The spoon is the most ubiq­ui­tous of all cut­lery. Across con­ti­nents and culi­nary cul­tures — amongst those who eat with forks, hands, and chop­sticks — spoons are uni­ver­sal. They are used for our first foods, our last, and every­thing in between. The spoon helps us to con­sume nour­ish­ment from bowls full of com­fort. And, as Alis­sa Tim­o­shk­i­na explains, ​“its soft, smooth shape is invit­ing and safe, it can do no harm” unlike oth­er pieces of cut­lery. With this fram­ing, Tim­o­shk­i­na invites read­ers to explore the world of com­fort­ing East­ern Euro­pean soups, stews, dumplings, and sweets that are eat­en with a lozh­ka, a spoon.

The first thing read­ers will notice about this cook­book is that it is gor­geous. Con­sis­tent with the author’s pre­vi­ous cook­book, Kapus­ta, the look and feel of this book is rus­ti­cal­ly sim­ple and unde­ni­ably charm­ing. The just-glossy-enough pho­tographs, which could have been staged in a well-lit home in some long-ago shtetl, rein­force the East­ern Euro­pean her­itage of these dish­es and bal­ance the soft, mat­te col­ors of the rest of the book. Also, the paper is just heavy enough, with pages eas­i­ly stay­ing open to whichev­er recipe catch­es your eye. Though pho­tographs and feel are not why you should buy this book, they will make your expe­ri­ence (re)reading and (re)using this cook­book even more pleasant.

It would be inap­pro­pri­ate to present East­ern Euro­pean spoon-based dish­es with­out the icon­ic Ashke­nazi canon of cholent and mat­zo ball soup. In fram­ing cholent, both for her Jew­ish and non-Jew­ish read­ers, Tim­o­shk­i­na explains this dish and what it means for her as a non-Ortho­dox Jew who grew up in the Sovi­et Union. This socio­cul­tur­al fram­ing is impor­tant because it ties togeth­er many of the threads in this book and explains why Tim­o­shk­i­na includes a hand­ful of recipes that are not kosher (but can be eas­i­ly adapt­ed). This also explains why there are two very dif­fer­ent cholent recipes, one that is explic­it­ly Hun­gar­i­an and anoth­er that is more Pol­ish (but with pome­gran­ate molasses where many recipes would use ketchup). In her expla­na­tion of Jew­ish ​“Peni­cillin” Chick­en Soup with Knei­d­lach Dumplings, Tim­o­shk­i­na explains how mat­zo balls are relat­ed to oth­er region­al dumplings and why they are supe­ri­or to their Ger­man antecedents: mat­zo meal offers much more com­plex­i­ty and sub­tle­ty than a dumpling made with just wheat flour.

The recipe for Sima’s Beet­root and Hazel­nut Jam (eingemachts) is worth high­light­ing. This dish large­ly fell out of favor in the 1940s with com­pound­ing effects of the Holo­caust, assim­i­la­tion, and the rise of com­mer­cial jams and pre­serves that replaced those made by Jew­ish house­wives. But in the Sovi­et Union (and a scat­ter­ing of homes in the Dias­po­ra), amidst aus­ter­i­ty and fru­gal­i­ty, this slight­ly spicy magen­ta jam was pre­served and served, often on Passover, as a mark­er of fam­i­ly her­itage. Lozh­ka is filled with many such com­fort­ing dish­es inex­tri­ca­bly linked to culi­nary his­to­ries and iden­ti­ties from this region, includ­ing Jew­ish, Roma, Tatar, and dozens of oth­er eth­nic­i­ties and nationalities.

Most of the recipes in Lozh­ka are tra­di­tion­al and multi­gen­er­a­tional. They are pre­sent­ed with their own lega­cies and iden­ti­fy­ing mark­ers. Baba Sarah’s Cher­ry Soup, a recipe pro­vid­ed by How to Share an Egg​’s Bon­ny Reichert, is emblem­at­ic of Ukrain­ian (and neigh­bor­ing) sour cher­ry soups. The incred­i­bly sim­ple Zupa Kop­erkowa i Lane Klus­ki (Pol­ish Dill Soup with Drop Dumplings) rep­re­sents an oeu­vre of ​“thrifty East­ern Euro­pean cook­ing.” Tim­o­shk­i­na con­tin­u­ous­ly serves up warm invi­ta­tions to explore the diverse East­ern Euro­pean region with a spoon through dish­es such as Man­care de Mazare (Roman­ian Green Pea Stew with Chick­en Meat­balls and Lots of Dill), Kula­j­da (South Bohemi­an Wild Mush­room, Pota­to and Sour Cream Soup with Eggs), Armen­ian Lentil Soup with Prunes and Wal­nuts, Żurek (Pol­ish East­er Soup with Wild Mush­rooms and Fer­ment­ed Rye), and mul­ti­ple vari­a­tions of Hun­gar­i­an Lec­só. 

And yet, this book is not pre­scrip­tive. There are many mod­ern adap­ta­tions that bridge Timoshkina’s mul­ti­ple iden­ti­ties and culi­nary reper­toires into a delight­ful fusion. For exam­ple, her adap­ta­tions of shak­shu­ka and baked beans wrap pop­u­lar North African – Israeli and British (respec­tive­ly) dish­es in cozy Roman­ian, Bul­gar­i­an, and Hun­gar­i­an sweaters. In doing so, Tim­o­shk­i­na acknowl­edges how foods are con­stant­ly in con­ver­sa­tion with their new sur­round­ings, pick­ing up new accents, fla­vors, styles, and addi­tions along the way.