SC - Cinnamon Cucumbers

[Robin Carroll-Mann]

Salut!
Sorry for those of you who get this twice, but as this has come up VERY
recently on both lists, I thought that I would let you all know about this
one.  

Dembinska, Maria.  1999.  Food and Drink in Medieval Poland: Rediscovering
a Cuisine of the Past.  University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.
(Translated by Magdalena Thomas, Revised and adapted by William Woys
Weaver.  ISBN 0-8122-3224-09


The book has NO original recipes, though it does mention a lot of
the exterior influences on Polish cooking.  For example Princess Bona
Sforza (1518-1577) is said to have brought her own cooks from Italy, as
well as introduced many of the New World foods that the cooks so often
discuss (I won't use them personally, but I leave that to the rest of you
to decide for yourselves).  This Brings us to the one thing (other than
the lack of primary sources) that really bothers me.  I have been spoiled
rotten by scientific papers and quite frankly, there isn't enough
citations in the book to make me comfortable.  

If anyone out there is fluent in Polish, there is a saving grace.  The
editor mentions that in order to make this book more useful to the
American reader, he (GRRRRRR) "Streamlined the book."  or as he says
earlier:
"However, it was evident after translation was completed that the book
would not work in its original form for Americal readers.  Part of the
issue was content: what sufficed for a scholarly audience was not
necessarily appropriate for more general readers.  There was also a
problem with redundancy-some of the same material was explained in several
ways-and parts of the text veered away from the food theme into an
economic study of market patterns in the 1380s..."
pg. xiv

So if anyone out here can do the translation on the original, the citation
is:
Dembinska, Maria.Konsumpcja Zymnosciowa w Polsce Sredniowiecznej [Food
consumption in Medieval Poland].  Wroclaw: Wydanictwo Polskiej Akademii
Nauk, 1963.

There are recipes, which seem to be gleaned from what Maria (born Countess
Goluchowska) had researched, together with evidence she garnered from
Tallievent, Le Managier and Scully among others, however there is no play
by play source.  In fact, it says in the editor's note a few times that
there are basically no extant medieval cookery books.  However, the book
does mention a poet named Mikolaj Rej who wrote, in 1568, a poem entitled
Zywot Czlowieka Pozciwego (Life of an Honest Man) which mentions at one
point "... all those gilded dishes: golden chickens, eagles, and
glittering hares..."
TranslatiMikolaj Rej, "Zywot czlowieka poczciwego," ed. J. Kryzanowski in
_Biblioteka Narodowa_, series I, no. 152 (Wroclaw, 1956), 206. 
pg. 13


It might be worth trying to contact either the editor or the original
translator to see if you can get a copy of the translation of Dembinska's
version and not have to bother with translating it yourself.

Hope this Helps.

In Service.

Cu drag,
Bogdan


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Jeffrey Heilveil M.S.		      Ld. Bogdan de la Brasov, C.W.
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