This book began with some fascinating history of the country where the food is from. The unfortunate part was that it was dense and could not be read in individual sittings. The book expired before I could finish it and therefore I cannot provide a complete rating online for it.
I would recommend it to food-lovers who like stories to go with their food.

The stories and the recipes from the Baltic countries that can be found in this book make this book a must have on the shelves of people who like cooking and trying recipes from around the world. I love the mentions of places where some of the ingredients can be found.

Even though I received an electronic format of the book from NetGalley in an exchange of an honest review, a physical format of this book will soon find a place in my library because I love it.

Part recipe book and part travel writing, this beautifully illustrated book is a great introduction to the culinary cultures of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania for people like myself who knew nothing about Baltic food.

The recipes are a mix of tradition and innovation, covering Baltic starters, soups, main dishes, salads, fermented goodies and desserts. Each recipe conveniently comes with a vegetarian or pescatarian variation, and each chapter introduces the history and contemporary food scene of a Baltic capital or an important city.

For me, this is a feast of unique ingredients I’ve never seen before: sea buckthorn, birch syrup, hemp butter, Latvian green cheese (green because it is infused with blue fenugreek) and many other Baltic cheeses. I also love how the recipes give the spotlight to some hearty but often overlooked vegetables and grains, like rye, barley, beetroot and turnip.

I’ll definitely keep an eye out for these ingredients and dishes if I visit a Baltic state in the future, and in the meanwhile I’d love to try making some of them at home.

A vibrant culinary journey through the Baltic region. More than a cook book, this is a mixture of gorgeous written passages about a region I'm desperate to return to. In a time when international travel is still limited, this is a perfect book to have on your bookshelf.

What a lovely book! Amber & Rye is much more than a cookbook. It is an experience that we make with Zuza Zak, who takes us on a journey to reconnect with her roots, walk in her grandma's footsteps, and explore the Baltic States. The book guides the reader through a bit of history and context of each of the locations, just enough to set the scene and create the atmosphere.
With each step of the journey, we discover the culinary culture of this part of the world. We explore the use of ingredients which we are not familiar with, and we learn a lot about very interesting cooking techniques like curing, fermenting, pickling and more. I found it fascinating because I did not know anything about the cuisine of this part of the world before I opened this book and I learned a lot.
I am definitely going to try Linda's tomato tart with Latvian green cheese , the fish soups, Greta's Medutis honey layer cake and the pumpkin buns. There is plenty in this book for those of us who wish to explore a new experience for our tastebuds.
I definitely recommend this book.
Thank you to NetGalley, to Muroch Books and to Zuza Zak for the privilege of an advance readers copy of this delightful book.

What did I expect from a deluxe recipe book featuring the cuisine of the Baltic states? Well, despite not remembering what I ate when I was there (it was 1996, after all) I thought to see something semi-Scandinavian, semi-Russian, definitely hanging on granny's instructions and ideas. Oh, and if I were to follow the book to any extent I'd have to stock up on dill. Lots of dill. I think I expected something a bit more in tuned with my own way of cooking, however – this involves a lot of high-end, hard-to-source ingredients (Latvian green cheese, anyone?!), smokers, and a lot of fiddle-faddling to get the honest, home-made style and speciality flavours.

As a book it looks a fine one – we get the usual "journey" typical of such books, proving the recipes are echt, and catering for a visual flavour of the places these dishes come from. All this is present and correct. The recipes are not strictly done by country, even if we seem to be visiting separate cities in every chapter. Instead we get breakfast baking, starters, salads, mains, fish and finally the other accompaniments (which ease your mind at the "first ferment your beetroot" instruction elsewhere). To my mind this cuisine fits very well into the whole foods ethos – proper use of natural grains, seasonal produce, local fish (yes, that means local to wherever we are, it doesn't always have to come from the Baltic), and so on – and the use of anything that had been seasonal but has since been pickled, fermented and otherwise stored. It all sounds suitably lovely, in the hands of more adept chefs than I will ever be. Not every dish gets a photograph, but I don't think you're ever left hanging, and there are tips on sourcing the specific things that will be new to your shelves. So while my use of these recipes won't be as often as wished by the creators here, I will indulge. I might start at the end with the home-made poppy seed fudge, which was never something I thought to type. For one thing, it uses no dill.

Four stars then, at least, for this latest kiek in den koek.

In short, I think this is a fabulous book and a very pleasing addition to my library of recipe books. But to be fair it isn’t just a cook book, it contains a beautifully descriptive narrative of a region of the world that I really knew very little about, and I found this fascinating also. The combination of narrative, photos and interesting recipes that I’d never encountered makes this a great book.
I would definitely recommend this book.
My thanks to NetGalley, Murdoch Books and Zuza Zak for allowing me to read this book in return for an honest review.