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In a footnote, Mickiewicz adds that it's "now a very rare book, published over a hundred years ago by Stanisław Czerniecki."<refname=obj>A. Mickiewicz, ''op. cit.'', Poet's explanatory notes, own translation</ref> And this is where it gets tricky. A Polish cookbook entitled ''Kucharz doskonały'' (''The Excellent Cook'' or ''The Perfect Cook'', depending on how you translate it) did exist, but it was first published only in 1783, which was less than half a century rather than "over a hundred years" before ''Pan Tadeusz''. What's more, it wasn't written by Stanisław Czerniecki (pronounced ''stah-{{small|NEE}}-swahf churn-{{small|YET}}-skee''). It was actually ''La cuisinière bourgeoise'' by Menon, translated into Polish and published by Wojciech Wielądko (pronounced ''{{small|VOY}}-chekh vyeh-{{small|LAWND}}-kaw''), a man who otherwise had little to do with catering business. All the Tribune would have found there were French culinary novelties rather than time-honoured Old Polish recipes.
[[File:Compendium ferculorum.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1.15
|"''Now a very rare book, published over a hundred years ago by Stanisław Czerniecki.''"<ref>A. Mickiewicz, ''op. cit.'', Poet's explanatory notes, own translation<name=obj/ref><br>A copy of ''Compendium ferculorum'' by Stanisław Czerniecki opened on the author's dedication to Princess Helena Tekla Lubomirska.]]
So what was it about Czerniecki? Well, he was indeed an experienced chef, responsible for setting up aristocratic banquets for thousands of guests and also the author of the first cookbook printed in the Polish language. Only that this book – or, rather, a booklet, as it was small enough to fit into a pocket on one's chest, which was where the Tribune held it – had the bilingual, Latin-Polish title: ''Compendium Ferculorum albo Zebranie potraw'' (both parts meaning ''A Collection of Dishes''). And it was – as we shall see in the next post – precisely from this book that the Tribune got the recipes for all the dishes he would serve at the great banquet in Book XII.
[[File:Wjazd Ossolińskiego do Rzymu.jpg|thumb|upright=2
|"''This Roman legation was described and depicted multiple times.''"<ref>A. Mickiewicz, ''op. cit.'', Poet's explanatory notes, own translation<name=obj/ref><br>Etching by Stefano della Bella (1633).]]
Of course, Mickiewicz reversed the sequence of events in his poem; if Czerniecki described the Roman banquet as a historical fact in his cookbook, then the same banquet couldn't have been prepared according to the instructions from the same cookbook.
