A collection of more than 100 of the best, most emblematic recipes of German and Austrian home cooks, from the author of Classic German Baking . To many, German food is humble comfort food, the kind of food that may not win a beauty award, but more than makes up for it with its power to soothe, nourish and cheer. In Classic German Cooking , Luisa Weiss—who was born in Berlin to an Italian mother and American father, and married into a family with roots in Saxony—has collected and mastered the essential everyday recipes of Germany and Austria. Classic German Cooking features traditional and time-honored recipes that are beloved in homes across the region, such as Rinderrouladen (Braised Beef Rolls), Quarkauflauf (Fresh Cheese Soufflé), Hühnerfrikassee (Chicken Fricassee) and authentic Viennese Gulasch or Alpine Germknödel (Plum Butter-Stuffed Steamed Dumplings) . Cozy Apfelküchle (Apple Fritters) bring warmth to an afternoon snack, while tangy Spargelsalat (White Asparagus Salad) signals the sweet start of Spring. Luisa gives history and context to the cooking of Germany and its influences worldwide. Sprinkled with both personal stories and historical insights, Classic German Cooking will leave you with a well-rounded understanding of the cuisine and its lasting influence. Luisa Weiss is an Italian and American food writer based in Berlin, Germany. She is the creator of The Wednesday Chef blog and author of the critically acclaimed memoir, My Berlin Kitchen , and baking book, Classic German Baking . She grew up in Berlin and Boston and graduated from Tufts University with degrees in English and French literature. She spent a decade working in book publishing in New York and was Harper’s BAZAAR Germany ’s food columnist for four years. Introduction One recent morning in late spring, my family—my husband, Max, and our sons, Hugo and Bruno—and I drove southwest from Berlin, where we live, to Petzow on the banks of the Schwielowsee, one of Berlin and Brandenburg’s three thousand lakes. We were there for a guided tour of Schlossgarten Petzow, a privately owned garden that had originally been created in the nineteenth century as part of a larger project that included a palace, a church, and a small village by three renowned Prussian architects and landscape designers, Karl Friedrich Schinkel, Friedrich August Stüler, and Peter Joseph Lenné. We thought we were there to spend a few hours in a pretty walled garden; what I didn’t expect was a history lesson that spanned from the Bronze Age to the reunification of Germany. Though after so many years in Berlin, I should have known that in any context here, history is never very far away. After World War II, the occupying Soviet military expropriated the family that owned the garden, and it was divided into allotments for local villagers and refugees to grow food during the devastating hunger of the postwar years. Later, during the years of the German Democratic Republic, the garden became the site of an agricultural cooperative. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the garden fell into disrepair. It became a dumping ground, with nearly a million kilos of garbage removed from it in later years, until the current owner, a wealthy West Berlin businessman named Klaus Kosakowski, bought it and set about restoring the garden’s former glory. It was Kosakowski who gave us the tour, proudly pointing out the efforts of the past twenty years: the beautifully crafted wooden hut for the beehives, the handmade bricks for the restored walls of the garden, the meticulously planned lines of sight throughout the garden to better contemplate the countless rosebushes and perfectly laid-out vegetable garden. Kosakowski also explained that during the multiyear cleanup of the gardens, excavators unearthed a Bronze Age–era holy site, which he decided to leave intact, an ancient clearing at the edge of all the manicured beauty. A few steps farther and we were standing in front of a wizened elderberry tree. A small brass bell hung from one of its branches. Why the bell? Kosakowski explained that elderberry, known as Holunder in German or Holler in Austria, had been given its name by Germanic tribes who associated the tree with the goddess Hulda. She was rumored to inhabit the trees, shaking the branches free of their tiny white blossoms in spring, a storyline picked up by the Grimm Brothers’ nineteenth-century fairy tale “Frau Holle.” Since ancient times, elderberry trees have also been considered to be the threshold to other worlds inhabited by dwarves and fairies, Kosakowski solemnly explained, or maybe even the underworld. It was considered risky to fall asleep under an elderberry tree because you could end up trapped in the other world forever, and so, to avoid that, the bell was hung to keep drowsy visitors awake. As we stood there listening to Kosakowski, everyone nodding thoughtfully about the elderberry tree, I thought about how emblematic this mixt