Being a Romanian myself, I found this little cookbook interesting espy since it comes from someone that wasn’t born and raised in Romania.
I think it’s pretty much accurate and I enjoyed making some of the dishes

Very grateful to the publisher for my review copy

Awesome combination of food and folklore that will delight both culinary and literature fans alike!

Thanks so much to Netgalley and the publishers for letting me access an advance copy of this book in exchange for my feedback.

This cookbook is beautiful, thoughtful, and the recipes look delicious. and fills out a gap in my library’s cookbook section for Romanian cookery.

Not being familiar with Romanian food at all, I was very pleased to read this informative book. Much more than recipes are included here, with a detailed history of Romania, as well as quite a few mouth-watering dishes.

This is a gorgeous cookbook, filled not only with over 80 delicious-sounding recipes, but beautiful photographs of the countryside and people of Romania (and the food!) and tidbits of Romanian folklore, history, culture, and more. I want to eat all the things, and look forward to cooking them. This is a very homey feeling cookbook, with food to fill your belly and warm your heart. As a bonus, it's very enjoyable to look through- perfect to distract you while the food is cooking!

#FromDilltoDracula #NetGalley

I love reading cookbooks not only for the fantastic recipes but for the anecdotes authors add. Learning about lives from other places is a fun way to be introduced to another culture. In this case I felt like I was swept away by Dracula himself, and bitten with a love of the food, culture, and traditions this book introduced me to.

It felt like more than a cookbook. I loved the recipes, and the pictures, and I cannot wait to get this book in my hands, and buy it for others that I know will love the folklore and tradition, as well as the cooking, as much as I did.

It's more than just a cookbook, but also the recipes are alluring. Many have ingredients that can be found at any grocery store, which makes this accessible, and many were also pretty easy. I enjoy cooking and I'm not easily intimidated by the kitchen, but I don't remember seeing a recipe that threw me off. Fun spices, a thrilling way of adding them to food, and great ideas.

Absolutely loved everything about this.

A wonderful cookbook, the pictures are recipes are beautiful and well set out, and the book is interesting and fun to read

Very very interesting and inspiring! The food looks gorgeous and tasty and the history is the cherry on top!

3.5*

When I saw a Romanian cookbook on Netgalley I got curious and I had to check it out. An aspect which is obvious from the title is that the writer is not Romanian. I say it is obvious because I doubt a Romanian author would name her book like this because Dracula it is more of a thing for foreigners. We do use a lot of dill in our food though and it is an aspect I only now realizes. So, the 2nd part of the title is totally valid. To continue, the author is an American woman who decides to visit Romania in order to discover her roots. She falls in love with the country and its food and decides to write a book about it.

I loved the way the cookbook was structured. It starts with a bit about my country’s Believes and customs which have lots of influence on the food. To give you a macabre example, one of our favorite dessert (I hate it) is called Coliva and we only eat it at funerals and other death related events. Maybe there is some truth in the Dracula legend after all.

Next, there is a chapter about our main ingredients. Don’t worry, there aren’t many. We are not known for the sophistication of our cuisine. It is simple, heartwarming and tasty. Another thing that I liked is that the titles of the recipes are both in Romanian and in English. A nice touch although there were plenty of errors in translation, so to speak. I got an e-mail stating the content of the final book was modified so let’s hope this problem was solved.

The author managed to identify our main food, the recipes and pictures look enticing. Some quantities in the recipes sounded off but I did not get in a lot of detail.

When requesting for this book, all I have in mind is what the Romanians eat? A country far away, rarely mentioned, got my curiosity poked. But opening this book is like opening a chest of treasure. Never would I imagine opening a recipe book with stories inside about the land of the Dracula. This is more than I anticipated.

As you might know, I read cook books to learn about the culture and travels. So cookbooks full of story is my favorite! And this one, I think I can bring the book to my bedside to read as bedtime story. Equipped with beautiful scenery of Romania, I guess the country is now in my bucket list to travel to.

A big thumb-up to the author who did a marvellous job writing the book!

I was excited to find a recipe for Langosi (fried dough often with feta and dill) and they came out great! I've also found the diy vegeta so useful for recipes from all over the Balkans. I have so many things on my to-make list from this book! The pictures are appetizing and the layout of the book makes it easy to find a new recipe to try. The recipes themselves are accessible even if you don't have any specialty grocers near you.

I like the way this book was arranged. It starts off with the author's life, followed by Romania's history and culture and then recipes. I've always been curious about Romania and this book left me wanting to know more about such a mysterious and beautiful country. The recipes are easy to follow and it's written in such a way that you can actually picture her mentoring you while cooking.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Cardboard Monet Publishing for providing me with this ARC in exchange for an unbiased review.

I thought the recipes in this book were unique and unlike what you see in the typical best seller cookbook! I love learning about new cuisines and the cultures that inform food, so this was very cool to me! Some of the photos were lacking in quality though, which is so important for a cookbook.

I was drawn to this book by the title and not knowing much about either the country or it’s cuisine I thought it was definitely worth a read.
The introduction is very interesting and peppered with great photos, poems and snippets about Romanian folklore and also the type of ingredients that are used in the cuisine.
On reading the recipes I found them a little hard to work out the ingredient quantities as different abbreviations are used to those used in the U.K. and possibly more aimed at the American market, but the cooking directions were clearly laid out and simple to read. There are definitely some recipes I would like to try out this winter as many look like real comfort foods especially some of the deserts.

I received an electronic copy of this book via NetGalley for an honest review.

This is a really nice cookbook that offers a good variety of recipes, with clear instructions and primarily ingredients readily accessible to an American kitchen (which is the target audience). The author even provides a recipe for making your own Vegeta, because she describes it as difficult to find in grocery stores (which is not my experience, but then, I regularly shop at Polish ethnic markets). The photography is beautiful (both of food and of Romanian scenery), and I found many recipes that I hope to return and try out.

Not being specifically familiar with Romanian cooking, I can't speak to the authenticity of the recipes. Some of them are very typical of an East-Central European context, others less generalized to the whole region--but as I said, they are well-adapted to the availability of ingredients in North America.

I did not find the folklore segment of the book nearly as strong as the cooking section of the book, and would buy it as a cookbook and not as a reference on Romanian folklore--but it makes for a fun introduction, and explains the title of the book. While there are fascinating divisions in the political and cultural geography of different parts of Romania, this book doesn't dwell on these--which seems to be a deliberate choice. For what the book is, it works--though I don't think that a reader who knows next to nothing about Romania would emerge with a much fuller understanding of its historical or cultural context than they started with, they would probably have a good meal or two in between.

The list of Eastern European markets in the US in the back is a helpful starting point for a reader who wouldn't know where to begin looking, but it is (by its own admission) woefully incomplete. Still, I'm sure not all readers will be in the habit of finding these places to the extent that I often have been. Incidentally, I've visited three of the stores listed--both of those listed for Michigan, and the only one listed for Maine.

The ARC I received could stand another round of proofreading, but that can't be held against the book itself and I hope is all corrected in the book as published.

Thank you, Netgalley, for a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion!

This book took me down memory lane! While I'm not Romanian, I was born and raised behind the Iron Curtain in East Germany. I believe that many of the dishes seemed familar since parts of Romania used to have a very high German-speaking population, the so-called Transylvanian Saxons (Siebenbürgen-Sachsen) and Banat Swabians (Banater Schwaben), and actually still do. I could almost smell and taste these dishes ... dishes such as grated egg noodles, egg chicken, cabbage rolls, snowball cookies, gingerbread cookies, rum balls, and head cheese, or ingredients like Clisa (smoked bacon). So, if you would like to try some authentic Eastern European (Eastern German) dishes, try some of these. The instructions are easy to understand and the ingredients are (almost all) easy to get in the U.S. The author also gives you some alternative ingredients. She also includes some interesting linguistic (with pronunciation) and folklore-related nuggets.

The book starts with some great and interesting facts about the country itself, its culture, its folklore, and it also includes some fantastic photos of different places in Romania. Vlad the Impaler seems to be the first thing that comes to mind when you think of Romania, but this book shows that there is so much more interesting stuff to learn about the country and its traditions. This includes ogres and fairies, the Romanian version of creation, and future prediction. Great book!!

This author has not only written a book with authentic Romanian recipes but has also included information on Romanian folklore and traditions. Also, I love the beautiful pictures of various locations as well as the recipes. This is excellent for a foodie or someone with a love for culinary history—whether it is a personal purchase or a gift.

I voluntarily reviewed an Advanced Reader Copy of this book provided by the publisher and Net Galley. However, the thoughts expressed are my own.

From Dill to Dracula is a beautiful Romanian cookbook. I loved looking through this book and can imagine it being a great coffee table read. It was really a pleasure to look at the pictures of Romania and discover the local hearty cuisine. I know very little about the region and have never eaten the local food but I was very curious to see what it had to offer. I recognised some dishes I had come across in Georgian, Slovak and Polish cuisine. It looks filling, full of winter veggies, cheese and thick cake slices. Every recipe has a photo which lets you know exactly how it’s supposed to turn out. I really appreciate that as someone who is new to those dishes and wants to recreate them the best I can. I particularly appreciated having a few drinks recipes at the end, those are always fun and something we don’t see enough in local cuisine books.

This cookbook was interesting, and while there were only a handful of recipes I could really see myself making, the warm, conversational style is delightful.

I've made two recipes so far, the roasted garlic soup and the cheese sticks. Both were good, but I needed to make some changes to get the recipes to work correctly. The roasted garlic needs to be roasted much longer than the 25 minutes at 350. I ended up wrapping it in foil and leaving it in for another 30 minutes. I also think giving a weight (g or oz) for the garlic would be helpful, since garlic heads can vary in size so much. For the cheese sticks, the dough was much to crumbly to come together. I need to add a little water to make it work. That said, both recipes turned out well, but only after I made some changes. It makes me wonder if there were recipe testers during the editing process.

That said, it's a very interesting and unique cookbook! Thank you NetGalley for the copy!

Thank you to the author, Cardboard Monet Publishing and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I loved the idea of this cookbook, having travelled to Romania many times over the years - and the cover and layout is very appealing. Including a mention of the author's personal ties to the country was a great idea, I just wish it had carried over more specifically. Almost every recipe had a mention of "I remember my grandmother making this and it's delicious..." - which seems a bit inadequate in terms of the personal element. The inclusion of a few of the myths and fables of Romania was interesting, particularly as many will know the country only through it's association with the figure of Dracula. I would have been interested in a bit more information on the country as a whole, it's so culturally and geographically diverse. The recipes themselves, with a few exceptions, were not terribly exciting. Lots of very similar dishes, none of the finesse I would have expected and lots of mistakes and unclarity. WTH are T and t in terms of measurements? In some recipes ingredients are missing, measurements are missing completely and it's completely US-centric.