Although my husband's surname is Martinez, his mother is German, and the first years of his life he spent with his mother's family in Germany. My husband has an Uncle Volker who lives in Stuttgart, and I started learning about German food in order to please him. Volker enjoys traveling. He has visited us here in Missouri. However, he does not enjoy American cooking.

I am also interested in German food, because my father's grandfather was born in Bavaria. When he was only 14 years old, Martin Luther Walz left home and ended up here in Kansas City, Mo., where he started working as a cook and eventually became a saloon owner in the waning days of the Old West.

Because of my dual interest in family history and feeding Uncle Volker, I was intrigued when I stumbled across a book published in 1897, Henriette Davidis' Practical Cook Book Compiled for the United States From the Thirty-Fifth German Edition. Apparently this was a book widely used by German immigrants in the United States. Perhaps my great-grandparents owned a copy.

Perusing the table of contents, I was intrigued by all the recipes with wine in them: Wine Soups (including a Wine Soup for Invalids), Sourkrout With Oysters and Rhinewine, Wine Jelly With Eggs, Wine or Lemon Pudding. All these wine recipes reminded me of driving with Volker through Stuttgart and out into the countryside. Vinyards were everywhere there was a scrap of land large enough to squeeze in a few grapevines.

Interested in attempting some of these antique recipes -- or "receipts," as they were called in 1897 -- I decided I simply had to start with one of the wine recipes. In particular, I decided to attempt the Wine or Lemon Pudding. The title of the receipt intrigued me. Why wasn't it "Wine and Lemon Pudding"? Couldn't the author make up her mind?

Here are the instructions Ms. Davidis provided in her Practical Cook Book:

Wine or Lemon Pudding. 1 tablespoonful of gelatine is dissolved as described in Division M, No. 1. Then take the yolks of 12 eggs with 3 glassfuls of white wine and 5 tablespoonfuls of sugar, a little salt, put on the stove over a slow fire and whip until it is smooth (it must not boil), then take it from the fire, constantly whipping it. After it has cooled, stir into it with a spoon the juice of 2 lemons and a little grated lemon peel, the dissolved gelatine and then slowly add the beaten whites of 12 eggs. The pudding can be put into a glass pudding dish to cool.

The words were in English, but I wasn't sure that was much help.

Paging back to Division M, No. 1, I skimmed over instructions for making jellies with isinglass and calves hooves to the section on gelatine. Apparently I was to cut the gelatine with scissors. Tearing open the packet I had purchased at the grocery store, I shook the powder out into my cupped hand. Gelatine in the 19th century must have been sold in a different form, because I wasn't going to be cutting this powder with scissors anytime soon.

In addition, Ms. Davidis directed me to dissolve the stuff for half an hour or an hour on a wood stove, and there were varying instructions for preparation in the Summer and in the Winter.

Because of modern climate control, I decided I could disregard the seasonal instructions, and I found information online about how to dissolve gelatine and nuke it in a microwave.

That's done. Okay, what's next?

Then take the yolks of 12 eggs ...

Easy enough. I can separate eggs.

... with 3 glassfuls of white wine ...

I had a bottle of sweet white German dessert wine uncorked, but how much should I pour? My glasses are all different shapes and sizes. Maybe three cups would work, 24 fluid ounces? Perfect. That left one glass for the cook to sip while figuring out the rest of the recipe.

... and 5 tablespoonfuls of sugar, a little salt ...

A little salt must be a pinch.

... put on the stove over a slow fire ...

My stove is electric. I turned the burner to medium. Maybe that would work.

... and whip until it is smooth (it must not boil) ...

Smooth? What did she mean by "smooth"? Setting aside my whisk and praying the concoction wouldn't boil while neglected, I pulled my food-stained copy of The Joy of Cooking down from the shelf by the stove to locate pudding recipes. The consistency of thick cream was mentioned. That was my goal, then: thick cream. So I returned to whipping the egg mixture.

I whipped it.

And whipped it.

And whipped it.

And whipped it.

About 15 minutes later, I decided it was looking creamy enough and turned the heat off. What next?

… then take it from the fire, constantly whipping it.

What did “constantly” mean? Was I supposed to keep whipping while removing the saucepan from the stove? For 15 more minutes? Until the stuff cooled? How long would that be? Half-heartedly, I whipped it a couple more times, then stopped. That was enough.

After it has cooled, stir into it with a spoon the juice of 2 lemons and a little grated lemon peel …

How much is “a little”? Looking for recipes using zest instead of lemon extract, I found an icing recipe that called for a tablespoonful, so that’s how much I decided to add.

… the dissolved gelatine …

Sigh. While I was whipping and adding and trying to figure out what glassfuls of this and a little of that were, the gelatine had completely gelled. Luckily, there were a couple more packets in the box I’d purchased.

… and then slowly add the beaten whites of 12 eggs.

For some reason, beating eggs makes me think of Simon de Beauvoir. She didn’t learn to cook until World War II. Until then, apparently she and Sartre ate out in cafes all the time. De Beauvoir wrote that she learned to enjoy cooking, because of the chemistry involved. It is the chemistry that I enjoy, as well, beating all those egg white molecules, forcing them to unravel into that froth that can be turned into meringue or – in this case – Wine or Lemon Pudding.

The pudding can be put into a glass pudding dish to cool.

I don’t own any glass pudding dishes, but wine glasses will do. How long to cool them, though, and where? When I was a kid, my Mom always set the Jello in the refrigerator, but Ms. Davidis didn’t have a fridge in 1897. Did she have an ice box? I suppose that in Germany in the Winter, she could have simply set the stuff outdoors.

Impatiently, I started my pudding in the freezer, later transferring it to the refrigerator.

When I checked an hour and a half later, it had gelled in two layers: a base that looked like yellow custard topped by stiff white foam. The glasses looked especially lovely after I had garnished them with lemon slices and tucked a chocolate hazelnut cookie stick into each. I figured that if the pudding didn’t turn out, at least we’d have the cookies for dessert.

“Have you tried it yet?” my husband asked when I handed him a spoon and a glass.

“Not yet.”

We took our first bites together.

“I can taste the lemon and the wine,” he said. He tried another spoonful. “You know what I like about this? It’s not too sweet.”

My impression was that it tasted equally of white wine and of lemon. But it’s not so lemony that it makes you pucker up, and it’s not so alcoholic that it gives you a buzz. You might call it Wine Pudding. Or you might call it Lemon Pudding. Either way, it’s light and refreshing.

And – if I may – I’d like to raise my glassful of Wine or Lemon Pudding in a toast. Here’s to Henriette Davidis and her Practical Cook Book. Here's to my great-grandparents, Martin Luther and Bertha Brownsberger Walz. And here’s to Uncle Volker. Prost!