Sweet Dumplings & Noodles

Of all the desserts served Vienna, Budapest, and Prague, this category of sweetened dumplings and noodles is the most foreign to the American palate. Yet, whenever I spoke to American friends about this book, if they had any Austro-Hungarian or Czech heritage at all, they wanted to be sure that I was including dumpling recipes. They all fondly remembered their grandmothers serving fruit-stuffed dumplings in the summer, and none had eaten dumplings since. Cooks in the American south make fruit dumplings, but those dumplings are usually drops of dough cooked on top of a thick fruit sauce.