The art of German cooking and baking

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The Art of German Cooking and Baking is a 1922 household cookbook by Lina Wachtelborn Meier, presented as a revised edition aimed at improving on an earlier printing. Drawing on German and Austro-Hungarian culinary traditions adapted for an American kitchen, the book contains roughly 1,250 tested recipes across 26 chapters, moving methodically through soups, meats, poultry and game, fish and shellfish, sauces and dressings, vegetables, salads, eggs, pastry, desserts, beverages, baked goods, preserves, and closing with menus and invalid cookery. The recipes are precise for their era, typically giving quantities for four to eight or six persons along with imperial measurements and step by step instructions. Readers will find both everyday preparations, such as roast beef or boiled potatoes, alongside elaborate dishes like mock-turtle soup, larded saddle of mutton dressed as mock venison, and multi-component fish fricassees. The book reflects a household that expected access to game birds, offal, fresh fish, and imported ingredients like truffles and champignons, while also offering economical techniques for using meat remnants. Its closing chapters on menus and convalescent cookery show a domestic manual meant to guide a full range of meal planning, from formal suppers to sickroom broths. This is a document of early twentieth century German-American foodways as much as it is a working recipe collection.

The book is organized into 26 numbered chapters that proceed from soups through meats (beef, veal, mutton, pork), poultry and game birds, fish and shellfish, head-cheese and gelatines, dressings and gravies, potatoes, vegetables, salads, eggs, omelets and pies, sauces, desserts, beverages, breads and cakes, cookies, candies, preserves, sandwiches, menus, and invalid cookery, ending with an index and memoranda pages (sections 1 through 20). Within chapters, recipes are numbered sequentially (for example Chapter 3, Nos. 1 to 42 for veal, as shown in section 20's index), and many sections open with explanatory notes on selecting ingredients or basic technique before listing individual recipes. The front matter includes a preface describing the revision process and a table of weights and measures (section 1). The book closes with a comprehensive index summarizing chapter contents and recipe counts by chapter (section 20).