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(The) Scandinavian Cookbook

by Trina Hahnemann

Description
Trina Hahnemann's offering, The Scandinavian Cookbook, brings the essence of Scandinavia to life and to the table. Lars Ranek's food and landscape photography is just as remarkable as Trina's seasonal recipes. Cooks will enjoy 340 rich and evocative four-color photographs by Lars Ranek, who uniquely showcases the beauty he finds in the food and culture of Scandinavia.

Trina offers a modern twist on Scandinavia's traditions with wholesome and mouthwatering dishes organized by the calendar month. Her progressive take on taste celebrates the region's rich traditions of family meals and festivals, as well as its robust seasons, with simple recipes made from healthy and timely ingredients.

We get a sampling of the seasons with delicious recipes for an entire year's worth of fabulous and easy-to-prepare main courses, sides, desserts, and more. From Swedish Christmas Ham, Skagen Fish Soup, Salmon Burgers, and Kartoffelkage, to yummy Layer Cake with Strawberries and traditional Crisp Vanilla Danish Butter Cookies, readers will quickly discover that Scandinavian cooking is always in season.

Scandinavia may be a small region, but when it comes to food, its influence and impact are big.
Taste the traditions and the seasons.

About the Author
Trina Hahnemann hails from Denmark where she created, owns, and runs a cafe in Denmark's House of Parliament as well as several large company cafes. She is a chef, food writer, and published cookbook author. Lars Renek is one of Scandinavia's leading food photographers with more than 20 published books.

Review
Here in Minnesota it is a well known fact that all Scandinavian food is white, something that I am sure is due to our long cold winters limiting Grandma's food choices. There is color in these recipes and in the accompany pictures. In fact the vivid pictures contained in this cookbook are worth the price of the book.

The recipes are clearly written and take you through the months via recipes. They are accompanied by a brief paragraph either about the recipe or the region that the recipe is from. I really like this, as a collector of cookbooks I feel that they are a like a culinary time capsules taking us to other places and timse. Also, since this book is in English it will be used by people not necessarily familiar with Scandinavian customs or eating habits so this `extra' information is helpful.

We immediately made the Mint apricot and celery stuffed lamb (sans the potatoes and spinach since that would have required going to the grocery store.) It was wonderful. The Medeljer, spelt buns, cardamom buns and Jerusalem artichoke soup are the next recipes on the list. And I am thinking that next Sunday will be Braised stuffed pheasant with savory cabbage, gravy and potatoes. The pheasant gets wrapped in bacon and everyone knows - everything is better with bacon! Caramel potatoes are also on the list of we have to try it, if only to bring them into work to have everyone try them. I work at a potato processing plant; our R&D tech said that caramel potatoes just seemed wrong, which of course means that we have to try it.
Bruce W. Krafft, Minneapolis, Minnesota (Amazon.com)