Alina Bronsky's culinary biography  Taste Delight

Food is essential for life, food is enjoyment. Alina Bronsky combines heartfelt meals with personal experiences. Porridge reminds her of breakfast in her native Russia. Green sauce brings a touch of Hesse to Berlin. Twelve stories to savour – with recipes at the end of each chapter.

Living, Working, Sleeping: Hanser Verlag has been dedicating a small, exquisite series of books to the essential things in life for several book cycles now. But while an existence without Play and Love is certainly boring, but conceivable, humans would not get very far without Essen (Food). In her essay collection on the facets of food consumption, Alina Bronsky describes on the very first page why this is an existentially important topic for everyone, without exception:

Rolls Without Soul

But eating to survive is one thing. Alina Bronsky presents her “culinary biography” in an entertaining and inspiring way. In other words, the chronologically arranged stories are always about the feelings and memories that a particular dish triggers in the author: What exactly did the warm, grey-yellow porridge she had been spooning into her mouth since early childhood contribute to Alina Bronsky's view of the difference between this “kasha” and a traditional German breakfast? This is what she is served on her first school trip, having just emigrated to Germany with her parents from Yekaterinburg in Russia: “White rolls. Butter. Milk. Brown powder with the strange name Kaba. Cold, soulless objects. I wonder how desperate people must be to find something like this edible. ... After all, the first meal of the day has to be warm and eaten with a spoon.”

Oats as Proof of Love

The pure horror experienced by a child caught between two cultures later gives rise to a thoroughly sociological insight: “With a little distance, I can say that this was the first time I felt a sense of belonging to a culinary culture.” And this insight, in turn, is translated into practical action: “Since I became a mother, we have porridge every morning as a matter of course, because I love my family.” To reconcile and harmonise both worlds, the chapter ends with a recipe for oat cookies, which are, after all, “a good way to consume sugar and fat under the guise of a reasonably healthy snack.”

Green Sauce Forever

Approachable, subjective, tracing her own development, non-moralising, not following trends, ironic, sometimes sharp, sometimes even sentimental: this is how the story continues, shaped by the stove and the fridge. We meet Mrs Müller, who introduces the girl Alina to the seductive world of sugary treats. And we are also there when the author, who once lived in Frankfurt/Main and then moved to Berlin, learns something astonishingly new about her identity while enjoying homemade green sauce in the German capital: “I didn't want to admit it for a long time, but in my heart I am a Hessian.” After further culinary milestones, the book concludes with a heartwarming Christmas story about a fruit bread connection with a taciturn, lonely neighbour whose traces are lost over the years.

Light Fare With Lasting Effects

To stick with the metaphor, the book is so slim that it can be read between two meals. On the one hand, it is very light-hearted, but by no means shallow, and on the other hand, it manages to open up its own, thoroughly multi-layered spaces for thought: What were your favourite dishes? Who prepared them for you and under what circumstances? What literally stuck in your throat and why? How are society and eating habits, food and feelings connected? Rich material for a highly personal culinary biography – but you shouldn't start without laying a good foundation. So it's best to take Alina Bronsky's last sentence to heart: “I'm taking a break now because it's time for lunch.”

March 2026