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| Katish: Our Russian Cook (Modern Library Food) | 
 enlarge | Author: Wanda Frolov
Creators: Henry Stahlhut, Marion Cunningham
Publisher: Modern Library
Category: Book
List Price: $11.95
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You Save: $11.94 (100%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  6 reviews
Sales Rank: 621460
Media: Paperback
Edition: Modern Library Paperback Ed
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 176
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5.2 x 0.4
ISBN: 0375757619
Dewey Decimal Number: 641.5947
EAN: 9780375757617
ASIN: 0375757619
Publication Date: June 26, 2001
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
| Showing reviews 1-5 of 6 | | NEXT » |
 Food fantasy in the mid 1940s? December 19, 2007
This is an almost identical retread of "Clementine in the Kitchen", published 4 years earlier in 1943. Substitute a Russian cook for a French cook, and a well-to-do Los Angeles family for a well-to-do Boston family, change the menu ethnicity, and mix the characters around a little bit. The modern reader is left to wonder if the pinacle of food fantasy in the mid '40s was to have a foreign cook whip up daily fare of exotic cuisine. Where food magazines are concerned it's not enough to write up the food, it must be presented wrapped in a little story. If you take a cursory glance at the present day's glossy of Bon Appetit or Saveur, the recipes are usually tied up in some familial gathering and shot on location, with the photo editorial telling a story or admonishing you on how to serve your dish: clan gathering at Scottish retreat or mid-skiing al fresco picnic in the winter. In the 1940s the de rigeur back story appears to be exotic food presented to a an American family by the surrogate motherly hands of a live-in cook with bubbly personality and quirky ESL charm. Were Americans xenophobic eaters unless gently eased into strange food by the aspirational stories in wealthy trapping from Gourmet magazine?
The recipes are interwoven with the stories, usually given as "take a pound of mushroom and sautee until slightly browned, etc." Oh, and mushroom and sourcream abounds! Anyone with access to a repository of modern recipes will not need the recipes given in this book, although, once in a while, something will surprise you with its uncommon name and preparation: pelmeny (savory beef-filled half-moon raviolis), vareniki (like pelmeny but square and filled with sweet black cherries), tvoroshniki (cottage cheese enriched with egg and flour then deep fried.) The standard Russian and eastern European fare (blini, chicken a la Kiev, baba, pirogue), no doubt exotic and intriguing to the 1940s readers, are comparable to modern recipes.
The stories wrapped around the recipes are cute, but written with considerably less charm, verve and soul than "Clementine in the Kitchen". From a literary perspective, "Katish" is not the equal of "Clementine". One gets the feeling that the stories are a crutch written in service of the recipes, rather than an independent narrative of which recipes are a small part. I could do without the recipes, and on considerations, without the Russian emigre stories as well. That leaves me to wonder what part does this book have in the Modern Library Food series: other than a Russian lilt and dubious historial scenery, there's not much here.
 Russian recipes November 22, 2007
This is an excellent book, telling a marvellous story with authentic Russian recipes liberally sprinkled throughout the text. Thank you.
Brian
Our Russian cook Katerina Antonovna Ripoff? July 22, 2006
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
"Katish" is a cute fictional book a la recipe collection. It has a "story" of a Russian emigree widow who comes to the US in the 20's and cooks for a very American California family. Through Prohibition and all the struggles of learning a new country, Katerina "Katish" makes her new adopted family happy with borscht, pelmeni, piroshki and babas and pashkas.
The recipes are fine--I recognize many of them from my own family recipes because my Grandma and Great-Aunt were from Russia. While Grandma was not a cook (lamb chop and opening cans of salmon were her forte), Great-Aunt was a noted cook who raised 4 kids on a farm in Africa after she emigrated and married in the early 1900's. And my mom's soup recipe is right in there as well, along with her stuffed cabbage, so I can vouch for the validity of at least some of the recipes as quite genuine. And you won't go far wrong with the soups--I make these regularly as the basis of our winter cuisine and they are always appreciated.
However, this book reads a great deal like another classic, "Clementine in the Kitchen" by Samuel Chamberlain. "Clementine" is purportedly not fiction, and the drawings are hauntingly similar in style to the ones in "Katish." Clementine is a rosy-cheeked French single lady, Katish is a rosy-cheeked widowed lady. Both fend off marriage proposals (but Clementine succumbs) and both deal with butchers, American shops and funny guests and young family members who view them as almost surrogate moms. Side by side, they have a lot in common.
While I can recommend the good recipes in "Katish" as pretty much genuine, the fiction is more or less warmed-over and struck me as somewhat flavorless. When I looked up the history of "Katish" after reading it, I realized it is perhaps the instant pudding of fiction, quick, sweet but artificial. Read it for the recipes.
Unusual Novel/Cookbook June 20, 2005
Wanda L. Frolov wrote for Gourmet and Better Homes & Gardens during the 1940s & 1950s. This delightful novel/cookbook follows the adventures of Katish, a Russian refugee who settles in Los Angeles and becomes the cook for a middle-class household. Although some of the humor is a bit dated, it still is a very enjoyable read, and the recipes are great, too. (Katish's cheesecake still remains Gourmet's most requested recipe.)
In the original 1947 edition, Frolov noted that Katish was in fact, a fictional character, but said, "Strangely enough, most people seem to want to hear that it is all true exactly as set down. Well, perhaps I see their point: One doesn't look for fiction in a cookbook."
(...)
Buy the book!
delightful literary cookbook October 12, 2001
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
Katish is the nickname of the young Russian widow who is taken in by Wanda Frolov's mother as a cook in 1920's Los Angeles. Wanda, the author, and her brother lived with their widowed mom. As a middle-class California family, hiring a cook was an extravagance for them, but Wanda's aunt talked them into doing it. In the 1940s, when she was grown, Wanda wrote the chapters of this book as a series of articles in _Gourmet_ magazine. They were later gathered together as a book in 1947. Now the Modern Library Food Series has reprinted this delightful literary cookbook for a new generation of reader-cooks. Like many things culinary, these memoirs have improved with age.The story of the book revolves around the cultural differences created as Katish and her Russian immigrant friends interact with an American middle class family of the 1920s. It is a heart-warming story in which both sides profit from the relationship. _Katish_ is a delightfully amusing glimpse into the culture of the time and is populated with warmly portrayed friends, relatives and situations. As each food is discussed in the narrative, the recipe is listed. They are easy to follow and delicious. The recipes are a wonderful introduction to Russian family cooking. Breads and rolls, soups, desserts, side dishes, and main dishes are all well represented. Sadly, there is only one salad and one beverage (a delightfully rich hot chocolate). Thirty of the recipes contain meat or meat products. Thirty five are ovo-lacto vegetarian (many with butter and sour cream). Only nine are animal-free vegan recipes and six of these contain alcoholic beverages. An interesting aside is that, for a Prohibition-era story, there are surprisingly many recipes with alcoholic beverages. Dieters should be warned that most of these recipes are rich in flavor, but also in calories. However, there is a delightful fruit juice pudding called Kissel that can be made fat-free. Read it for the story or read it for the recipes. Either way you are in for a treat.
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