When her Madison cafe closed, woman turned the recipes into a cookbook
For more than three decades, Barb Pratzel has fed her community. It all goes back to Collins House, the Madison area bed-and-breakfast where many of her recipes have their roots.
When their 20-year lease with the city was up, she and her husband, Mike, closed the B&B and moved on to the next venture: Manna Cafe. They built the business based on from-scratch cooking, a neighborhood staple known for its breads and breakfasts. Then the pandemic hit in 2020.
Approaching retirement, the Pratzels chose to close their beloved Manna Cafe. That was the impetus Pratzel needed.
She got to work on her first cookbook, writing out her recipes and the stories behind them. From sticky buns and quiche to challah, matzo ball soup and their famous oatmeal pancakes, nearly 150 recipes are featured in “Manna Cafe and Bakery Cookbook: A Memoir of Two Businesses, a Community, and the Food That Connected Them” available Oct. 21 through Mineral Point based Little Creek Press Books, $32, It can be ordered at littlecreekpress.com/bookstore.
Question: What inspired the cookbook project?
Answer: All along people would say you should do a cookbook. I did want to write, but a cookbook wasn't the thing I was thinking about. I always had writing in the back of my mind. I didn't know what that was until we knew we were closing. Then it all suddenly gelled. Not only would this be a wonderful opportunity for us to be able to write, but here are hundreds of regular customers who were begging for the recipes.
Q: What was the number one recipe you had to include?
A: The oatmeal pancakes, the most requested recipe from our bed-andbreakfast guests. A close second was the pumpkin chocolate chip muffins …
The oat cakes have a long history in terms of people asking for them. Before we had Manna I'd give out this recipe to special people who asked. I was just recently reminded of that.
My son is a chef in New York, born and raised in Madison. Through middle school he had a couple close friends, one of whom is now a writer and editor for Wisconsin Public Radio. The man she married used to work for us. When he went off to college, he was an oatcake fanatic. We gave him the recipe as a gift. Everyone on staff signed it. They have it framed and hanging in their home now.
Q: Was it a struggle to part with any of these recipes?
A: No, it was time. It is funny how you hold them tight when you're still in business. You're not afraid someone's going to steal them, but they just feel like yours. Now, more than anything I want people to have them and I can't imagine not sharing them.
It was hard for me when people knew I was writing the cookbook. They would say “Please, I'll pay you for the oatcake recipe.” I'd apologize and explain everyone has to wait.
Q: What were some of the other unexpected challenges?
A: I've got a big audience of people who are probably mostly novice cooks. Even so, they clamored for the recipes that I knew would be difficult and challenging. I wanted to include them, but I had to break them down for people who didn't have a lot of experience. Take the morning buns, the sticky buns, which originated out of Ovens of Brittany here in Madison. There is a lot of technique to making a good morning bun, using croissant dough. I couldn't not include it because it was difficult. I had to include it, but had to write it concisely and clearly for most of the novice people. Suddenly l have a recipe that is three to four pages long. I had to balance that with simple recipes, like the pumpkin chocolate chip muffin.
Manna was completely from-scratch food. We were famous for our quiche. People would order hundreds during the holidays. The quiche recipe includes making the crust, then making the custard, then the filling, and then taking all three parts and putting it together. That was a whole chapter. I made sure I included the things people loved, even though they might not take them on because they'll open the book and say "oh really? That's what that involves"?
Q: What would you most like to be known for?
A: Creamy, custardy scrambled eggs, the technique of which I learned from reading Julia Child once. I feel like people really don't know what scrambled eggs can be, until they've had a properly slow-cooked scramble with just the right amount of salt, and perhaps a sprinkle of great Parmesan cheese. … Three ingredients, eggs, salt and a bit of butter, cooked with the right technique, turn a simple dish from pedestrian to luxury. …Anyway, I don't mind being known for my passion for scrambled eggs (see page 87 of the book)!
Q: What has feeding people and creating these recipes taught you?
A: It has taught me the importance of food and bringing people together, in particular with breads … In St. Louis, Pratzel's bakery was founded by three brothers in 1908 or so and continued to 2010 or so. My husband was third generation. One of the things they developed was a corn Tzizel. We have that recipe in
the cookbook. … Pratzel's bakery was known for this rye bread, and we made it at Manna.
After Pratzel's closed we'd get calls from people from St. Louis, or wherever, who wanted this bread. It is a sourdough rye bread, the entirety rolled in cornmeal. We made challah every Friday. … Our cultural identity was based in our Jewishness, and we made these breads that were reflective of that and told a story about us as people. Sharing those breads and their stories with our customers, we were making a connection.