SLUB receives estate of GDR cookbook author Winnington

The estate of GDR cookbook author Ursula Winnington will become part of the German Archive of Culinary Art in Dresden shortly before the first anniversary of her death. Maraike Wittbrodt and Lilly Böhm, the author's daughter and granddaughter, donated the estate to the Saxon State Library - Dresden State and University Library (SLUB). This was announced by the library.

The estate includes Ursula Winnington's library of cookbooks and works comprising more than 150 books. It also includes a handwritten cookbook written by her grandmother in the 19th century, which Winnington used to discover her passion for cooking. The SLUB also received many of her publications since 1964, for example in the magazines "Das Magazin", "Guter Rat" and "Sibylle", as well as letters to the editor and extensive correspondence from 1971 to 1999, for example with VEB Exzellent Dresden, the manufacturer of the popular Worcester sauce.

Cookbook author published more than 1,250 recipes

Winnington died in Berlin in May 2015 at the age of 96. She had published more than 1,250 recipes. There are eight cookbooks as well as a collection of recipes and columns. Winnington's last book was published in 2012 and contains recipes such as Mecklenburger Götterspeise and French boeuf bourguignon.

"The archive is an important source for a wide range of research and highly interesting for friends of the fine art of cooking," said Lilly Böhm according to the press release. Her grandmother would have been delighted that her estate is now with those of the GDR television chef Kurt Drummer and the German food critic Wolfram Siebeck. "Their cookbooks and recipe columns with charming cultural-historical excursions into the distant world reveal an East German way of life that will enrich common images."

Significant testimonies to the art of cooking in the GDR

The German Archive of Culinary Arts was founded by the SLUB in 2022 together with the Technical University of Dresden. Director General Katrin Stump said that the donation would enable the collection of further important testimonies to the history of the culinary arts in the GDR.

According to the information provided, the estate will now be indexed by the library and made accessible for research. The books are to be presented to the public in the "FoodStudio" of the SLUB Dresden.