[Sca-cooks] First Catch Your...dulse?

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

On Jan 8, 2009, at 7:11 PM, Johnna Holloway wrote:

> "First steal a chicken" shows up as a Hungarian joke.
> Google books indicates for
> Hungarian chicken fricassee or chicken paprikash.

I believe the common joke (I doubt it's anything more) is this is  
traditionally supposed to be the text of an old gypsy recipe. But I  
have trouble buying into the idea that the Rom folk, living among  
other people, with few written texts, no real literary tradition and  
no publishing industry, are writing culturally-specific recipes in  
such an organized manner that they always begin with this phrase, or,  
for that matter, that a culture who always steals chickens (it being  
difficult to raise them on the road, presumably), needs to be reminded  
of this.

Consequently, I'm sort of assuming it's made up by someone else as a  
poke at the group in question...

Adamantius






"Most men worry about their own bellies, and other people's souls,  
when we all ought to worry about our own souls, and other people's  
bellies."
			-- Rabbi Israel Salanter