To Set before the King: Katharina Schratt's Festive Recipes (Iowa Szathmary Culinary Arts)

About this book

In the 1970s renowned chef and cookbook collector Louis Szathmary purchased a notebook written in German and dated 1905 containing more than two hundred recipes for soups appetizers main dishes and a wealth of desserts ices and punches. This kitchen notebook a concrete remnant from the paradoxical world of turn-of-the-century Vienna belonged to a woman who played an extraordinary role in her society: actress Katharina Schratt lavishly admired by crowned heads industrialists artists composers and Franz Joseph I emperor of Austria and king of Hungary. Schratt was his friend companion and confidante for thirty-two years and these are the foods she served in her home. To Set before the King is really three books in one Gertrud Champe has written an entertaining biography of Schratt and her glittering world. The carefully translated recipes themselves from Little Croustades a la Talleyrand to Goulash a la Andrassy to Gingerbread a lElise are either comfortable and homey to soothe the highly regimented emperor or elegant and sophisticated to suit the palates of Schratts more vivacious friends. Finally working from Schratts tantalizing aide-memoire Chef Louis Szathmary has created almost a hundred updated Austro-Hungarian recipes that will bring the world of this European metropolis to the tables of todays cooks.