboratory of modernism, examining its critical function across art, literature, architecture, and philosophy during its golden age.
![Franz Hubmann, Cafe Hawelka (Vienna: Brandstätter, [2nd updated edition] 2001)](https://jewishviennesefood.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Franz-Hubmann-Cafe-Hawelka-e1490092005819.jpg)
The artist’s perspective. A photographic celebration of the iconic Cafe Hawelka, known for its bohemian clientele and resistance to modernity. Hubmann’s work beautifully captures the atmosphere and the characters of Vienna’s most famous post-war coffee house.
The contemporary guide. A practical and atmospheric guide to the modern Viennese café landscape, contrasting the historic classics with newer establishments and showing how the tradition survives today.
The cultural portrait. A concise, classic essay that explores the Kaffeehaus as a unique German-language cultural phenomenon, analyzing its specific architecture and social etiquette.
The coffee house in a broader European and international context
Literature’s home. Explores the specific tradition of the Kaffeehausliterat (coffee-house writer) across Europe, positioning Vienna’s tradition alongside others and analyzing how the café environment shaped modern literature.
A panoramic view. Provides a broad historical and cultural survey of the coffee house tradition across various European countries, highlighting commonalities and local distinctions.
History and commodity. A general history that looks at the commodity of coffee itself and how its consumption led to the formation of the coffee house as a social and political gathering place internationally.
The structural gaze. Shifts the focus to the architecture and design of these spaces, analyzing the café as a physical manifestation of public display and urban ritual—a highly relevant perspective given your intellectual framework.
Sweet Vienna: Desserts and Pastries
No contest, Vienna is the world’s capital for all things sweet. Even the French, who, granted, have got Pierre Hermé, call their pastries viennoiseries, or “things of Vienna”. Sigmund Freud’s dessert was apple strudel with Schlag, whipped cream (See my article on Crispy Viennese Apple Strudel). Here in Vienna, people do eat sweet things as the main course! Today, Vienna is the city with the most ice cream parlors per capita in the world. Freud himself loved homemade vanilla parfait. If you are looking for the classic on cakes in general, the cake bible has been written by Rose Levy Beranbaum.
The quintessential dessert travelogue. This is a beautiful, detailed cookbook that focuses entirely on the sweet offerings of the great cafés of the former Habsburg Empire. It pairs thorough, practical recipes with cultural stories, acting as an atmospheric guide to the dessert traditions of Vienna, Budapest, and Prague.
![Dietmar Fercher, Andrea Karrer, Austrian Desserts and Pastries: Over 100 Classic Recipes, (New York: Skyhorse Publishing, [2011] reprint 2016)](https://JewishVienneseFood.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Dietmar-Fercher-Andrea-Karrer-Austrian-Desserts-and-Pastries-Over-100-Classic-Recipes-e1490139136978.jpg)
Contemporary Austrian standard. This volume provides a strong, reliable selection of recipes, serving as a modern reference for the full breadth of classic Austrian sweets, from simple cookies to intricate cakes.
The meticulous home cook’s resource. This book is valued for its detailed, practical instructions, making the complex techniques of traditional Viennese baking accessible to the intermediate and advanced home cook.
The American interpreter. Written by the wife of Austrian-born American writer Frederic Morton, this book is an important mid-century guide that introduced many Americans to the precise, classic techniques of Viennese dessert-making. It captures the post-war fascination with sophisticated European baking.
Jewish Cuisine: Shared Traditions & Lost Voices
As far as cookbooks go, Claudia Roden is my all-time favorite author. However, the study of Jewish Viennese food requires a close look at the crucial intersection with mainstream Wiener Küche (Viennese cuisine). The books and essays listed below focus on this shared history, often revealing the essential Jewish contribution that was later erased.
Susanne Belovari’s prize-winning essay, “The Viennese Cuisine before Hitler – ‘One Cuisine in the Use of Two Nations’,“ provides the necessary academic framework, arguing that Jewish and non-Jewish cooking traditions in the city were deeply integrated before 1938.
The story of this erasure is captured poignantly in Karina Urbach’s Alice’s Book: How the Nazis Stole My Grandmother’s Cookbook (London: MacLehose Press, 2022), detailing the Aryanization of a popular Viennese cookery classic by a Jewish author.
Finally, through the whimsical, bittersweet lens of Friedrich Torberg’s Tante Jolesch or the Decline of the West in Anecdotes (Munich: DTV, 1975), we glimpse the vibrant social and culinary life of the Jewish intellectual community that flourished in the city’s Kaffeehäuser.
These resources, including the above-mentioned In Memory’s Kitchen – A Legacy from the Women of Terezin, all relate, through various angles, to the cooking traditions and cultural impact of the Jewish community in Vienna.
The codified cuisine of assimilation. This landmark volume is the first modern German-Jewish cookbook and a crucial historical text for understanding the Viennese cuisine intersection. It formally documented and standardized Central European Jewish cooking, teaching the assimilated Jewish housewife how to blend kosher domesticity with the contemporary, fashionable German and Viennese culinary standards of the 19th century. Its influence extended throughout the Habsburg Empire.
The cultural benchmark. Roden’s definitive work established the study of Jewish food as a serious field of cultural history. It is essential for providing the global, migratory context that informs the specific Ashkenazi and Sephardic threads found even in Viennese cuisine.
The Yiddish kitchen. This Hebrew-language volume provides an invaluable, comprehensive deep-dive into the culinary core of Eastern European Ashkenazi tradition, offering the necessary contrast and source material for the more assimilated cuisine of Vienna.
The Habsburg connection. Since Vienna was the imperial capital, Hungarian Jewish cooking forms a crucial part of its culinary context. Koerner’s work is an academic and cultural history that shows the deep, shared Austro-Hungarian culinary roots relevant to many Viennese Jewish dishes.
The modern cultural phenomenon. Though not focused on Vienna, this book is important for establishing the contemporary, cosmopolitan definition of “Jewish food,” particularly its Middle Eastern/Sephardic influences, which reflect the global conversation that Jewish food writing engages in today.
Jewish Cooking with Joan Nathan
Cookbooks by the leading figure of Jewish food writing shaped the narrative of Jewish cuisine of the past decades:
Nathan’s broadest and most recent work, this book takes a global, thematic approach, emphasizing the migratory history of Jewish food and underscoring its connections to global trade routes and cultural exchange.
This book is the definitive American-Jewish resource, documenting the diverse culinary heritage of Jewish immigrants and their descendants across the US, including the specific Ashkenazi dishes that found new life in America after the exodus from Europe.
A key resource for understanding the fusion and synthesis of Jewish food in the modern state of Israel, showcasing how immigrant communities (including those from Central and Eastern Europe) have shaped a complex national cuisine.
This collection provides the ritualistic and temporal structure for Jewish cuisine. It is a vital resource for understanding how the Jewish calendar dictates cooking, focusing on the specific recipes, traditions, and symbolic foods associated with each holiday, from the High Holidays to Passover. It shows how the cycle of the year is marked through the plate.
Italian Jewish Cooking
Italy was always very present in Viennese cuisine and Sigmund Freud’s dreams and voyages. Once one has cooked and read the Italian recipes found in Claudia Roden‘s, The Book of Jewish Food, or Joan Nathan‘s, King Solomon’s Table, one will inevitably turn to the books below. Not listed is Claudia Roden‘s 2014 The Food of Italy. Region by Region, because, though the book is a major source of information, it does not focus on Jewish cooking. Missing for the same reason is the classic must-read cookbook on Italian cuisine, Marcella Hazan‘s Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking.
The essential memoir and recipes. This foundational work is crucial not just for its detailed recipes but also for Machlin’s poignant memoir of her life in the centuries-old Jewish community of Pitigliano, preserving the traditions of a unique, almost vanished Italian Jewish culture.
A continuation of Machlin’s essential work, providing more recipes and deeper personal recollections, further charting the rich culinary and social life of this specific Italian Jewish heritage.
Focuses on confectionery. This volume isolates the dessert traditions, which is highly relevant given Vienna’s status as the world capital of sweets. It shows the unique Jewish contributions to the Italian dolci canon.
The regional survey. Goldstein provides an approachable, well-researched guide that surveys the culinary diversity of Italian Jewry, covering regional specialties and emphasizing the dialogue between the Jewish kitchen and the local Italian culture.
in Italian:
Roman Jewish tradition. This book documents the specific, deep-rooted culinary traditions of Rome’s Jewish community, known for their distinct preparations, such as Carciofi alla giudia (Jewish-style fried artichokes).
A broad recipe collection. A substantial Italian-language resource offering over 200 recipes, confirming the breadth and depth of Jewish cooking across the Italian peninsula.
The Venetian connection. Given the proximity and historical ties between Venice and Vienna, this specialized text on the Venetian Jewish kitchen is key for finding common culinary ground, especially in fish and frying traditions.
Venetian sweets. A dual-language text focusing specifically on Jewish sweets from Venice, providing a critical source for comparing and contrasting the dessert cultures of Venice and Vienna.
The Venetian Wildcard
I’ll add one more Venetian cookbook, though not focusing on Jewish cuisine at all; it is one of my favorite cookbooks on the Serenissima. It’s Polpo: A Venetian Cookbook (Of Sorts) by Russell Norman. Norman’s book is valued for its atmospheric, informal take on Venetian food, reflecting the city’s rustic small-plate cicheti culture. It offers a necessary modern contrast to the historical, classic cookbooks listed above.
Jewish Studies: Food
As an introduction, you may want to read the Encyclopedia Judaica (2nd ed, 2007) articles on “Food,” “Cookbooks,” (Vol. 5, Coh-Doz) and “Dietary Laws” (Vol. 7, Fey–Gor).
The definitive lexicon. This is the most comprehensive single-volume reference work on the subject, indispensable for quickly cross-referencing ingredients, dishes, and culinary terminology across global Jewish traditions. It functions as a first-stop resource for this blog’s research.
The foundational history. Cooper’s work provides a key scholarly overview of the development of Jewish foodways from antiquity to the modern era, emphasizing how cuisine reflects social and economic status within various communities.
A critical scholarly collection. This volume gathers diverse essays from various academic fields (history, anthropology, and theology) to analyze the complex relationship between Jewish identity, food, and religious practice, moving beyond just recipes into critical theory.
The identity lens. Kraemer’s book offers a highly relevant critical analysis, focusing on how eating and dining rituals—rather than just the Dietary Laws—have functioned as key markers of Jewish identity and cultural change across history. This perspective is vital for this blog’s thematic focus on ritual and personal narrative.
Jewish Vegetarianism (and even Veganism)
A few wonderful books on this important and very popular topic. For Central European Jewish cuisine, meatless dishes were always essential, driven by the laws of kashrut (separating milk and meat), economic necessity, and the abundance of fresh produce in the Mitteleuropa regions.
The titles below explore the ethical and historical roots of Jewish plant-based eating. These works dive deep into the Jewish tradition, often going beyond the well-known sources of Genesis 1:29 (the initial, pre-Flood vegetarian diet), Genesis 9:3-4 (the post-Flood allowance of meat), Tza’ar Ba’alei Chayim (the prohibition against animal cruelty), and the messianic vision of Isaiah 11:6-9 (the peaceful end of days).
For a detailed look at my own journey through these sources, please see my essay: “Why Vegan: The Ethical, Theological & Personal Journey Behind My Plant-Based Adaptations.”
For those who try to cut down on animal products, famous food journalist Mark Bittman’s approach, listed just below, might be the way to go.
Cookbooks & Culinary Adaptations
The modern, practical approach. Siva’s book represents the very latest trend in Jewish cuisine: a plant-forward and largely vegan approach that focuses on fresh, seasonal ingredients while maintaining deep respect for tradition. It shows how the ethics of plant-based eating intersect with a lively, contemporary, and healthy expression of Jewish food culture.
The modern adaptation of tradition. This book is noteworthy because it shows an established, iconic New York bakery—one historically associated with classic, Central European/Jewish-American sweets—making a definitive leap into vegan baking. It illustrates the ongoing challenge and success of translating deeply traditional, dairy- and egg-rich recipes into a plant-based format, reflecting a critical shift in contemporary Jewish and urban culinary culture.
The crucial historical source. Originally published in 1938 in Vilna, this book is an extraordinary historical document. It proves that a thriving, dedicated Jewish vegetarian movement existed in Eastern Europe before the Holocaust, showcasing sophisticated, produce-forward recipes.
The Ashkenazi culinary icon. This book perfectly captures the mid-20th-century Ashkenazi focus on dairy and parve cuisine. Ratner’s, a legendary Lower East Side restaurant, epitomized the comfort and richness achieved through meatless cooking in the diaspora.
The global recipe treasury. Marks highlights the global scope of Jewish meatless cooking, demonstrating that vegetarian and parve dishes are far from a modern trend—they are central to the culinary identity of diverse Jewish communities worldwide.
A modern global collection. Gavin provides a vibrant, accessible collection that showcases the range of contemporary Jewish vegetarian recipes, often highlighting recipes that naturally omit meat and dairy.
The mid-80s bridge. This book is valuable as a snapshot of the early Jewish vegetarian movement outside of the US. Published in London, it focused on creating accessible, enticing vegetarian meals that still respected Jewish culinary traditions, serving as a key resource for the generation that began questioning meat consumption on ethical grounds.
The literary and cyclical approach. Kalechofsky, a central figure in Jewish vegetarian literature, co-authors this book to emphasize the cyclical nature of Jewish food life. By organizing recipes around the Jewish calendar year, it reinforces the spiritual and traditional basis for a vegetarian diet, linking it directly back to the holiday structures.
The modern flexibility model. While not explicitly Jewish, Bittman’s framework offers a practical, contemporary approach to reducing meat consumption. It speaks to the modern dilemma of balancing health and ethics with a commitment to flavorful, non-restrictive eating.
![Mollie Katzen, The Moosewood Cookbook: 40th Anniversary Edition, (Berkeley: Ten Speed Press, [1977] 40th anniversary ed. 2014)](https://JewishVienneseFood.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Mollie-Katzen-The-Moosewood-Cookbook-40th-Anniversary-Edition-e1490218986906.jpg)
The counter-culture classic. A landmark work in American vegetarian cooking, this book, rooted in a collective Jewish sensibility, had a massive influence on making meatless cuisine palatable, vibrant, and mainstream—a necessary text for tracing the history of modern vegetarian food culture.
![Isa Chandra Moskowitz, Vegan with a Vengeance, 10th Anniversary Edition: Over 150 Delicious, Cheap, Animal-Free Recipes That Rock, (Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Lifelong Books, [10th Anniversary edition] 2015)](https://JewishVienneseFood.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Isa-Chandra-Moskowitz-Vegan-with-a-Vengeance-10th-Anniversary-Edition-Over-150-Delicious-Cheap-Animal-Free-Recipes-That-Rock-e1490046835492.jpg)
The punk rock vegan voice. Moskowitz represents the contemporary, assertive, and politically engaged vegan movement. Her approach provides a powerful, often witty, contrast to the more traditional and historical texts on Jewish vegetarianism.
Ethical & Theological Studies
The Messianic Vision. This seminal essay by the first Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Mandate Palestine is the single most important theological source for modern Jewish vegetarianism. Kook argues that a return to vegetarianism is not merely an ethical choice, but a necessary messianic ideal tied to the ultimate redemption and restoration of the Garden of Eden state, where all creatures lived in peace. It elevates the discussion from simple kashrut to a profound spiritual imperative.
The cutting-edge scholarship. This academic collection is crucial for understanding the current state of the field, gathering contemporary essays that explore the historical precedents, ethical foundations, and future directions of plant-based eating within Judaism.
The comprehensive debate. This edited volume is a crucial resource, presenting a wide spectrum of perspectives by compiling essays from Jewish scholars, rabbis, and ethicists. It effectively maps the modern intellectual terrain of Jewish animal rights, covering the classical texts, the legal arguments concerning tza’ar ba’alei chayim (the prohibition against causing pain to living creatures), and the contemporary responses to factory farming. It demonstrates the diversity of thought on this ethical imperative.
The contemporary activist’s statement. This collection is a powerful, focused articulation of the modern Jewish vegan movement. It moves beyond historical arguments for vegetarianism to advocate specifically for veganism based on contemporary ethical and environmental crises. It’s a key text for understanding the current, socially engaged end of this culinary and ethical spectrum.
The early synthesis. One of the first comprehensive works to systematically explore the connections between Jewish thought (including Kabbalah and Hasidism) and vegetarian principles, setting the stage for later ethical arguments.
The legal and mystical argument. Sears provides a deep dive into Jewish Law (Halacha) and mystical sources to build a compelling case for vegetarianism, appealing to those interested in the profound spiritual and legal roots of the ethical movement.
The foundational ethical guide. A highly influential text that persuasively argues that contemporary practices of factory farming and consumption violate core Jewish values of compassion (tza’ar ba’alei chayim) and ecological stewardship.
The cultural touchstone. Foer’s deeply personal and widely read exploration of the ethical issues surrounding contemporary animal consumption is essential for understanding the modern consciousness that drives many Jewish people (and others) toward plant-based diets.