Čaks's Butter Cookies, or: A Review of the Book "Čaks in the Kitchen"

When I learned that Zvaigzne ABC had published the book "Čaks in the Kitchen", I was pleasantly surprised. I am an admirer of Aleksandrs Čaks's work, and I have visited the Čadaraiņu apartment at 48/50 Lāčplēša Street a couple of times, and heard enthusiastic stories about the poet's masterfully made pancakes, with which he used to treat his guests. Biographies had mentioned that Čaks - atypically for a poet and a man - had been a capable cook, but a whole collection of recipes was something entirely new.

When the book came into my hands, I leafed through it eagerly, for it contains a wealth of illustrative material - photographs of the time showing the poet with his contemporaries, everyday notes jotted in pencil on various scraps of paper, as well as images of the original Čadaraiņu kitchen crockery and tableware. That little yellow coffee cup on page 19 is truly Čak-like.

The introduction by the book's compiler Antra Medne, together with the aforementioned images, helps greatly to see Čaks as an ordinary Riga resident who lived in the first half of the last century - his family, his everyday life. In doing so, it brings closer and makes more understandable the world in which the poet grew up, lived, loved, and created. Excerpts from Čaks's poetry, prose, and the memoirs of his contemporaries maintain the connection with the author's works and allow one to look at them through fresh eyes.

The book contains both recipes and tips - for example, how to brew coffee so that it retains its aroma, or how to cook tough meat until tender, and more. A somewhat mischievous idea arose: to actually cook something from this little book of Čaks's recipe notes. But… even reading the very first one, I understood that this would be far from easy, since the recipe notes preserve the Latvian language of the last century and the units of measurement of that era - quite alien to the modern reader: for example, 1 lot (12.8g), kortele (250g), stops, 1 pound (400g), potash (baking powder), hartshorn salt, and so on. To be fair, the compiler has taken care to provide explanations.

And yet one recipe was put into practice. I cannot claim mine turned out as well as Čaks's, but thanks to this book I have learned something new.

Butter Cookies

100g butter, 100g sugar, 100g flour, 3 egg yolks, lemon zest, raisins

Cream the butter with the sugar, grate in the lemon zest, add the egg yolks one by one while beating, and sift in the flour. Line a baking sheet with brown paper, spoon the mixture into a piping bag, pipe round cookies onto the sheet, place a raisin on each one, and bake for 10–15 minutes.

It must be said, the whole kitchen smelled of lemon, and in the flavour of the finished cookies the butteriness and a pleasant tartness lived together in perfect harmony.