Thank you for visiting my website featuring our Virginia Czech Heritage. In old Czechoslovakia cookbooks were referred to as "Cookery Books" which gave me the idea for the title of this book. I have had tremendous results with this, my first published book, and I owe a lot of gratitude to all of those who took time to let me know how much they enjoyed reading it. I tell people it's more of a memoir than it is a cookbook but then the recipes are what brought this book all together. After you read the reviews and hopefully the cookbook, which can be ordered from by using the information below, I'll let you be the judge of whether you like it more as a "storybook" or as a "cookbook."
Locally available at the Prince George County Regional Heritage Center or email me and I will mail copies. ($17.00 includes S&H)
Thanks to all of you who after reading my book took the time to tell me of your reactions and thoughts. I was especially humbled at all of the "re-orders" that so many of you made to give as gifts. Your kind words are as precious to me as the finished book is and I appreciate your thoughtfulness. It truly was a wonderful experience for me to put it together.
Quote from Back of Book
“Czechoslovakian immigrants arrived on our American shores in the late 1800s carrying their bundles in hand and having to learn a new language and a new way of life. Thankfully the 'old country' traditions and customs were kept alive among their families for future generations to honor.
The author is a third-generation descendant of Czech immigrants raised at the knees of industrious Czechoslovakian women who taught her how to make the family’s favorite ethnic recipes.
Recipes for Eastern European holiday breads and pastries along with her personal stories of days gone by are sure to take you back to the old days. The recipes are of heritage quality and beg not to be lost or forgotten. Lovers of “scratch” recipes will appreciate the updated and step-by-step directions and illustrations included. This book also makes fascinating armchair reading of a way of life gone by.”
Quotes and Recipes from “A Cooking Book Featuring Old Bohemian recipes
How I Came to Know Food
“My childhood memories are sweet; of feeling cherished and included into a woman’s world. I remember how safe and secure I felt being among good, busy and loving women. I felt happy to be rewarded when my own little pan of hot rolls came out of the oven, unshapely and uneven but warm and brown and delicious nonetheless. I enjoyed hearing the “men folks” tease me saying how a little girl could not possibly have made anything that tasted so good.”
Old Country Easter Traditions
“Easter was second only to Christmas as far as important holidays in the old country. For Czechoslovakians, Eastertime had important symbolic meanings… “the Easter Bread, Butcha (Czech), Pascha, (Slovak) is symbolic of …the giver of life…”
On my first trip to the Czech Republic, we were taken to a village just outside of Prague to visit the home of a lady who hand painted these eggs while we watched. The solid red, green and brown eggs (seen on the right) show designs made with small pieces of straw. The white egg (middle left) was made with wax dripping from a toothpick. The other three were designed free-handed as we watched. The eggs had previously been emptied and after being dyed, she used a pin to scratch out the designs and our names onto the eggs. You can see the results. Decorating eggs is believed to have had it's origin in the Ukrain. These beautiful decorated eggs are known as "Pysanky." The designs they use are religious symbols whose meanings are interesting to explore. It was thrilling to watch the lady in this small village scratch the designs and add our names onto the eggs which we purchased from her. We hand-carried our eggs back to the states in our laps to protect them as we consider them a treasure.
Easter Lamb Cake Use your favorite pound cake recipe or the one below. Other cake recipes are just too light to hold up to the handling it requires.
2 cups butter
2 1/4 cups sugar
8 eggs (2 cups)
5 cups sifted cake flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. vanilla
Lamb mold
Beat the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Sift the dry ingredients together and add to the creamed egg/butter mixture. Add vanilla; mix until blended. Pour into a very well greased and floured lamb mold, pouring the batter into the face side only. Before baking, carefully insert two or three toothpicks deep into the wet cake mixture at the neck and ears of the mold to stabilize these weak areas. Cover the cake with the back side of the lamb mold and bake about 50 minutes. Remove from the oven and cool on a rack about 20 minutes before removing it from the mold.
Place the cake on top of a bed of coconut (grass) that has been tinted with a few drops of green food coloring. (To tint coconut, place it into a glass jar or zip bag then add the food coloring. Close tightly and shake until thoroughly coated.) Frost with a fluffy white icing and use jelly beans to make the eyes and necklace.
Fluffy White Frosting
2 1/4 cup confectionery sugar
1 stick butter, softened
1 tsp. vanilla
Water
Mix sugar, butter and vanilla together until well blended. Add 1 tsp of water at a time until it is soft and fluffy. Spread icing over lamb cake, making soft swirls and peaks to resemble lamb's wool.
Peanut Rolls (see recipe below)
SELECTED QUOTES
“In Southern Virginia, in our Czech and Slovak farming communities, our families have shared their food and ways of preparing it through the past 100 years, so it is hard to distinguish what is Bohemian from what is not. While I certainly do not claim the origin of these recipes as belonging solely to the Czechs, they are old recipes that have Czech names similar to, but not exactly like, some of the other ethnic recipes that my friends make.”
At our family Christmas Party, granddaughters Shelly and Allie Pearson escape from the festivities to delve into the cookbook that I wrote with their generation in mind. I was encouraged because they are both avid readers and even amid the noise, food, and fun, it held their attention. Their favorite Czech food always was and still remains Kolaches with cinnamon flavored apples.
Sweet Braided Bread (Buchta/Vanocka)
The recipe for this amazing bread can be found in the cookbook and it is absolutely beautiful and delicious. It makes wonderful gifts for friends and neighbors.
This is a bread basket cover that I embroidered on a piece of linen back in 2004. The pattern is not my original design. It's a copy of an old faded one I saw on a Czech website years ago during the Easter holidays. I think it's a beautiful design. I used metalic thread for the Halo around Mary's head and it turned out quite lovely.
PEANUT ROLL RECIPE
1 cup milk, scalded
½ cup sugar
1 cup butter (melted)
1 yeast cake or 1 pkg. dry yeast
¼ cup warm water
1 egg
¾ tsp salt
4 – 5 cups flour
Directions:
Heat milk but do not boil,let cool slightly then add the egg and melted butter. Add the yeast mixture to other liquid ingredients. Add salt to flour and slowly add flour until mixture forms a ball or when it pulls away for the sides of the bowl. Knead until smooth (about 10 minutes if by hand.) Put into a greased bowl, cover and let rise. When double in bulk, cut in half and roll out into a rectangle.
Spread with peanut mixture filling as follows: Place in food processor, 1 cup raw peanuts,1 cup sugar, 2 T. cinnamon, 1 stick melted butter. Pulse until nuts are finely chopped. Spread filling onto each rectangle. Begin forming the two loaves by rolling the dough, spread with the peanut filling, from short end. Tighten seams and ends. Brush top and sides of loaves with an egg wash and bake at 375 degrees for about 20 to 25 minutes. Cool on rack. Slice when cool.
Biography
Marie Blaha Pearson is the co-founder of the Southside Virginia Czech Slovak Heritage Society with interests in retaining the history, customs, and traditions of the former Czechoslovakia. Her love of cooking and collecting recipes began as a child on her immigrant grandparents farm and has continued during her fifty years of homemaking.
In 1998 Marie’s first visit to the Czech Republic was on a church mission. She returned twice more, once to find and visit the ancestral village of her immigrant grandparents in 2005, then in 2006, she was invited to present a paper, “Exploring Czech Families of Immigrants, 100 years Later…” at the World Congress of the Czechoslovak Society of Arts and Sciences (SVU) held at the University of Southern Bohemia in Ceske Budejovice.
Marie is a suma cum laude graduate of St. Leo University. Before her retirement she was the Director of Virginia Osteoporosis Clinic. She and her husband of 52 years, live in Hopewell, Virginia.
Locally available at the Prince George County Regional Heritage Center or email me and I will mail copies. ($17.00 includes S&H) 
On my first trip to the Czech Republic, we were taken to a village just outside of Prague to visit the home of a lady who hand painted these eggs while we watched. The solid red, green and brown eggs (seen on the right) show designs made with small pieces of straw. The white egg (middle left) was made with wax dripping from a toothpick. The other three were designed free-handed as we watched. The eggs had previously been emptied and after being dyed, she used a pin to scratch out the designs and our names onto the eggs. You can see the results. Decorating eggs is believed to have had it's origin in the Ukrain. These beautiful decorated eggs are known as "Pysanky." The designs they use are religious symbols whose meanings are interesting to explore. It was thrilling to watch the lady in this small village scratch the designs and add our names onto the eggs which we purchased from her. We hand-carried our eggs back to the states in our laps to protect them as we consider them a treasure. 
Easter Lamb Cake Use your favorite pound cake recipe or the one below. Other cake recipes are just too light to hold up to the handling it requires. 
Sweet Braided Bread (Buchta/Vanocka) 
This is a bread basket cover that I embroidered on a piece of linen back in 2004. The pattern is not my original design. It's a copy of an old faded one I saw on a Czech website years ago during the Easter holidays. I think it's a beautiful design. I used metalic thread for the Halo around Mary's head and it turned out quite lovely.