We’re recruiting for the Emperor’s Crumbs Army on facebook. Don’t worry, this isn’t the draft; it’s a place to exchange recipes, photos, suggestions and more. We’re even offering an incentive! Anyone who becomes a member of the group Emperors Crumbs Army will be entered to win a selection of  classic Czecho-Slovak treats.

The winner will enjoy crisp wafers with various fillings, the weird and wonderful “soy stick”, unforgettable “Romanca”, indulgent chocolate “Fidorka” and more. You can bet we’ll be stocking up on these delicacies ourselves when we pack our bags for the big move to the US next month. So raise your butter-knife high and join up! The winner will be selected on March 12th, 2010.

The second competition is a bit more involved but it is worth every effort. Try one of our recipes and make a photo or a video. Post it on any photo/video hosting site like flickr, smugmug, YouTube, or vimeo, add the tag emperorscrumbs.com, and in the description of the photo put a link to the recipe. You can enter as many photos/videos as you want, just link to your creations in a comment here so we know where to find them.  We will pick the best submission by March 19th. Along with the amazing and nutritious prize of a fabulous assortment of the best candies and wafers from Slovakia and Hungary, you and your artwork will enter history when we publish it here for everyone to admire!

It was an ordinary afternoon when I was picking up my son from his grandparents’ house last week. Usually I have coffee with my parents and discuss the joys and sorrows of life. My dad loves antiques and he is crazy about history, and I love to task him with finding me different items from the past. We were talking about antique cookbooks and I was complaining how expensive they are. He showed me few of his cookbooks which date back to the 1800s, explaining who used this or that book, or where and when he bought it. A few times he mentioned his great-aunt who was a housewife and cook in Budapest. She worked also for Kalman Mikszath, who was a famous Hungarian writer, journalist and politician. Then he pulled out a big pile of handwritten recipes, saying: “these are her recipes”. My jaw dropped. Who cares about the old books of unknown people when we have recipes directly from our family? My dad is like that. [Read more →]

I love desserts with poppy seeds, and I do not understand why are they popular only in Central Europe. Here poppy seeds are associated with sweets. Across our borders it is usually salty stuff, like crackers, rolls and bagels that get poppyseeds, just on top. It is time to let the world know about the real destiny of the poppy seed. [Read more →]

Have you ever eaten a Chinese steamed pork bun? Imagine a sweet version, and you pretty much have buchty na páře (in Czech) or parené buchty (in Slovak). Instead of spicy meat, the fillings here are usually jam, sweetened poppy seeds, sweetened cheese (tvaroh), or chocolate. [Read more →]