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Easter season is here, which is a good occasion to write something about the ''baba'', a tall, rich yeast cake traditionally served in Poland for Easter breakfast. But before we move on to the Polish ''baba'', let's take a look at the ''babà al rum'', which the Neapolitans consider their unique regional speciality.

A ''Babà al rum'' is a kind of oversized cupcake that is baked, usually more than one at a time, in a can-shaped mould so that the dough rises over the edge to form a mushroom-like shape. Once it's done, removed from the mould and cooled allowed to cool down, the ''babà'' is soaked in runny syrup mixed with some rum (hence the ''al rum'' in the name) or ''limoncello '' (local lemon liqueur). Neapolitans like prize this delicacy so much that the word ''babà'' has become a synonym for anything or anyone that is particularly sweet and attractive. This is what Ms. Carla Nuti, an Italian psychologist, who describes human personalities by comparing them with desserts, has to say about the origin of the ''babà'' and its name:

The babà, a truly Neapolitan speciality, is in fact of Polish origin. Stanislao Leszczinski [sic], King of Poland and a great gourmet, is said to have one day angrily pushed away a dessert he wasn't fond of and to have accidentally spilled some rum on it, which gave the dish a more inviting scent and look, thus winning the royal palate. The sovereign, inspired Inspired by Ali Baba, a character from One Thousand and One Nights, gave his name to this the sovereign named the delicacyafter him.

Mr. Fabrizio Mangoni, who describes himselfs as "just like Stanislao, an urbanist and a gourmet", described as he describes himselfs, recounted the former Polish king's alleged invention of the ''babà, '' in even more colour:

| The golden, wavy, spongy surface had just detached from the mould. It looked like something between a turban and a pagoda, an architecture of with a new texture, built out of concentric cirles growing smaller and smaller towards the top. Stanislao soon understood that he had found an answer to his own desires. It looked soft and was supple to the touch. Its fine texture and the scent it spread made it an absolute novelty. Even before tasting it, he knew that he had invented a dessert like no other in his land or in his times; a rare point of equilibrium between consistency and lightness. A bit like his own life.

This is the beginning of the long journey of the babà, a mythical dessert invented in the mid-18th century by Stanislao Lekzinsky [sic], ex-King of Poland and Duke of Lorraine at the time. A journey which has many links with the Orient. Stanislao had spent much time in Ottoman captivity and had the opportunity to study and sketch the architecture of that land, which would later inspire the pavillions decorating his ducal palace, along with an enormous theatre of automata. At first, the babà was dry, filled with sultana and Corinthian raisins, and , most importantly, it spread the scent of saffron. For its exoticism, the novelty of its taste and texture, Stanislao dubbed the dessert Ali Baba, in reference to One Thousand and One Nights, whose French translation he had read during his stay in the sultan's prison in Constantinople.

As we shall see, ''Larousse Gastronomique'' isn't any much more reliable than ''Astérix'' as a source of historical knowledge about history. After all, why should have would Stanislas taken take an Alsatian ''kouglof'' and steeped steep it in Alsatian ''kirsch'' while staying in Lorraine? Was this recipe really developed by the king himself or rather by one of his pastrycooks, such as the aforementioned Stohrer? And most importantly, why would a Pole name a cake after some Ali BabaArab guy, if in his own language the word ''"baba"'' had been already used for yeast cakes meant "bundt cake" in his own native language for centuries?

It looks like we need to take a closer look at this King Stanislas and his relation to the ''baba''. You could shoot a few action movies based on his biography, but I will do my best to recap his life and his times as succinctly as possible.

Poland entered the 18th-century as a great power in decline, in personal union with under King Augustus II of House Wettin, who also ruled the Electorate of Saxony, a relatively small, but rich, state in what is now eastern Germany, under King Augustus II of House Wettin. Just before the end of the previous century (1698), Augustus was visisted visited by Tsar Peter the Great of Russia, on his way back from his grand survey of Europe. Both monarchs were unusually tall, strong and able to consume copious amount of alcohol. So when they met, they engaged in a several-day-long bout of binge drinking punctuated with cannon-shooting and bare-handed-horseshoe-breaking contests. And, while they were at it, they also decided to wage war against Sweden. A coalition of Saxon, Russian and Danish forces attacked the mighty Baltic empire soon afterwards (1700). But , like many other drunken ideas, so did this one it didn't go not exactly as intended. The Swedes smashed the Danes in Zealand, the Russians at Narva and the Saxons on the Daugava, and then proceeded to invade Poland. Polish senators tried to explain to King Charles XII of Sweden that Augustus was at war with him as elector Elector of Saxony rather than as king King of a neutral Poland – , but to no avail. The Swedes soon captured Vilno, Warsaw, Poznań and Cracow (1702), and Charles started looking around to find a new king for Poland. His first choice was James Sobieski, the eldest son of the previous king, but Augustus had him imprisoned in Saxony (1704).

The antiAnti-Saxon opposition in Poland sent a delegation to the king of Sweden, headed by the Palatine of Poznań, Stanisław Leszczyński (pronounced ''stah-{{small|NEE}}-swahf lesh-{{small|CHIN}}-skee''). King Charles was so charmed by the young, handsome, well-read and eloquent palatine, that he decided to make Stanisław him his own puppet on the Polish throne. The royal election of 1705 – the first in Polish history to be conducted in the presence of foreign troops – was widely considered a farce, but it did dutifully elect the 28-year-old Leszczyński as the dethroned Saxon's successor. He was crowned (in Warsaw rather than in Cracow, the traditional coronation site) with a crown which Charles had lent him for the ceremony and took back just afterwards. The reign of Stanisław I lasted no longer than four years. The situation changed dramatically when the Russians crushed the Swedish army at Poltava (1709), forcing King Charles into exile in the Ottoman Empire. Augustus got his Polish throne back, while Stanisław ran to the Swedish city of Stettin (now Szczecin, Poland) and thence to the Ottoman Empire, to consult further plans with Charles.

Bender, a town in what is now Transnistria (between Moldova and Ukraine), was where King Charles stayed a for a few years after Poltava and the only place in the Ottoman Empire where Stanisław spent any amount of time. He never was in ContantinopleConstantinople, let alone in an Ottoman prison. Eventually (1714), Charles gave him the Swedish-owned Duchy of Two Bridges (now Zweibrücken, Germany), where the former Polish king, inspired by Ottoman architecture, built himself a little palace he called Tschifflik (from Turkish ''"çiftlik"'', or "farm"). Unfortunately, Stanisław had to move out after his Swedish protector passed away (1718), so he moved to a modest palace in nearby Wissembourg. It's a town in Alsace, a border region which by that point had belonged to France for almost forty years, but was still mostly German-speaking (Alsace would later change hands between Germany and France like a ping pong ball, eventually staying with the latter). Maybe Stanisław would have stayed there for the rest of his life, if not for an unexpected visit by matchmakers from Versailles, who asked him for his daughter's hand in the name of King Louis XV of France. And so Princess Marie Leszczyńska married Louis, seven years her junior, and proved to be an ideal wife; (she gave would give him ten children without getting much in the way of his many extramarital liaisons with numerous mistresses. Her ), while her parents, who wanted to be closer to their only living daughter, moved in to into Chambord, one of the most luxurious ''châteaux'' of the Loire Valley.

Meanwhile, back in Poland, Augustus II continued to reign until he ended his gluttonous life by dying from gangrene after diabetic foot amputation (1733). Stanisław, counting on his son-in-law's support, decided it was a good occasion to try and win back the Polish throne. He travelled incognito back to Warsaw, where he made his sudden appearance on the election field and was chosen – legally, this time – as king of Poland. His earlier coronation was deemed valid, so there was no need to repeat it. However, the history from almost thirty years before repeated itself in reverse – foreign troops, Russian this time around, captured Praga, the eastern suburb of Warsaw, where they arranged a rival election of Augustus II's son, soon afterwards crowned in Cracow as King Augustus III. Stanisław escaped from Warsaw to Danzig (Gdańsk), a city which managed to hold out against a Russian siege for some time. A network of alliances covering Europe transformed the fight for the Polish throne into a major international conflict, which – despite being known as the War of the Polish Succession – was fought out mostly in Italy and on the banks of the Rhine. France was quick to capture Lorraine (another border region), but (except a small and unsuccessful landing operation in Westerplatte near Danzig) did little to help Stanisław keep his crown. In the end, Danzig fell and Stanisław, disguised as a peasant, escaped (once again) to Königsberg (now Kaliningrad, Russia).

The war ended with Augustus III staying on the Polish throne; as . As a consolation prize, Louis XV gave his dad-in-law the Duchy of Lorraine and Bar (1737), where Leszczyński lived out his years while still being addressed as "king" and where, in the words of Voltaire, he was "able to do more good than all the Sarmatian [that is, Polish] kings ever managed to do on the banks of the Vistula."<ref>{{Cyt

}}</ref> Lorrainers still remember Leszczyński as King Stanislas the Good (''Stanislas le Bienfaisant''), even though he earned this moniker largely due to the "good tsar, bad boyars" principle, finally living his dream of reigning as a charitable enlightened monarch surrounding himself with artists and philosophers, while leaving the day-to-day chores of running the government to his French chancellor, the widely hated Marquis de La Galaizière.

Although Stanislas and the Wettins of Saxony were fierce political rivals, the they were united in their love of good food, sweets, wine and women. In Poland, the reign of Augustus III finally brought a period of long-desired sought peace, now known as the "Saxon Carnival", when the Polish nobility lived out the proverb:

Meanwhile, Stanislas, in his "little Versailles" at Lunéville, hosted Voltaire, Rousseau and Montesquieu, enjoyed the theatre of automata in his exotic gardens and stuffed his face with fantastic creations sculpted from sugar and ice cream by his court confectioner Joseph Gillers. He got terribly fat, but yet still outlived Augustus III; he chose not to fight for the Polish throne again, though, leaving Empress Catherine the Great of Russia to pick his namesake, Stanisław Poniatowski, as Poland's new (and last) king (1764).

One of the shortest-reigning kings of Poland, but also the longest-lived, died a particularly nasty death. It's said that he wanted to light his pipe or that he just plunged himself in deep thougth thought next to a fireplace; but pissing into the fireplace wasn't unusual at all back then, especially for elderly monarchs who didn't always feel like walking all the way to the outhouse. In any case, his clothes caught fire and the former king died from severe burns after a few days of agony.

'''''TL;DR:''''' Stanisław Leszczyński became king King of Poland, then he was exiled, lived in Alsace for some time, then he became king of Poland and got exiled all again, and spent the rest of his life as duke Duke of Lorraine and a great gourmet. But so far, we haven't learned anything new about the ''baba''.

{{Video|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvXyhC27buU|szer=300|poz=right|opis=Eugeniusz Bodo śpiewa singing ''"Ach te baby"''in Michał Waszyński' w&nbsp;filmie Michała Waszyńskiego s 1933 film ''Zabawka'' (1933''Toy'')}}The Polish word ''"baba"'' is unusually rich in meanings. In its original Proto-Slavic sense, it refers to a grandmother or, by extension, any elderly lady. In old Polish, the same word was used for any peasant woman and is still used to describe an uncouth, boorish hag. Other meanings include "female street vendor", "herbalist", "midwife" and "witch" (as in the most famous Slavic witch, Baba Yaga). A ''"baba"'' may even refer to a married or widowed woman of any age, as in ''"moja baba"'', "my wife". You can use the diminutive form, ''"babka"'', for a young and attractive woman, much like the ''"babà"'' in the Neapolitan dialect of Italian. But don't over dooverdo it, because if you diminutize the word even further, you're gonna get a ''"babcia"'', or "granny".<ref>{{Cyt

So which of these multiple meanings gave rise to ''"baba"'', the bundt cake? Did the cake use to resemble a [https://www.google.com/search?q=baby+kamienne&tbm=isch pagan stone idol,] which is also called ''"baba"'' in Polish? Or does the cake's name come from its resemblance to a peasant woman's long pleaded skirt? Or perhaps, it comes from the fact that it's always been old women who were most experienced in the tricky art of yeast-cake baking?

In any case, the word ''"baba"'' was used in the sense of "yeast bundt cake" at least as early as the 17th century.<ref>{{Cyt

There were four giant wild boars, as many as there are seasons of the year. Each boar was stuffed with pork, that is, ham, sausages and suckling pigs. {{...}}

All around stood hefty cakes, as many as there are weeks in a year, that is, 52, marvellous flat pastries, mazurkas, Samogitian pies, all studded with candied fruits and nuts.

While the word ''"baba"'' is without a doubt of Slavic origin (so there's never been a need to borrow it from Arabic), there is no reason to believe that a turban-shaped yeast cake is a native Polish, or generally Slavic, invention. The same kind of cake has been known, under various names, throughout central Europe, from the Netherlands, to Alsace, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, the Czech lands, Poland, to Russia. In German-speaking territories it's known as ''"Gugelhupf"'' or ''"Kugelhupf"''. The ''Kugelhupf'' didn't always have to be sweet, as evidenced by the tradition of former eastern Poland, where they still bake a potato casserole with onions and bacon (the Jews make it too, but without the bacon) and call it "potato ''babka", "kugel", "kugiel"'' or ''"kugelis"''.

In Alsace, this This kind of cake was especially popularin Alsace, particularly on special occasionoccasions, such as weddings or the Three Kings Day (Epiphany). The Alsatians have come up with some legends to explain the name of this cake, known as ''"Kugelhopf"'' in the local dialect of German. According to one legend, it was invented by an Alsatian priest, whose name was Gérard Kugelhopf.<ref>{{Cyt

}}</ref> A more interesting legend claims that it was the Three Kings (or Magi) themselves who stopped on their way from the Holy Land to Cologne (where their alleged relics are still held) in the picturesque Alsatian town of Ribeauvillé. There, they stayed in the house of a local baker named Kugel, as and showed their gratitude by giving him a recipe for a yeast cake, wich which he would later bake make in the shape of their turbans.<ref>{{Cyt

And so we may finally solve the riddle. During his stay in Alsace (between his two stints as king of Poland), Stanislas employed local chefs, pantlers and pastrycooks. It's quite likely that from time to time they served him some Alsatian specialities, including the ''kougelhopfKugelhopf'', and that he couldn't fail to notice that it's actually the same thing as the Polish ''baba''. The best-known pastrycook to have begun his career at Stanislas's court was Nicolas Stohrer (1706 – ca. 1781),<ref> {{Cyt

}}</ref> whom Princess Marie took with her to Versailles when she became Queen of France. For the young Stohrer this meant the best item on his CV he could have ever dreamed of, but it also gave him the opportunity to popularize the pastry from his home region at the French royal court. The only problem was the cake's German name, which was the French found unpronounceable and unspellable; if the French absolutely have to write that word down, they find come up with at least as many different ways to spell it (''cougloff, goglopf, gouglouff, guglhupf, kougelhopf, kouglhupf, kouglof,'' etc.) as they have ways to spell Leszczyński's surname. So instead of calling the cake by its German name, Stohrer presented it to the French as ''baba'', the name he had learned from his Polish employer.<ref>M. Krondl, ''op. cit.'', s. 171</ref> The new word caught on in French; it started to crop up in French texts half a century later, including in a letter from Denis Diderot, a co-author of the ''Encyclopédie'', to his lover, in which he described the banquets held by the Baron d'Holbach in his Grand-Val castle in southern France (quite far away from Alsace, Lorraine and Versailles):

| I'm going to pass another week here. Pray to God that I don't die from indigestion. EverydayEvery day, they bring us here from Champigny the most furious and most perfidious eels, and then little watermelons from Astrakhan, and then sauerkraut, and then partridges with cabbage, and then young partridges à la crapaudine, and then babas, and then pies, and then tarts, and then you would need twelve stomachs [to eat all that...] Fortunately, we drink in proportion, so it all goes well.

In 1730, Stohrer decided to start his own business, so he opened – next to the northern coach terminus in Paris, at Mont Orgueilleux Street (now MontorgueilStreet) – he opened the oldest Parisian pastry shop still in operation. Did he sell ''babas / kouglofs'' there? Most probably. Were they imbibed with rum? Probably not, at least not from the start. 18th-century sources are quite unanimous in describing the ''baba'' as coloured with saffron and studded with raisins, without any mention of rum. At the beginning of the 19th century, the great gourmet Grimod de La Reynière would already attribute the baba to StanilasStanislas, but it still wasn't the rum baba.

[[File:Baba zwyczajna.jpg|thumb|upright|A regular Polish ''baba''<br />From [https://polona.pl/item/dra-oetkera-przepisy-dla-skrzetnych-gospodyn,MTY0MjkxNDA/20/#item a collection of pastry recipes] published in Polish in the 1930s by a Dr. Oetker factory in Oliva, Free City of Danzig (now part of Gdańsk, Poland)]]

In pre-revolutionary France, rum was rare anyway, mostly due to high custom duties, imposed to protect the producers of domestic brandies and other alcohols. It was only at the beginning of the 19th century that the French learned to appreciate the English punch, which was made from Carribean sugar-cane rum. In the 1840s, rum started to appear in French dessert recipes. And so the tasty legend of a Polish king who soaked a dry ''kouglof'' in rum and named it after a fairy-tale protagonist, falls apart like a hosue house of cards. Mr. Michael Krondl, a food historian, has put it best:

Soaking individual helpings of dry cake in wine, coffee or chocolate is surely and an old practice, but it's not the same as soaking an entire bundt cake before prior to serving. Whose idea was it then? We don't know. We do know, however, that in 1845 Auguste Julien, a co-owner of a pastry shop at Place de la Bourse in Paris, intorduced into expanded his offer by introducing small babas with candied orange zest instead of raisins and imbibed with rum (or kirsch)-based syrup. And because, as we already know, the French prefer those dishes that they can associate with celebrities, he named this new kind of baba ''"savarin"''<ref>M. Krondl, ''op. cit.'', p. 172</ref> – after the famous gourmet Jean-Anthelme Brillat, who changed his name to Savarin, so that he could inherit his aunt's property.<ref>{{Cyt