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Tava: Eastern European Baking and Desserts From Romania & Beyond
"A joy and an education. Irina Georgescu has disentangled the strands woven into Romanian cooking and identity and she has done so deliciously, through glorious cakes, pies, strudels and doughnuts. Cook, eat, learn." – Diana Henry
"I am such a huge admirer of Irina Georgescu in general, and of this extraordinarily impressive and important book in particular. A must-have, not just for enquiring bakers but, crucially, for all those interested in the context and evolution of culinary culture." – Nigella Lawson
Tava is a meticulously researched baking book celebrating centuries of diversity and overlapping cultures that form today's cuisine in Romania. The author's aim is to also share the story of those dishes that have come to represent the identity of different cultural communities across the country. Tava means tray in Romanian, a metaphor for how a whole culinary landscape is presented to the reader.
You will find Armenian pakhlava, Saxon plum pies, Swabian poppyseed crescents, Jewish fritters, and Hungarian langoși alongside plăcinte pies, alivenci corn cake, strudels and fruit dumplings. Rice or pearl barley puddings, donuts and gingerbread biscuits come with their own story, while chocolate mousses, meringues in custard sauce and coffee ice cream introduce you to the glamour of famous Romanian and Eastern European pastry shops.
The book is written with integrity and respect towards this rich heritage connecting the past with a present which can be encountered by the reader when travelling in Romania. The recipes are easy to follow, beautifully photographed, and tempt the reader to embrace the unfamiliar as much as the familiar, while enjoying their comforting and homely feel.
"I am such a huge admirer of Irina Georgescu in general, and of this extraordinarily impressive and important book in particular. A must-have, not just for enquiring bakers but, crucially, for all those interested in the context and evolution of culinary culture." – Nigella Lawson
Tava is a meticulously researched baking book celebrating centuries of diversity and overlapping cultures that form today's cuisine in Romania. The author's aim is to also share the story of those dishes that have come to represent the identity of different cultural communities across the country. Tava means tray in Romanian, a metaphor for how a whole culinary landscape is presented to the reader.
You will find Armenian pakhlava, Saxon plum pies, Swabian poppyseed crescents, Jewish fritters, and Hungarian langoși alongside plăcinte pies, alivenci corn cake, strudels and fruit dumplings. Rice or pearl barley puddings, donuts and gingerbread biscuits come with their own story, while chocolate mousses, meringues in custard sauce and coffee ice cream introduce you to the glamour of famous Romanian and Eastern European pastry shops.
The book is written with integrity and respect towards this rich heritage connecting the past with a present which can be encountered by the reader when travelling in Romania. The recipes are easy to follow, beautifully photographed, and tempt the reader to embrace the unfamiliar as much as the familiar, while enjoying their comforting and homely feel.
272 pages, Kindle Edition
Published October 27, 2022
39 people are currently reading
333 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
February 9, 2024
Oh my deliciousness! This is a niche baking cookbook filled with delightful Romanian recipes. What I loved most was it's uniqueness and how it provided interesting twists on familiar baked treats. Recipes are well written and most seem easy to follow. There are color photos for many of the delicious treats but not all of them.
The book contains a fair bit of history about Romania and Romanian foods interspersed among the chapters. It was interesting to learn about some of the earliest Romanian cookbooks, recipes and ingredients. Being from a UK publisher, I greatly appreciate that they provided clarifications in parenthesis for everything that has a different name in the US, along with US measurements and temperatures.
The book contains a fair bit of history about Romania and Romanian foods interspersed among the chapters. It was interesting to learn about some of the earliest Romanian cookbooks, recipes and ingredients. Being from a UK publisher, I greatly appreciate that they provided clarifications in parenthesis for everything that has a different name in the US, along with US measurements and temperatures.
February 25, 2023
Irina Georgescu's Tava is the perfect follow-up to her "Carpathia". Tava focuses on the art of Romanian baking, through the myriad of ethnicities and traditions that make up that modern European nation. And truly European it is: on Tava's pages we read of the Szekelys, Saxons, Swabians, Magyars, Jews, and Armenians, and their individual and shared culinary heritage. Irina expertly weaves their tales into a compelling portrait of a Romanian culture that is more vibrant because of this astounding diversity.
Beautifully produced, Tava is a pleasure to hold or to adorn a coffee table. Lavishly illustrated with color photos of gorgeous locations across Romania and mouthwatering sweet and savory baked creations, Tava is a cookbook that you will treasure. The recipes themselves follow Georgescu's style of unfussy recipes that are eminently achievable by all levels of home cooks, while yielding delicious and impressive results. Ingredients are generally easy to source and the instructions will helpfully guide less experienced cooks. Equally impressive is that Irina doesn't simply translate and reproduce Romanian recipes for an English-reading public, but she creatively adds unexpected touches throughout based on her extensive knowledge and research into historical and regional traditions, making these recipes her own. One inspired touch is her unique use of pomegranate molasses in baklhava. This choice was blessed by an Armenian friend who inspired her with stories of the pomegranate tree in their neighborhood that could only blossom without bearing fruit, but all the same was a reminder of home for the Armenian community in Bucharest. Another unexpected touch is her Apple and Caraway Loaf Cake, taking a traditional recipe and lifting it to another level by adding the caraway that is so prevalent in savory Romanian recipes. Trust me, you'll want to try that recipe, which is typical of Tava: simple to make, with ingredients you might already have at home, but so tasty and unexpected. I barely got a slice of the cake before my guests devoured it.
Tava is primarily a cookbook but it's so much more. Each chapter features a different reflection on a different Romanian community, and each recipe has a brief paragraph with an insightful and often personal introduction. The ideal way to enjoy the book to its fullest is select a recipe that appeals to you, and after you've baked it, sit down with a cup of coffee or tea, whatever you baked, and read through Tava as you would a travel and culture book, for that's truly what it is. If you don't already believe that food IS culture, Georgescu will do her best to convince you with Tava.
Beautifully produced, Tava is a pleasure to hold or to adorn a coffee table. Lavishly illustrated with color photos of gorgeous locations across Romania and mouthwatering sweet and savory baked creations, Tava is a cookbook that you will treasure. The recipes themselves follow Georgescu's style of unfussy recipes that are eminently achievable by all levels of home cooks, while yielding delicious and impressive results. Ingredients are generally easy to source and the instructions will helpfully guide less experienced cooks. Equally impressive is that Irina doesn't simply translate and reproduce Romanian recipes for an English-reading public, but she creatively adds unexpected touches throughout based on her extensive knowledge and research into historical and regional traditions, making these recipes her own. One inspired touch is her unique use of pomegranate molasses in baklhava. This choice was blessed by an Armenian friend who inspired her with stories of the pomegranate tree in their neighborhood that could only blossom without bearing fruit, but all the same was a reminder of home for the Armenian community in Bucharest. Another unexpected touch is her Apple and Caraway Loaf Cake, taking a traditional recipe and lifting it to another level by adding the caraway that is so prevalent in savory Romanian recipes. Trust me, you'll want to try that recipe, which is typical of Tava: simple to make, with ingredients you might already have at home, but so tasty and unexpected. I barely got a slice of the cake before my guests devoured it.
Tava is primarily a cookbook but it's so much more. Each chapter features a different reflection on a different Romanian community, and each recipe has a brief paragraph with an insightful and often personal introduction. The ideal way to enjoy the book to its fullest is select a recipe that appeals to you, and after you've baked it, sit down with a cup of coffee or tea, whatever you baked, and read through Tava as you would a travel and culture book, for that's truly what it is. If you don't already believe that food IS culture, Georgescu will do her best to convince you with Tava.
July 21, 2023
This is a great cookbook full of history & cultural information. A lot of the recipes are familiar to me as a Romanian, and I appreciate learning more about them. I also appreciate the fact that she's shared alternative or optional ingredients that make it easier for those of us living outside of Romania to recreate these foods.
I think my only criticisms of the book are that, very often, instead of showing a photograph of the food next to the recipe, they'll show an artistic photo of something else. I don't like that because I want to have a visual reference of what the food should look like. My other criticism is much smaller—I feel like most of the foods shared in this cookbook were Hungarian, Saxon, or German and came from Transylvania (to be clear! They are an important part of Romanian culture and history!) . I would've enjoyed learning more about foods from Moldova and Oltenia, though, for variety's sake and also to get in touch with those specific parts of my heritage.
Despite those two small criticisms, I still think this is a great book & companion to Georgescu's other cookbook. I'm looking forward to the next one she puts out!
I think my only criticisms of the book are that, very often, instead of showing a photograph of the food next to the recipe, they'll show an artistic photo of something else. I don't like that because I want to have a visual reference of what the food should look like. My other criticism is much smaller—I feel like most of the foods shared in this cookbook were Hungarian, Saxon, or German and came from Transylvania (to be clear! They are an important part of Romanian culture and history!) . I would've enjoyed learning more about foods from Moldova and Oltenia, though, for variety's sake and also to get in touch with those specific parts of my heritage.
Despite those two small criticisms, I still think this is a great book & companion to Georgescu's other cookbook. I'm looking forward to the next one she puts out!
November 10, 2022
Starting with the cover, I love that the embroidery is relief - thoughtful design, representing a region where folk textiles have huge prominence. The book is a comprehensive guide for someone unfamiliar with Romanian baking, and a boost of confidence for people from the region whose culture has been scarcely represented. It covers six (of many) cultural communities. The recipes show the influence of history in the region's cuisine - the spices of the Ottoman Empire, elegance of Central Europe, and quirkiness of now otherworldly foods from behind the Iron Curtain. The introduction offers the histories of the most common ingredients. The Saxon Rhubarb Cake is a highlight for me - so delicate and nostalgic. It's wonderful to have all of these recipes together in one beautiful volume.
October 31, 2022
A beautiful book with absolutely wonderful recipes and fantastic writing. Irina has a real gift for weaving in the history and culture of Romania in her cookbooks, making them fascinating to read.
February 12, 2025
Uno di quei ricettari che fa davvero piacere leggere, perché le ricette sono la scusa per farti scoprire la storia e la cultura di un popolo, con ampie (ma non noiose!) digressioni che tratteggiano le tappe più importanti della storia est-europea, i suoi personaggi di rilievo (specie se il loro nome è stato associato a un piatto, come spesso capita), le tradizioni di quelle terre.
E poi sì, ovviamente ci sono le ricette, non scontate e per nulla difficili da ricreare in casa senza ammattire. Grande bonus il doppio uso del sistema metrico e del sistema imperiale nel dare le dosi, non scontato per una casa editrice britannica (grazie da Oltremanica!).
E poi sì, ovviamente ci sono le ricette, non scontate e per nulla difficili da ricreare in casa senza ammattire. Grande bonus il doppio uso del sistema metrico e del sistema imperiale nel dare le dosi, non scontato per una casa editrice britannica (grazie da Oltremanica!).
October 19, 2022
An extra star for having a book on a region that is badly represented.
Now there is a reason the region is badly represented. Most of recipes are Central European, as Eastern Europe cooking is mostly the bastardization of the Ottoman cuisine.
Overall the act is pointless, as everything in here is already on the Internet and many other recipes from the area.
Now there is a reason the region is badly represented. Most of recipes are Central European, as Eastern Europe cooking is mostly the bastardization of the Ottoman cuisine.
Overall the act is pointless, as everything in here is already on the Internet and many other recipes from the area.
November 5, 2023
This book deserves every award and accolade that it has received.
Page after page of delicious offerings from Romania. The author provides history and context and color to the people and places that the dishes represent. The photos are gorgeous. I eagerly look forward to making most of the dishes this winter with my family. The variety is fantastic and mouthwatering.
Page after page of delicious offerings from Romania. The author provides history and context and color to the people and places that the dishes represent. The photos are gorgeous. I eagerly look forward to making most of the dishes this winter with my family. The variety is fantastic and mouthwatering.
November 12, 2024
Interesting book. I only had time to page through it (the library wanted it back). It contains a wealth of information about a region and its recipes that are new to me. Some interesting combinations of flavors with fruits and spices I don’t regularly encounter, as well as different ways of using things I already use often.
January 13, 2024
Beautiful photographs. This book took me back to my time in Romania.
December 9, 2025
I enjoyed reading about the history and culture behind the desserts! Unusual from classic American dessert, but many that I want to try
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews