Christmas in Transilvania

Stories, recipes and wines from the villages between the Târnave riversEverything takes place in Romania, in the heart of Transylvania, on the Târnava Valley.In the Târnava Valley, Christmas does not begin under the tree. It begins in the yard, in early December, when the schoolmaster is told the children will be absent and Gyuri arrives before dawn. The pig is slaughtered earlier than the feast day in the calendar, so that the bacon and sausages can take on plum-wood smoke in time for the holiday. Nothing is wasted. From the same morning come the noon feast, caraway sausages, liver sausage, blood sausage, headcheese, cracklings and lard.Adrian Conerth gathers this order of work into a collection of stories, recipes and wines from the villages between the Târnave. Each chapter holds together a memory - frost, washbasins, the tin of crescent cookies, the carolers' bread broken at the door - and the exact measure of the household: quantities, steps, regional notes and the right glass of wine, from dry Fetească Regală to off-dry Muscat Ottonel.It is a book to keep beside the stove and beside the table. For those who left the valley and want the taste back. For those who cook now and want to know why, here, the noon feast is not reddened with tomato paste, and the sweet bread is rolled into a tin, not braided. For those who understand that the winter table is full not only of meat and sugar, but also by people that return to it.