SC - Re: eastern european fare

[Varju at aol.com]

In a message dated 12/7/1998 9:00:45 AM Mountain Standard Time, LrdRas at aol.com
writes:

<< Actually it's not at all clear whether there is documentation or not.
 Historically these countries were heavily influenced by al-Islam which is a
 continuing influence behind the problems in this region in the Current Middle
 Ages. I would be hesitant to say rhat their is no documentation.>>

I first want to start by saying to Ras that I am not disputing this very true
statement, I am only trying to narrow it down to avoid any confusion.  Heaven
knows the history of the region is complicated enough without any help. :->

The influence of the middle and near east, in the form of the Ottoman Turks,
was the strongest in the Balkans (Albania, Macedonia, Serbia, Bosnia, and
Croatia) as well as Romania because they came under Turkish rule relatively
early.  In contrast Hungary did not come under Turkish rule until relatively
late (after the battle of Mohacs in 1527) so the influence on cuisine , as was
pointed out to me here probably did not occure until outside our period.  The
modern Czech Republic (Bohemia and Moravia) and Poland were never invaded by
the Ottoman Turks so they never had that type of influence.  Slovakia, while
it was a part of the medieval kingdom of Hungary was not a part that was
conquered by the Turks so that influence would be lacking there also.

As i mentioned before, I know for sure that there are collections of period
recipies that are in Hungary.  The question is not of access but of language,
because anyone can go to the Szechenyi library and request them, they just are
not in English and have never been fully translated. (George Lang includes
several translated recipes from two manuscripts in _Cuisine of Hungary_)  I
believe that will hold true of most of the states of Eastern Europe, that the
documents are there and not been translated, not through any political reason,
just that it has not been done.  (The states that came out of the former
Yugoslavia may be an exception, there the documents may have been destroyed
during the continued conflict.)  I think it is one area where national
sentiment may have been useful, in that these documents would have been saved
because they represented a piece of the national identity.  

Noemi
Windkeep,
Outlands
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