Praktiskā Virtuve¹

[Riga] : Atauga Izdevuma, undated circa 1939.  Early or first edition. In Latvian.

Octavo (200x145mm) quarter bound black cloth, colour illustrated paper boards, flush cut edges, 175,[1]pp : [1]⁸, 2 - 11⁸.  Edges faintly worn; top corner gently bruised; rear hinge softening; pages evenly faintly age-toned; fore-edge soiled not affecting the pages; ffep small stain; faint signs of kitchen use; small scuff to lower rear boards. A near fine copy.

¶  A practical, plain and economical cookery book for traditional Latvian cuisine. There is no introduction, nor index and no illustration.  The first chapter is on meat and nutrition.  Then follow broths and soups and things to have with them such as filled small dumplings or pies. Approximately twenty percent of the book is concerned with soups.  Approximately another 50% is concerned with meat.  There are twenty-two chapters, most of which are for savoury ingredients and dishes; offal, herring, beef, veal, poultry, and leftovers.  The chapters on vegetables are for root vegetables and vegetables to have with meat.   Most chapters begin with a lengthy essay providing nutritional and practical hands-on advice. e.g. how to select meat; which cuts are best for what type of dish etc.   The last three chapters are quite small: sweets or desserts (puddings and custards etc), sauces (sweet) and jams.  There are no baking recipes.  The recipes are written in the ingredient/method format in metric. 

During Latvia's brief independence during the interwar period, there was a marked interest in national identity and modernism, and the making of a national cuisine, particularly during the 1930s. Due to the confluence of the economic depression, and the increasingly authoritarian national government, the promotion of the use of local products was seen as a patriotic duty.  The affirmation of a "National Cuisine is often seen as an aid in nation-building.  

Between 1795 and 1940 only 101 Latvian cookbooks were published and sixty of these were published in the 1930s.  The Kaucminde Home Economics Seminary (1923-1943), a government institution provided domestic, cookery and home economics education at a high level, producing graduates who could teach home economics and write cookbooks.  Most of the cookbooks from this period were written by Kaucminde graduates.², particularly those using the words, new, modern, practical or reformed in the title or text, and incorporating nutritional advice focused on national or traditional ingredients (such as milk, rye, beet sugar, sea fish, beef, dairy) and simple, often peasant dishes (e.g. not including traditionally French or German dishes) using those ingredients. 

Not much is known about the author, although it is likely that she was either a graduate of Kaucminde or a practicing cookery teacher.  Bertina published three books on cookery in Riga between 1937 and 1940: Pavaru Gramata ("Cookbook") (1937), this title and Majas Cepumi Gramata ("Homemade Cookies") (1939). Although the books do not refer to each other, their content does not overlap, and the designs for the covers and internals are similar, suggesting a series of three books.  After WWII and the Soviet annexation, the publisher Atauga moved to Menningen, [West] Germany, and subsequent enlarged editions were briefly published in 1949-1950.

Scarce in any edition.  A practical, intriguing insight into traditional Latvian cuisine.

§  This edition not recorded.  OCLC records only one holding, Library of Congress.  The National Library of Latvia records two editions, 1939 and 1949; This edition is the same as the 1939 holding but with no date.
§  cf Jēgers B. Bibliography of Latvian Published Outside Latvia 1940 - 1960: part 1, 156-7 for the later editions.
¹  Translates as "Practical Kitchen"
²  Spalvena, Astra. "New Cookbooks for the New Country: Latvian national cuisine in the making" Culture Crossroads:Journal of the Research Centre at the Latvian Academy of Culture Vol 19, 2021 pp. 218-230,