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I once wrote here about [[Old Polish Cookery for Beginners|old Polish recipës]] that were both extremely easy to cook and surprisingly modern, which made them perfect for people who were only starting to try their hand at historical culinary reënactment. We could see how a recipë's simplicity could also mean its durability; scrambled eggs, for example, are still prepared in much the same way as they were two hundred, four hundred or one thousand years ago.
I took the recipës from ''Compendium Ferculorum'' (''A Collection of Dishes'') by Stanisław Czerniecki, first published in 1682. I wrote then that it was the oldest cookbook ever printed in Polish. Well, that's no longer true. Polish and Ukrainian historians have recently confirmed that an even older Polish-language cookery book was published a century and a half before ''Compendium Ferculorum''. Not a single volume of that older book has survived to our times, but now we know for sure it was there. Some clues about its possible existence in the past had been know earlier, but as the surviving fragments could be suspected of being some 19th-century hoaxes, there was no certainty. Until now. So let's follow the fascinating history of this new oldest Polish printed cookbook and how it was rediscoveredrediscoveed. And then, let's pick and try out a recipe from it – one for beginners, of course.
== Cookery Bookery ==
[[File:Kucharzstwij.jpg|thumb|upright=.8|left|Title page of ''Kuchařství'', the oldest cookbook printed in Czech, first published in 1535]]
Secondly, Čeněk Zíbrt (1864–1932), a historian at Charles University in Prague, published a reprint of the earliest cookbook printed in the Czech language, that is, the aforementioned ''Kuchařství''.<ref>{{Cyt
| inni = reded. Čeněk Zíbrt
| tytuł = Kuchařství: O rozličných krmích, kterak se s chutí strojiti mají
| url = https://ndk.cz/view/uuid:c98b0870-7c8c-11dc-9c76-000d606f5dc6?page=uuid:c64b1dd9-1496-4ec4-8e98-d5a0279aba42
| oryg2 = Vezmi nádobu nebo soudek a vlij do něho starého vína, což by mohlo polovice soudku býti, a vstav je na slunce až se zhřeje, ale lépe jest k ohni zdaleka přistaviti, ať se zhřeje, a přilévej k tomu vždy, a budeš míti ocet dobrý v[i]nný na místo.
| źródło-oryg2 = {{Cyt
| inni = reded. Čeněk Zíbrt
| tytuł = Kuchařství: O rozličných krmích, kterak se s chutí strojiti mají
| url = https://ndk.cz/view/uuid:c98b0870-7c8c-11dc-9c76-000d606f5dc6?page=uuid:4b99a1d3-2b8d-4463-9e2f-e0c5cefc5d49
| oryg2 = Zvĕřina buvolová aneb zubrová, aneb jiné neobyčejná jakákoli zvĕř z cizích krajin. Takto se má na ně jícha výborná dělati. Vezmi fíkuov a řeckého vína, a usuše topenek z bílého chleba, daj to spolu do moždíře, ať se stluče, a když se na místo stluče, shřeje vína, vlí do toho, a protáhni skrze hartúch, a nadělaje kusuo z těch zvĕřin, daj na ně tu jíchu do kotla, neb do hrnce, a okořeň pepřem, zázvorem, šafránem, hřebičky, a oslaď malo cukrem nebo medem, a upretuj na ní jablek, řeckého vína, mandluov, hrozenek, aneb jak kdo chce míti, vedle běhu hospodářského.
| źródło-oryg2 = {{Cyt
| inni = reded. Čeněk Zíbrt
| tytuł = Kuchařství: O rozličných krmích, kterak se s chutí strojiti mají
| url = https://ndk.cz/view/uuid:c98b0870-7c8c-11dc-9c76-000d606f5dc6?page=uuid:4a1571ed-d2be-4151-afa5-522e209625f6
There are other clues, too, which confirm that the author of the manuscript had access to the same printed cookbook of which only the three sheets survive today. One is that the manuscript contains the modified title of one of the recipes that we already saw on the sheet found at the Jagiellonian Library: "buffalo, bison or other game which is uncommon in Polish lands, but only in foreign countries". Another is a word incorrectly written the letter "t" where one would expect the letter "k". It looks like the 18th-century copyist had trouble reading the 16th-century typeface, in which the k's and the t's do indeed look quite similar. See for yourselves: can your make out the word written in pricture below?<ref>The correct answer is: ''"kotła"''.</ref> So if the copyist misspelled a word because he misread a printed letter, then he must have been copying a printed text -- and this means the printed text must have existed in the first place!
[[File:Kotła.JPG|thumb|left|upright|What does it say? Can you make out the letters? Hint: it says means "of a cauldron" in Polish.]]
To sum up: not a single printed copy of the first cookbook printed in the Polish language has survived, but thanks to old print shop inventories, three surviving sheets and one complete manuscript copy, we do know that it existed. We also know that it was first published around 1536 in Cracow, that its title was either ''Kuchmistrzostwo'' (''Cooking Mastery'') or ''Kucharstwo'' (''Cookery'') and that it was a translation of the Czech ''Kuchařství'', which had been published a year earlier and which was itself a translation of the German ''Küchenmeisterei''.
Czarną zaś tak: weźmij śliwek albo trześni smażonych, ususz grzanek z białego chleba, zmieszaj octu z wodą, a daj śliwki z grzankami tam, aby wewrzały, a przecedź czyście przez chustę, daj do wiewiórek, aby wrzały, okorzeń pieprzem, imbirem, goździkami, a trochę szafranu daj na wierzch.
| źródło = {{Cyt
| inni = reded. Jarosław Dumanowski, Switłana Bułatowa
| tytuł = Zbiór dla kuchmistrza tak potraw jako i ciast robienia wypisany roku 1757 dnia 24 lipca
| wydawca = Muzeum Pałacu Króla Jana III w Wilanowie
| miejsce = Staré Město pražské
| rok = 1535
}}; cyt. wquoted in: {{Cyt
| nazwisko = Zíbrt
| imię = Čeněk
| oryg = Kaszę z ryżu tak działaj: Weźmij ryżu, coć się widzi, a czystej śmietany, uwarz ją pierwej, a potym ten ryż wypłucz, a kładź do tej śmietany, a omaścisz masłem i mieszaj, aby się nie zewrzało, tedy będzie czysta [tj. nieprzypalona] kasza, a potem, gdy dasz na misę, posyp cynamonem i cukrem.
| źródło = {{Cyt
| inni = reded. Jarosław Dumanowski, Switłana Bułatowa
| tytuł = Zbiór dla kuchmistrza tak potraw jako i ciast robienia wypisany roku 1757 dnia 24 lipca
| wydawca = Muzeum Pałacu Króla Jana III w Wilanowie
}}
* {{Cyt
| inni = reded. Jarosław Dumanowski, Switłana Bułatowa
| tytuł = Zbiór dla kuchmistrza tak potraw jako ciast robienia wypisany roku 1757 dnia 24 lipca
| wydawca = Muzeum Pałacu Króla Jana III w Wilanowie
