Changes

| <poem>"How “How are you, old rogue? Why twist your nose as if you had found some unvirtuous odor?"”"In “In the whole camp of Sapieha it smells of bigos."”"Why “Why bigos? Tell me!"”"Because “Because the Swedes have cut up a great many cabbageheads!"”</poem>

My servants have just dined. "Have “Have you left any food?"”"There“There's veal bigos; and pork fat in sauerkraut stewed."”

"I“I've just dined with Italians; bring me bigos and kraut!"”</poem>

| This novel is a messy mixture of everything, {{…}} just a scaffold thrown to the wind, to hold images haphazardly hung thereupon {{…}} All bizarrely entangled and without any logic {{…}} Such will be this book, full of repetitions, chatter and descriptions that fell off the pen wherever they happened to be nudged by my imagination; this is why I've entitled it "Bigos Hultajski"“Bigos Hultajski”, which is made from a variety of things. It's a poor man's dish, but a savoury one; and perhaps it will be said of this novel that it is a poor man's roman and an unsavoury one.

| In the meantime, Gaudentius, who hadn't failed to provision himself for the journey with leftovers from the feast of Yasnohorod, was busy reheating and consuming bigos, generously seasoned with sausages and fatback, which he had retrieved from his coffer, and washing it down, in strictly calculated intervals, with ample doses of vodka, which he kept by his right-hand side in a large rectangular decanter. {{…}} Bigos, as is known, induces great thirst, which had to be quenched with a concoction of some kind; nearby, at Finke's, this and other "remedies" “remedies” were at hand for savouring. This venture, undertaken with certain tact, yet amateurishly, took quite some time; it had been over an hour since the sun had hidden below the horizon, when Mr. Pius was still exorcising the effects of the greasy bigos with last drops from the last bottle.

| So far, I've been under the false impression that the Polish national dish was bigos, an exquisite stew of cabbageheads, bitter hearts and virulent liver, a dish full of sourness and pungent smells. Someone would always "cook bigos" “cook bigos” [i.e., make a mess] for someone else, then they would slap one another in the face, in a newspaper or in a café, and life, replete with rosy cheeks, temperament and fulsomeness, was beautiful. It saddens me, though, to see that tradition is fading away, as is the noble dish of bigos, and it is the Polish-style beef tongue that now reigns supreme on the Polish menu. Bigos was an exuberant dish, announcing itself through its scent from afar, juicy and vigorous. Tongue in the Polish style is more intricate, sweetened with almonds and raisins; it is, indeed, the dumbest part of a thoughtless beast, but the sweetness of its seasoning is ineffably appetizing.

| Hunter's bigos was served at hunts, as well as bigos with a cheer (pre-cooked bigos was reheated in a pot whose cover was tightly sealed with dough; a loud "explosion" “explosion” of the lid due to pressure was a sign that the bigos was ready).

| oryg = Na polowaniach podawano bigos myśliwski, a także bigos z wiwatem (ugotowany wcześniej podgrzewano w naczyniu z pokrywą oblepioną ciastem; "wystrzelenie" „wystrzelenie” pokrywki pod wpływem ciśnienia oznaczało, że trzeba już jeść).