RecipeBook

2015

In order to endure the horrors of the concentration camps, it was essential to recall memories and keep one’s religious-cultural traditions; therefore many tried to practice their religion – even if it meant risking their lives, – and collected prayers and stories. Some of the women tried to escape the starvation by returning to their memories of the times they spent in the kitchen and recalling recipes. Vera erased the poems from the notebook brought from home and replaced them with recipes.

The soups, meat-dishes, marinades, fillings, garnishes, cakes, and biscuits became unreachable dreams, just like the ingredients: freshwater or a bag of flour.

In many cases the recipes in the collection have imprecise measurements or missing ingredients, making them almost impossible to prepare, and often there are poem-fragments next to them from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and János Vajda. Eszter Biro handled the recipe book as a kind of symbolic archive.

Group exhibiton at, Process, Faur Zsófi Gallery, Budapest, 2014

Solo show at Capa Center, Budapest, 2015

Group exhibition, Token’s of Remembrance, Brody House, Budapest, 2024 as part of the official Holocaust 80 remembrance programme