title: Biergarten Cookbook
author: Julia Skowronek

publication date:  March 10, 2015
publisher:  DK

Welcome to the biergarten, a place where the air buzzes with excitement, the beer flows freely, and the soft pretzels are the size of your head.
— Biergarten Cookbook

I have a pile of DK books on my bookshelves – they’re so much fun and extremely useful (I especially love their travel guides), but when DK Canada reached out on Twitter and mentioned they had cookbooks? Wow, I had no idea that they published cookbooks as well! They offered to send me a new release and, as they put it, throw myself a “biergarten frolic”. I couldn’t wait!

the first nibble:

Admittedly, I’ve never been to Germany or celebrated Oktoberfest to its fullest, but I love the idea of biergartens and this book – easy, picnic-style foods to be shared with lots of people in a relaxed, family-friendly setting.

Bavarian Beer

I loved browsing through this book because I have pretty much NO exposure to Bavarian food, except for a few schnitzels here and there, and Radlers (one of my favourite summer drinks)

On my first pass through the book, the most tempting recipes from each chapter were: (I chose three recipes from each chapter since there are only three groupings of recipes):

• Cold snacks, salads, and more: Pear obatzda, pg. 16
• Cold snacks, salads, and more: Bavarian potato salad, pg. 42
• Cold snacks, salads, and more: Green bean salad with Feta cheese, pg. 50
• Hot dishes and Bavarian classics: Schnitzel with pan-fried potatoes, pg. 80
• Hot dishes and Bavarian classics: Beer goulash, pg. 85
• Hot dishes and Bavarian classics: Tyrolean has with fried 103gs, pg. 73
• Sweet treats: Bavarian donuts, pg. 130
• Sweet treats: Cherry pudding, pg. 145
• Sweet treats: Beer shandies, pg. 153

 
the nitty-gritty:

number of recipes (as stated by book): n/a

recipe list? Yes, at the start of each chapter, there’s a list of recipes contained in that chapter

table of contents: The Table of Contents doesn’t have a list of recipes, but for someone (like me) who isn’t familiar with Bavarian dishes, this isn’t a real problem. I must mention though, that I am not a fan of any cookbook without recipes listed in the Table of Contents.

There are three main groupings of recipes – ‘Cold snacks, salads and more’, ‘Hot dishes and Bavarian classics’ and ‘Sweet treats’. There are a few other ‘mini sections’, mainly with fun biergarten-related info, such as ‘Top ten biergarten dishes’ and ‘A short breviary of beer’.

photography:  The photography is rustic and outdoorsy, with lots of wood tables – it all fits well into the biergarten feel. I kind of like the messy, torn-bread, crumbs-on-table, imperfect photography – there’s something very warm and welcoming about food photography that isn’t perfect. but is still great to look at.

I also love the fact that there’s a photo for every dish mentioned in the book – I always give a book extra points for that!

photo to recipe ratio*:  out of 77 total recipes**, 77 recipes had at least one accompanying ‘finished dish’ photo or step-by-step photo (photo : recipe ratio = 1 : 1)
notes:
* this is a manual count, so numbers may be slightly off due to human error (mine)
** only ‘main’ recipes are counted – recipes that appear as part of another dish are not counted

Tyrolean hash with fried egg

recipes:
– separate ingredient list? yes
– serving info given? yes
– prep/cook time given? yes
– recipe format: numbered steps

The recipes are very well spaced out and the font is nice and large, making it very easy to read as you move around the kitchen cooking. The steps are very well laid out and many (but not all) recipes are introduced with a short blurb that introduces the dish (either with facts, history or some tips).

Some recipes include tips and variations at the bottom of the recipe.

Because this is a cuisine that isn’t that familiar to me, there are a lot of ingredients in this cookbook that I don’t normally stock in my pantry, like Emmenthal cheese, caraway seeds, juniper berries, Sambal Oelek and elderflower syrup. Also, every so often, ‘organic lemons’ and ‘organic oranges’ would pop up in the ingredient list, only to resort to regular ‘lemons’ and ‘oranges’ for a different dish. I’m not sure why the difference…

There were a few recipes that included accompaniments that weren’t included in the cookbook. For example, ‘Apple fritters with walnut ice cream’ only gives you the recipe for the apple fritters and has the line “Serve hot with the whipped cream and walnut ice cream”. I want the recipe for the walnut ice cream! That sounds awesome! (There’s no recipe for walnut ice cream in the book.)

Bavarian Donuts

the last bite:

I found this book a great introduction to Bavarian food. It’s simple and easy to follow and includes so many different dishes that there’s pretty much something for every taste. I really appreciated the sections that gave background information on biergartens, bavarian beer, children at biergartens, etc. These info-sections are exactly what I would expect from a DK book.

The index at the back is interesting too. There’s the regular index, and then a second index that lists all the recipes by their German name (with English translations).

The negative points for this book are minor – I did have trouble finding some of the ingredients (even the European deli close to my house that carries many unusual ingredients didn’t have the elderflower syrup) and I wish they would have either included all the dishes they mention or leave them out altogether (hello? walnut ice cream!) but otherwise, this is a great addition to my cookbook shelf as there are so many dishes within its pages that I don’t have in any other book.

This is definitely not a cookbook for general use – the recipes in here, as you would expect from the title, are very specific and might not be for all tastes. However, I found it really interesting to check out recipes from a cuisine I wasn’t familiar with and can’t wait to try some of the more unusual dishes.

Now…anyone want to join me for a grapefruit shandy?

cooking the book

Green bean salad with Feta cheese

what worked: This was very quick and easy to make and could be prepared a bit ahead of time to save the pre-dinner cooking rush.
what didn’t work: Nothing. This recipe came out exactly as expected.
did your dish look like the one pictured in the cookbook? it sure did (although this recipe was so easy, it would be hard to mess up)
ease/expense of ingredients: All the ingredients were readiy available at the grocery store. The only thing that was slightly expensive was the cost of a good Feta cheese.
would you make this again?: Yes, definitely. It was so easy to make, and the salad was full of flavour. I can easily see this as a summer salad for many meals.

Click here to purchase Biergarten Cookbook from The Book Depository (free worldwide shipping) or Amazon.

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