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Sugared Orange: Recipes & Stories from a Winter in Poland
The seasonal focus of this stunning memoir cookbook brings to life the food, festivals, and traditions of the long, cold winters spent through a rural Polish childhood. From St. Nicholas' Day to the vigil of Christmas Eve and the mid-winter revelry of a Sylwester New Year's Eve Ball, the touching story picks up where its predecessor, the award-winning Rose Petal Jam , leaves off. Featuring 47 new recipes, the lush design and lavish visuals provide inspiration and nostalgia along a winter journey that takes in the cities of Lublin, Warsaw, Kraków, and Lódz, as well as some of Europe's oldest forests and the frozen Mazury Lakes. Part armchair travel but mostly a sumptuous personal narrative enhanced by many well-known romantic paintings and poems, this glorious cookbook demonstrates a deep love for Poland on every page.
312 pages, Hardcover
First published October 1, 2013
103 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
January 11, 2019
The book itself is beautiful and I loved the weaving of stories and food for the first third. The author grew up behind the iron curtain and her stories about her grandmother, and the way she used food to add color and cheer and joy to difficult communist times were moving. Her descriptions of childhood Christmases were enchanting - lovely to hear about traditions and how they are woven in with available food and resulting recipes.
After that first third, the rest felt rather forced and the stories tended more toward random uninteresting travel anecdotes from the trip the author took while writing the book. There was no real sense of overall journey or trajectory which seemed a shame. The images were lovely and well-collaged but it lost momentum. 3.5 stars though - I will think often of a couple stories about her grandmother using and respecting food. We live in a time of abundance and forget to do so. It's good to remember those who tried to use every part of a rare orange, especially in a time when most people (myself included) often just throw the peel and tasty zest right into the trash (not even compost, just...trash. Man, how times have changed!).
After that first third, the rest felt rather forced and the stories tended more toward random uninteresting travel anecdotes from the trip the author took while writing the book. There was no real sense of overall journey or trajectory which seemed a shame. The images were lovely and well-collaged but it lost momentum. 3.5 stars though - I will think often of a couple stories about her grandmother using and respecting food. We live in a time of abundance and forget to do so. It's good to remember those who tried to use every part of a rare orange, especially in a time when most people (myself included) often just throw the peel and tasty zest right into the trash (not even compost, just...trash. Man, how times have changed!).
November 21, 2021
I am still catching up on the tons of books read this year - so that I have a complete Goodreads list of books for my "books-to-challenge" list for 2021 before the New Year starts! This book, SUGARED ORANGE: RECIPES & STORIES FROM A WINTER IN POLAND, a cookbook with a story, is Beata Zatorska's beautiful ode to her childhood winters in her homeland, Poland. Having left family and homesite decades ago to live in Australia, she rarely gets an extended vacation to return to her roots (she's a busy family doctor!). But it's magical when she and her filmmaker husband, Simon Target, can visit places where Zatorska can reminisce in-person as they visit with family and a few old friends, walking the same paths and streets that her grandmother Jozefa and she traipsed, remembering and once again tasting the beloved and amazing foods she grew up on.
One gets caught up in more than the delicious-sounding recipes and the enticingly beautiful photography of the cuisine as well as the awesome scenery (thanks to her film-maker hubby), not to mention old family photos that add to the writers story. Everything about the book is part of her life story, and it truly enchanted me - especially because my grand parents came to my home town in the USA from Poland just prior to WW2. I don't have a lot of information about their lives before living in Albany, NY, so I truly enjoyed Zatorska's sharing of so much of her life story, along with the cookbook necessities.
As it turned out, although the writer's Grandmother Jozefa had been a teacher before the War (and her husband's demise during it), but teaching was apparently not an option for her afterward - not when Poland became one of those countries within the Communist jurisdiction of the Soviet Union. However, it happened that her excellent cooking and baking skills made it possible for her to procure a job as a chef in a nearby castle that had been converted post-war into a holiday resort for workers and their children. The author speaks proudly of her grandmother's ability to make a difference in that job: "Jozefa sprinkled dry rose petals onto her guests' kisiel (hot fruit jelly), smuggled wild blueberries into their pierogi, chopped fresh dill over their mashed potatoes, and spiced their pale tea with cherry syrup. She made them lift their plates with surprise and amazement by the sudden appearance of colour and perfume in such mundane communist times. Jozefa's cooking became legendary and many workers applied to return to her castle instead of the more popular holiday destinations on the Baltic Sea."
While her grandmother passed away some time ago, I think the fact that Beata Zatorska returns to her native land and subsequent indulges in its yummy treasures (family-wise and otherwise) would've been plenty enough for me to purchase a cookbook created by her. But I never would've expected something so fantastically excellent - an artwork! The photography, the stories, the "travelogue," its coverage of so many winter holiday traditions... It makes for a huge tome of a book, a treasure that I hope to dip into often, despite my owning at least a few hundred cookbooks (at least 7 of them about Polish cooking or baking, plus one wirebound gathering of receipes from a local Polish Community Center!). And also because it will always remind me of some of my own roots.
Polish or not, you might truly love this book as well. You could travel and meet some interesting people simply by reading SUGARED ORANGE: RECIPE STORIES FROM A WINTER IN POLAND by Beata Zatorska. As for me, I am giving it 5-stars here on Goodreads and am soon going to see if Amazon has any volumes left of Zatorska's other book: ROSE PETAL JAM - RECIPES & STORIES FROM A SUMMER IN POLAND!
One gets caught up in more than the delicious-sounding recipes and the enticingly beautiful photography of the cuisine as well as the awesome scenery (thanks to her film-maker hubby), not to mention old family photos that add to the writers story. Everything about the book is part of her life story, and it truly enchanted me - especially because my grand parents came to my home town in the USA from Poland just prior to WW2. I don't have a lot of information about their lives before living in Albany, NY, so I truly enjoyed Zatorska's sharing of so much of her life story, along with the cookbook necessities.
As it turned out, although the writer's Grandmother Jozefa had been a teacher before the War (and her husband's demise during it), but teaching was apparently not an option for her afterward - not when Poland became one of those countries within the Communist jurisdiction of the Soviet Union. However, it happened that her excellent cooking and baking skills made it possible for her to procure a job as a chef in a nearby castle that had been converted post-war into a holiday resort for workers and their children. The author speaks proudly of her grandmother's ability to make a difference in that job: "Jozefa sprinkled dry rose petals onto her guests' kisiel (hot fruit jelly), smuggled wild blueberries into their pierogi, chopped fresh dill over their mashed potatoes, and spiced their pale tea with cherry syrup. She made them lift their plates with surprise and amazement by the sudden appearance of colour and perfume in such mundane communist times. Jozefa's cooking became legendary and many workers applied to return to her castle instead of the more popular holiday destinations on the Baltic Sea."
While her grandmother passed away some time ago, I think the fact that Beata Zatorska returns to her native land and subsequent indulges in its yummy treasures (family-wise and otherwise) would've been plenty enough for me to purchase a cookbook created by her. But I never would've expected something so fantastically excellent - an artwork! The photography, the stories, the "travelogue," its coverage of so many winter holiday traditions... It makes for a huge tome of a book, a treasure that I hope to dip into often, despite my owning at least a few hundred cookbooks (at least 7 of them about Polish cooking or baking, plus one wirebound gathering of receipes from a local Polish Community Center!). And also because it will always remind me of some of my own roots.
Polish or not, you might truly love this book as well. You could travel and meet some interesting people simply by reading SUGARED ORANGE: RECIPE STORIES FROM A WINTER IN POLAND by Beata Zatorska. As for me, I am giving it 5-stars here on Goodreads and am soon going to see if Amazon has any volumes left of Zatorska's other book: ROSE PETAL JAM - RECIPES & STORIES FROM A SUMMER IN POLAND!
May 12, 2022
Wonderful, beautiful book. I wish my Polish Grandmother was still alive, and her parents and their parents, so I could hear stories and discover our family food traditions from this part of the world.
February 16, 2021
Brought my mother to tears as she found images and stories that made her remember her childhood in Poland
March 30, 2025
A beautiful book about the author's winter holidays in Poland sprinkled with enticing recipes.
December 19, 2014
"Kandierte Orangen" - Beata Zatorska /Simon Target - GERSTEBBERG-VERLAG
Lassen sie sich entführen, in ein Land jenseits der Hektik und diesseits kleiner großer Geschichten -
Geschichten, gesammelt, wie in einem gutgehütetem Schatzkästchen. Es glitzert und funkelt, wie der erste Schnee, den man sich im Abendlicht von den Stiefeln klopft, bevor man eine warme Hütte betritt.
Wer hungrig ist, sieht einen reichgedeckten Tisch, dampfende Speisen, süße mit Mohn gefüllte Omeletts, herzhafte Braten und Pasteten, dickbauchige Gemüseterrinen, Roggenbrot, gefüllte Brötchen und eine goldene mit Mohn geschmückte Challah. Der sonst süß duftende Hefezopf wird zu Chanukka, der jüdischen Weihnachtszeit geschmacklich neutral gebacken, damit er zu jedem Haupt und Nebengericht passt, aber auch dem süßen Geflecht ist natürlich nicht zu widerstehen.
Mit schüchternen Staunen kommt man einem Land näher, das die Arme weit öffnet, für jeden, der eine der vielen schönen Traditionen kennenlernen will und gerade in der Weihnachtszeit, ist für jeden - ob klein, ob groß - ein Platz an der opulenten Tafel.
Dank Beata Zatorska machen wir eine kulinarische Rundreise durch ein nostalgisches Polen, Gerichte, die auch jeder Schlesier noch kennt und weitergibt. Es muss an dem schönen und wilden Land liegen, das die polnische Küche ein einfaches Konzept hat, warum nicht nehmen, was die Erde und die Jahreszeiten hergeben, leicht nachzukochen, aber raffiniert und schmackhaft.
Orangen und Obstleckereien in Hülle und Fülle, wundervolle Kuchen und Desserts, süß und saftig - Die blanke Sehnsucht!
---
"Kandierte Orangen" ist ein wundervoller Prachtband, der uns durch verschneite Märchenlandschaften führt, alte Schlösser und Kapellen, pfadlose Wege durch Dörfer und Städte, kunstvoll und melancholisch, ein nostalgisches Fotoalbum, vergangener Tage, man kann sich kaum sattsehen an all den kleinen und kostbaren Erinnerungen, wie eine Liebeserklärung, ein Zeitzeuge mit 312 Seiten.
"Kandierte Orangen" von Beate Zatorska ist das perfekte Weihnachtsgeschenk!
ICH LIEBE DIESES BUCH!
Lassen sie sich entführen, in ein Land jenseits der Hektik und diesseits kleiner großer Geschichten -
Geschichten, gesammelt, wie in einem gutgehütetem Schatzkästchen. Es glitzert und funkelt, wie der erste Schnee, den man sich im Abendlicht von den Stiefeln klopft, bevor man eine warme Hütte betritt.
Wer hungrig ist, sieht einen reichgedeckten Tisch, dampfende Speisen, süße mit Mohn gefüllte Omeletts, herzhafte Braten und Pasteten, dickbauchige Gemüseterrinen, Roggenbrot, gefüllte Brötchen und eine goldene mit Mohn geschmückte Challah. Der sonst süß duftende Hefezopf wird zu Chanukka, der jüdischen Weihnachtszeit geschmacklich neutral gebacken, damit er zu jedem Haupt und Nebengericht passt, aber auch dem süßen Geflecht ist natürlich nicht zu widerstehen.
Mit schüchternen Staunen kommt man einem Land näher, das die Arme weit öffnet, für jeden, der eine der vielen schönen Traditionen kennenlernen will und gerade in der Weihnachtszeit, ist für jeden - ob klein, ob groß - ein Platz an der opulenten Tafel.
Dank Beata Zatorska machen wir eine kulinarische Rundreise durch ein nostalgisches Polen, Gerichte, die auch jeder Schlesier noch kennt und weitergibt. Es muss an dem schönen und wilden Land liegen, das die polnische Küche ein einfaches Konzept hat, warum nicht nehmen, was die Erde und die Jahreszeiten hergeben, leicht nachzukochen, aber raffiniert und schmackhaft.
Orangen und Obstleckereien in Hülle und Fülle, wundervolle Kuchen und Desserts, süß und saftig - Die blanke Sehnsucht!
---
"Kandierte Orangen" ist ein wundervoller Prachtband, der uns durch verschneite Märchenlandschaften führt, alte Schlösser und Kapellen, pfadlose Wege durch Dörfer und Städte, kunstvoll und melancholisch, ein nostalgisches Fotoalbum, vergangener Tage, man kann sich kaum sattsehen an all den kleinen und kostbaren Erinnerungen, wie eine Liebeserklärung, ein Zeitzeuge mit 312 Seiten.
"Kandierte Orangen" von Beate Zatorska ist das perfekte Weihnachtsgeschenk!
ICH LIEBE DIESES BUCH!
January 1, 2017
Sugared Orange is a beautiful hybrid of memoir, travelogue and cookbook. Beautiful both in terms of the stunning photography and design, and the very nostalgic and evocative writing. Beata Zatorska grew up in rural Poland with her grandparents; she now lives in Australia. This book documents her personal pilgrimage to Poland, to revisit her grandparents' village, and to experience once again the delights of wintertime / Christmas in Poland. It is a very emotional and romanticised view of Poland, Polish food and village life. I read it in the lead up to Christmas and it put me in the mood for Christmas perfectly. The book doesn't actually have very many recipes, and the ones that were there were, at least for me, more like curiosities than dishes I would actually prepare myself. Nonetheless it's very enjoyable and now I will back track to the author's first book, Rose Petal Jam, which documents an earlier trip to Poland in the summer.
October 17, 2015
An adult picture book, this is comfort reading at its finest. It's a beautifully illustrated cookbook and memoir of a childhood in Poland by an Australian author. The writing can be a little fey at times but the recipes are not over complicated at all & were kept deliberately simple I think. The ones I tried worked out well but I avoided the complexity of dumplings - inevitably a large component & being designed for snowy winters, many of the recipes are little too solid for the sub tropics. I would love to find something similar on Austria, though there is obviously some crossover. An indulgent lovely travel book, which had me wanting to follow in their steps.
June 11, 2016
I love the integration of travel & food b/c I am a travel/food blogger. I love Poland and since my family has Polish roots, the pictures and recipes inspired me & flooded my mind w/ memories of Poland. I don't eat meat, but I found enough worthy recipes to keep me interested. It's a true testament that authentic European cooking is an art that takes time and patience. Hearty recipes may not be for most people who want a meal in 30-min. or less.
October 28, 2014
As all good cookbooks should be, this one was an even mix of food and memories. Lots of good, Polish dishes and a glimpse into the author's childhood in Communist Poland.
September 25, 2014
It's like a picture book for adults. Gorgeous. Informative. Magical.
June 29, 2015
A very beautiful book with lots of gorgeous photos and some interesting recipes which I plan to try out. We don't hear much about Poland so it was interesting to get an idea of a Polish childhood.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews