When did strudel arrive in America?
I was getting to that, reader Nicole! There’s no way to know for sure, so I’ll play it safe and say sometime in the middle 1800’s. That’s about the time that the very large waves of immigrants from central Europe started arriving in the US. One of the earliest known instances of a strudel recipe printed in the States was an 1889 Jewish-American classic called Aunt Babette’s Cook Book. It contained an entire section on strudels, including many of those cited below plus one for calves’ liver and lung. Don’t knock it ’til you try it, folks!
Is it selfish that I’m far more concerned with when it will arrive in my kitchen? Really, much to my daughter’s chagrin, I get pretty geeky about this history stuff. I keep going off on etymology digressions. “But Dad, I just wanted to know how to spell…”
You and I have the same problem. My 8-year-old has really perfected the eye-roll. Here’s dad with some more useless information!
Thanks for the comment, James!
– Joe