New Honey Cookbook by U of I Entomology Professor, May Berenbaum

A collection of recipes from around the world featuring honey by May Berenbaum, Swanlund Chair and Professor of Entomology and head of the Entomology Department of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Proclaiming only modest cooking skills herself, she relies on her husband’s late cousin and gifted cook, Hermilda Listeman of Illinois, as the inspiration of the book and the source for many of the recipes. She includes recipes from the Illinois State beekeepers archives and from Entomologist colleagues from around the world.

Berenbaum begins with a short history of honey, beekeeping and cooking with honey, touching on health and an interesting explanation of why honey is considered Kosher even though it breaks the normal rule of being the product of a non-kosher animal. She assembles a world-wide collection of traditional and family recipes for cookies, brownies, breads, muffins, pancakes, fried desserts, pies, puddings and cakes. Many of the recipes include the history and background of a particular recipe which makes for good reading and appreciation of the incredible depth of honey recipes in our human culture.

There are two distinct recipes for Baklava and a wide variety of American and traditional ethnic delights such as; 1st prize winning Staten Island Honey Cookies, German Pfeffernüsse, Swedish and Swiss Leckerli, German Aachener Printen, Polish Ciastka Miodowe, Jewish Hamentaschen, French Pain d’épices, Yemen Bint al-Sahn, Greek Loukoumades, eight types of honey pies and many more—142 recipes in total!

As a final tribute to honey and the plants and bees that produce it, sales of this book will contribute to the maintenance of the University of Illinois Pollinatarium, the first free-standing science center in the nation devoted to flowering plants and their pollinators.

Bon Apis-treat!

Author: May Berenbaum
Illustrated by: Nils Cordes
Published by: University of Illinois Press 2010, 163 pages, paperback.
ISBN: 978-0-252-07744-9

Available from the University of Illinois Press.

Other books by May Berenbaum: Ninety-Nine Gnats, Nits, and Nibblers; Ninety-Nine More Maggots, Mites, and Munchers; Bugs in the System: Insects and Their Impact on Human Affairs; Buzzwords: A Scientist Muses on Sex, Bugs, and Rock ‘n’ Roll; and the Earwig’s Tail: A Modern Bestiary of Multi-legged Legends.

Pictures of selected Honey, I’m Homemade recipes from a U of I student bake-off

Related posts:

1. Honey Gastronomy
2. Panna Cotta with Honey