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''Pan Tadeusz'' is a heroicomic poem penned by Adam Mickiewicz (pronounced: {{pron|meets|kyeh|veetch}}), one of the greatest Polish poets that ever lived, in 1834. Even though it begins with the words "``Lithuania, my country" and its only two entirely positive characters are a Jew and a Russian, the poem has somehow attained the cult status as Poland’s national epic. Thanks, in part, to its mix of humour with nostalgia for the lost world of the Polish-Lithuanian civilization, which came to its demise during the poet’s lifetime, and for the old way of life of the Polish-speaking Lithuanian gentry.

This is why it matters when exactly the plot of ''Pan Tadeusz'' takes place. The poem is divided into twelve books, or chapters. The plot of books I to X runs over the course of five days in the late summer of 1811 – from Thaddeus’s arrival on Friday evening to (spoiler alert!) Father Worm’s death on Tuesday night. We know the days of the week because on the third day, "``after mass at the chapel, it was the Lord's Day, they [peasants] proceeded to Yankel's to drink and to play".<ref>Mickiewicz, ''op. cit.'', Book IV, verses 221–222; unless indicated otherwise, all quotations from ''Pan Tadeusz'' are from Marcel Weyland's translation.</ref> Knowing that, on Monday night, "``glow and glisten bright handfuls of moon-given gold",<ref>Mickiewicz, ''op. cit.'', Book VIII, verse 608</ref> we can check the phases of the moon in 1811 and calculate the exact dates: 30 August to 3 September. These dates also agree with the period when "``a new guest, which not long [had been] perceived in the skies: {{...}} a mighty comet of first magnitude",<ref>Mickiewicz, ''op. cit.'', Book VIII, verses 108–109</ref> or the comet C/1811 F1, began to be easily visible from Earth. The plot then skips a&nbsp;few months and resumes in the spring of 1812. The last two books cover two days, the latter being "``the most solemn day of Our Lady of Flowers",<ref>Mickiewicz, ''op. cit.'', Book XI, verses 154–155</ref> that is, the feast of Annunciation, which in 1812 fell on Saturday, 25 March.

[[File:Wędliny Osieczanka.jpg|thumb|250px|A "``Mickiewicz-style" breakfast at the Osieczanka restaurant]]

The Polish names of these cold cuts, such as ''półgęski'' and ''kumpia'', may sound obscure to the modern Polish ear, but the charcuterie itself would certainly satisfy today’s most discerning meatarians. ''Półgęski'', translated as "``half-geese" in the passage above, are actually smoked goose breasts. Extremely popular in the past, they are now coming back into vogue. The Polish Ministry of Agriculture has declared them a&nbsp;[https://www.gov.pl/rolnictwo/polgesek-znany-tez-jako-polgasek-albo-piersnik traditional product] of Cuyavia-Pomerania. The half-geese of Soplicowo, devoured entirely by the Dobrzyńskis during the foray, may have been cured according to the following late-18th-century recipë:

''Kumpia'', on the other hand, is simply a&nbsp;regional Polish term for smoked ham. Interestingly, it is the only pork dish found on Judge Soplica’s table. As I’ve mentioned in [[What Has the Battle of Vienna Given Us?|my previous post]], nobility was disgusted by all that grows or lives in dirt – and this includes pigs, which wallow and root in mud. Boars and piglets are mentioned in ''Pan Tadeusz'' much less often than cattle, sheep, rabbits or geese. Except for the best parts of the pig, carefully cured in smoke, pork was considered fit for consumption by peasants and Germans only. The contemptuous association between pork and Prussians may be also found in ''Pan Tadeusz'', in Bartek Dobrzyński’s account of the Greater Poland Uprising of 1794: "``pound the landrat's neck, cut the hofrat's loin".<ref>Mickiewicz, ''op. cit.'', Book VII, verse 50, own translation</ref>

Modern Polish readers tend to imagine that these were ''zrazy zawijane'' (pronounced: {{pron|zRah|zih}} {{pron|zah|vee|yah|neh}}), or Polish beef olives filled with mustard, onions, gherkins and mushrooms. Eating eleven of these per person would have been quite a&nbsp;challenge indeed! But, even though ''zrazy zawijane'' do pop up in Polish cookbooks of the time, they were not the rule. The word "``''zrazy''" by itself referred simply to small fillets of thinly pounded meat or even to patties of finely chopped meat, which were fried and then drenched in some kind of sauce. It wasn’t necessarily beef either. Considering all the hare hunts in Soplicowo, these may have been hare ''zrazy'' just as well.

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