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[[File:Jan Czesław Moniuszko - Opowieść Tadeusza Soplicy 1899.jpg|thumb|350px|Tadeusz Soplica's Tale as painted by Jan Czesław Moniuszko]]
The rhythm of daily meals – breakfasts, dinners and suppers – form a framework for the sequence of events in the story. The numerous descriptions of dishes and beverages, farmlands and vegetable gardens, various gastronomic occasions, from peasants drinking vodka drinking in a tavern to opulent lordly banquets – allow us to get a pretty good idea about what was eaten and drunk in Soplicowo. So let's imagine we pay Judge Soplica a visit; what can we expect to be served?
The menu of the Soplicowo manor house – just like traditional Polish cuisine in general – is strictly seasonal. What you find on the table on a given day depends, firstly, on what is available in the particular season; plus whatever has been preserved from previous seasons by means of salting, smoking, pickling or candying. Secondly, this natural seasonality is overlaid by the Catholic liturgical cycle, with its sequence of feasting and fasting periods.
