Sărut-mâna pentru masă (Volumele I & II) - Book of the Month December 2025
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December, the month of gifts, joy, time dedicated to ourselves, family and all our loved ones is here. We all prepare for the Holidays, we draw a line and analyze the good and not so good things that happened over the past year and make plans for the new year that is knocking at the door. Among all this, December is also about the time spent at home, memories of long-gone times and... the taste of childhood. What would Christmas be without the scent of Christmas cake in the house? Or the one of the stuffed cabbage rolls? Or without a decorated Christmas tree? Or without our loved ones close by? Or, if it is no longer possible to have all our loved ones around, at least their memory?
December is a special month in my soul. Christmas is that time of year when I become a child again and I try to experience at least a little of that feeling of "carefree well-being", of impatience related to how and especially when we decorate the tree and the buzz in the living room on Christmas Day.
Because December is a special month for all of us, I dedicate the article "Book of the Month" in Winesday App to a special book, just released on the market, which does not talk about wine but about food, the one that goes so well with wine. The book of the month for December 2025 is dedicated to gastronomy and is a perfect gift idea this Christmas for those who love gastronomy.
"Sărut-mâna pentru masă (Volumele I & II). Carte de(spre) bucate" ("Thank you for the meal (Volumes I & II). A book about food") is written by Adriana Sohodoleanu and Cosmin Dragomir and has just been published by Gastroart Publishing House.
Beyond the fact that I know both authors and congratulate them for the hard work they have put into bringing to light so many traditions, customs and recipes from all corners of Romania, you should know that they have been dedicated to gastronomy for many years. None of them are on their first published book, but of all the ones that have been published so far, this one seems so complex that I don't realize exactly how much time they needed to dedicate to the documentation.
But what came out looks like this: 2 volumes totaling almost 900 pages in which they talk about gastronomy, as well as traditions, customs and even a few historical notes from each region of Romania. All related in one way or another to the food or gastronomic heritage that Romania has today.
If Volume I deals with places like Banat, Bucovina, Crișana, Dobrogea and Maramureș, in Volume II we find Moldova, Moldova beyond the Prut (yes, you read that right, the Republic of Moldova is also present in a chapter), Muntenia, Oltenia, Transylvania.
December is a special month in my soul. Christmas is that time of year when I become a child again and I try to experience at least a little of that feeling of "carefree well-being", of impatience related to how and especially when we decorate the tree and the buzz in the living room on Christmas Day.
Because December is a special month for all of us, I dedicate the article "Book of the Month" in Winesday App to a special book, just released on the market, which does not talk about wine but about food, the one that goes so well with wine. The book of the month for December 2025 is dedicated to gastronomy and is a perfect gift idea this Christmas for those who love gastronomy.
"Sărut-mâna pentru masă (Volumele I & II). Carte de(spre) bucate" ("Thank you for the meal (Volumes I & II). A book about food") is written by Adriana Sohodoleanu and Cosmin Dragomir and has just been published by Gastroart Publishing House.
Beyond the fact that I know both authors and congratulate them for the hard work they have put into bringing to light so many traditions, customs and recipes from all corners of Romania, you should know that they have been dedicated to gastronomy for many years. None of them are on their first published book, but of all the ones that have been published so far, this one seems so complex that I don't realize exactly how much time they needed to dedicate to the documentation.
But what came out looks like this: 2 volumes totaling almost 900 pages in which they talk about gastronomy, as well as traditions, customs and even a few historical notes from each region of Romania. All related in one way or another to the food or gastronomic heritage that Romania has today.
If Volume I deals with places like Banat, Bucovina, Crișana, Dobrogea and Maramureș, in Volume II we find Moldova, Moldova beyond the Prut (yes, you read that right, the Republic of Moldova is also present in a chapter), Muntenia, Oltenia, Transylvania.
The book is not a cookbook. Better said, it's not ONLY a cookbook but also a book "about" food. It is a book that looks beyond what we find on restaurant menus, it is a book that can serve as inspiration for those who want to discover recipes and stories from the region where they grew up, or maybe they want to remember a dish that their grandmother used to make.
It is a book that puts traditional Romanian food on the world gastronomy map. It is a book that I sincerely hope will be translated [at least into English] in the near future so that Romania can be taken seriously by food lovers.
Reasons to read the book: " <<Sărut-mâna pentru masă>> explores the multiethnic culinary diversity, too often treated reductively, of dishes, techniques and food-related customs collected by ethnographers, anthropologists and, more recently, social media influencers passionate about gastronomic culture from all parts of the country, in a book easy to follow and understood by the public interested in gastronomy, but less accustomed to the rigid and, often, boring formats of historical and ethnographic research that formed the basis of this research. Its main merit is that it manages to bring to light original material, taken from obscure sources that are otherwise difficult to access, and to put in two memorable volumes not only what would occupy an entire library, but which would otherwise have been read only by a handful of ethnographers." - Mona Petre
Where to find the book: The book is published in Romanian and is available at Cărturești both online and in bookstores across the country. It is already a bestseller, the official launch taking place in early November 2025.
Carmina Nițescu
Winesday & Winesday App
It is a book that puts traditional Romanian food on the world gastronomy map. It is a book that I sincerely hope will be translated [at least into English] in the near future so that Romania can be taken seriously by food lovers.
Reasons to read the book: " <<Sărut-mâna pentru masă>> explores the multiethnic culinary diversity, too often treated reductively, of dishes, techniques and food-related customs collected by ethnographers, anthropologists and, more recently, social media influencers passionate about gastronomic culture from all parts of the country, in a book easy to follow and understood by the public interested in gastronomy, but less accustomed to the rigid and, often, boring formats of historical and ethnographic research that formed the basis of this research. Its main merit is that it manages to bring to light original material, taken from obscure sources that are otherwise difficult to access, and to put in two memorable volumes not only what would occupy an entire library, but which would otherwise have been read only by a handful of ethnographers." - Mona Petre
Where to find the book: The book is published in Romanian and is available at Cărturești both online and in bookstores across the country. It is already a bestseller, the official launch taking place in early November 2025.
Carmina Nițescu
Winesday & Winesday App
