Has anybody read the book, The Baker’s Daughter, by Sarah McCoy? It was one of the many books I received for Christmas (thanks, Grandma!), and I devoured its pages within a day over break. It’s a story split between Nazi Germany during World War II and El Paso, Texas in the present day. It focuses on a German teenager as she’s growing up in her parents’ bakery and a magazine writer who interviews that same German woman in the bakery that she now owns in Texas, sixty years later. Although they’re in seemingly opposite times, the two girls go through many of the same predicaments in finding themselves as they come of age. I don’t want to share any of the nitty gritty details, but I cannot recommend this book enough. I’ve always been interested in stories taking place during the Holocaust, and it was an interesting change to read a story from the eyes of a non-Jewish German and how they did things to survive through that terrible time. The baking side of things was a plus, me obviously being a pretty avid baker.
One of my favorite parts about this book was at the end, the author included recipes from the stories with little comments from one of the book’s main characters. There’s a mixture of both German and American/German hybrid recipes. I couldn’t wait to test a few of them out! Throughout the story, lebkuchen (German gingerbread) played a key role; the girl’s father made lebkuchen hearts every year for Christmas with each family member’s name iced on, and they were a major staple sold in the bakery. After hearing so much about them, I had to try them first. I’m glad I did.
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