Fanni's Viennese Kitchen
SynopsisPlot
Scrumptious, delicious things to make in your own kitchen! Plus stories about why Fanni sailed to America from Vienna in 1921, never to return. And stories about how Fanni got her family through the Great Depression with her cooking and how Fanni saved her daughter “from a monster!”
Story
About this book
Fanni's Viennese Kitchen combines a family cookbook with a personal history rooted in early twentieth-century Vienna. The book is written by Genevieve Davis, who presents recipes passed down from Fanni, a woman who left Vienna in 1921 and settled in the United States. Among the dishes collected here are Apfelstrudel, Wiener Schnitzel, Sauerbraten, plum dumplings, and apricot Kuchen, each connected to the household cooking Fanni practiced after emigrating.
Alongside the recipes, the book tells the story of why Fanni left Austria and never returned, and how her cooking sustained her family during the Great Depression. Davis also recounts how Fanni protected her daughter from a threatening figure in their lives. These personal narratives sit between the recipe instructions, giving each dish a context that extends beyond ingredients and technique.
The structure moves between food preparation and memoir, linking specific Viennese dishes to episodes in one immigrant family's life in America. The recipes reflect a home kitchen tradition rather than restaurant cooking, and the biographical sections ground them in the particular circumstances of displacement, economic hardship, and family survival that shaped how and why Fanni cooked.
