Demonstrating that the culinary heritage of Eastern Europe goes far beyond the goulash familiar to the West, Chamberlain takes the reader on a fascinating tour of this region's rich gastronomy.

"The value of home-cooked food is probably one I owe almost entirely to Eastern Europe. I found it a joy to come across a world in which, although dented by shortages in an ill-managed economy, the culture of food was still intact. Above all, the food industry was innocent compared with its Western counterpart, and the link between town and country persisted more or less unbroken from before the war. Markets were still more frequent than supermarkets, and there was no need to go to 'health' shops to buy whole grains, jam that was actually made of fruit, and superb dairy products at honest prices."