[Sca-cooks] Peasant food// bigos and cabbage

[johnna holloway]

jenne at fiedlerfamily.net wrote:
> > Ahh!  Ya beat me to it!  :)
> Actually, compare the info in Olga's message with that in Johnna's. Note
> that 'hunter stew' (ie bigos) may describe either a meat and cabbage dish
> or a layered hunter stew...
> -- Jadwiga Zajaczkowa
-------------------------------------------
I think that one of the major problems here is that the current
modern dish is very unlike the layered game and cabbage dish that
might have been served in medieval Poland. Was there a dish called
specifically "bigos" in medieval Poland? Weaver refers to his version
with a modern Polish name of "Miszkunlancja, lub Bigos" and
notes "Serves 16 to 18 as hors d'oeuvres." (p.169) Did they
eat it as an hors d'oeuvres in the Middle Ages?

"What separates the modern Polish dish
from its medieval roots is the subtle alteration in struction and
procedure that took place as the recipe shifted from hearth to stove
cookery. When bigos is stewed today, it is not sloppy with liquid
because the stewing is intended to cook it down. In any case, the
preparation should be thick like Sicilian caponata, which is why
Poles serve it an hors d'oeuvre on toast or bread before a formal
meal" [Dembinska, p23]

So is it the same ingredients (meat and cabbage) but
not the same name, same method of cooking, or serving??? (And if
it takes three days to make a traditional Bigos, is that what is
served in the Society today? Or is this an academic question and
no one makes it in the SCA to be served at an SCA feast?)

Maybe we should just call it Hunter's Stew while we keep our eyes
out for more references.

Johnnae llyn Lewis  Johnna Holloway

The original thread here was:
Kayah wrote:
> I've been making pierogis by hand with the old recipies of both my
> grandmothers.. and just got onto wondering.. are pierogis period anyway? -
> in Polish cuisine that is... I know Bigos is cause that's been around for
> ages, but..
To which Adamantius replied:
Just out of curiosity, how do we know bigos is period? I believe there's
a written recipe in the works of Careme, c. 1800 C.E., but is there
really any hard evidence for its being significantly older than that?