The novelist Miriam Toews was asked in the New York Times Book Review's "By the Book" Q & A feature (October 3, 2021) what books she was embarrassed to admit she had not read. Her response: " 'The Mennonite Treasury,' a cookbook my Aunt Mary gave me. A lot of the recipes call for ammonia. For Mennonites its second in importance to the Bible."
If she knew that the recipes called for ammonia as an ingredient, it's safe to assume she has read some of the cookbook.
The thing that caught my attention was the use of ammonia in cooking. Anyone who has ever used it for laundry or household cleaning knows it has an overpowering smell. You can only imagine how bad it must taste. How anyone can put ammonia in a recipe and live to tell the tale is a complete mystery.
I would love to contact Miriam Toews about adding this unusual ingredient to a recipe.
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