Who was Sanda Marin?

Cecilia Maria Simionescu, also known under the pseudonym Sanda Marin, is the Romanian version of the famous Julia Child.

How many times, wanting to make a culinary surprise for your loved ones, have you run out of ideas, desperately looking for the saving recipe and turned to Sanda Marin’s famous cookbook?

Whether you are passionate about the culinary art, or whether you are quite clumsy in the kitchen, Sanda Marin, with tact and patience, presents you in a very simple way a multitude of recipes that turn cooking into a real pleasure. Famous for her cookbook, Sanda Marin has managed to remain a rather withdrawn personality about whom not much is known. Cecilia Maria Simionescu lived between 1900-1961. She was born in Iasi, in an elite family of Iasi intellectuals. Sanda Marin, as she chose to be nicknamed, had a privileged education, mastering the art of foreign languages perfectly. She studied the piano in Paris, gaining some special manners, highly appreciated at that time.

At the beginning of 1930, loving gastronomy enormously, she transformed her house into a place where family and friends could indulge their senses with the most delicious dishes. Dissatisfied with the cookbooks that existed at that time, she decided to offer humanity a true culinary encyclopedia containing approximately 10.000 recipes.

Sanda Marin’s cookbook enjoyed a real success not only in Romania, being translated into English and German, summing up recipes that please the taste buds regardless of the language we speak.

Hotel Alpin, wanting to pamper your senses, proposes to prepare a delicious and very simple recipe, Sanda Marin brand. How about a cake with sour cherries?

To prepare it, you need: 5 eggs, 150 g of sugar, 100 g of breadcrumbs, 1/2 teaspoon of bicarbonate and of course 1/2 kg of sour cherries. The breadcrumbs can be replaced with crushed walnuts and white flour.

After washing the sour cherries, taking care not to crush them, remove the pits, then drain them in a sieve. In the meantime, beat the egg yolks with the sugar until a foam is formed, then add the bicarbonate, the beaten egg whites, the foam and sour cherries, continuing to mix gently.

The composition is poured into a tray that has been greased with butter. And bake for 20-30 min. It is cut and consumed after it has cooled down.

Hoping that we have awakened your tastes, Hotel Alpin warmly recommends the Sanda Marin cookbook and wishes you good cooking and good appetite!