Changes

}}, Book XI, verse 75</ref> as the poet reminisces. We can also observe a change in culinary terms: in the earlier books, the characters were having their everyday breakfasts, dinners and suppers that weren't any different from those eaten by actual Polish nobility in the early 19th century – which was also what the poet could have remembered from his own youth. But in Book XI, the village of Soplicowo (pronounced ''saw-pleet-{{small|SAW}}-vaw'') is visited by the Polish soldiers serving in Napoleon's ''Grande Armée'', on their way to Moscow. A great feast is given in their honour and . Gen. Jan Henryk Dąbrowski (pronounced ''dawm-{{small|BRAWF}}-skee'', the guy the Polish national anthem is about) requests makes a request "that for the fete, he would like Polish cooking."<ref>A. Mickiewicz, ''op. cit.'', Book XI, verses 107–108</ref> The Therefore, the magnificent banquet consists of Old Polish dishes, whose names sounded foreign even in the ears of Mickiewicz himself – let alone in those of modern Poles! We're going to have a closer look at the feast itself, as described in the epic's final book, in [[Epic Cooking: The Last Old Polish Feast|the next post]]. But first, let's take a peek inside the Soplicowo manor's kitchen, managed by Tribune Hreczecha.

Earlier, the Tribune "with gentry had spent his life, eating, at assemblies, {{...}} or at council meeting",<ref>A. Mickiewicz, ''op. cit.'', Book V, verses 427–428</ref> were he mastered the ancient art of knife throwing. But it was in the realm of hunting that the Tribune was considered a real expert. He had learned this skill as a young man serving at the court of Tadeusz Rejtan, a Polish national hero. The Tribune remembered him not as a model patriot, though, but as a master hunter. As for his choice of game, he would always go for one of two extremes: on the one hand he believed that only large animals with horns, claws or fangs were worthy of being hunted by a nobleman. In his view, chasing hares was a good sport for youngsters and servants. "Hreczecha is my name – was his saying – since King Lech, it's no habit of a single Hreczecha to follow a rabbit."<ref>A. Mickiewicz, ''op. cit.'', Book I, verses 816–817</ref> On the other hand, he spent a lot time hunting flies. He would always carry a flyswatter around and, when mushroom picking (a popular Polish pastime, then and now), he would forage for fly agarics, fungi a species of fungus used for killing the pesky insects.

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 this 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.

Besides, it wasn't only the recipes that Mickiewicz took from the ''Compendium''. The mention of the dinner given by the "Count of Tęczyn" to Pope Urban VIII in Rome was also inspired by the same cookbook, and specifically, from by the dedication its author addressed to his employer, Princess Helena Tekla Lubomirska. Princess Lubomirska, the wife of Prince Aleksander Michał Lubomirski, took active part in Polish political wife; she was also a great patroness of arts. Wacław Potocki and Jan Andrzej Morsztyn, whom I have quoted in some of my previous posts, dedicated their poems to her, while Czerniecki did the same with his cookbook. In the dedication, he recalled the time when, in 1633, her father, Prince Jerzy Ossoliński, Grand Chancellor of the Crown (roughly equivalent to a prime minister), was sent by the king of Poland as an envoy to the Holy See. At the time, the Polish Commonwealth was at the peak of its power might and glory, a fact Ossoliński was not going to let anyone fail to notice. His retinue included the famed winged hussars, crimson-and-gold-upholstered carriages, ten camels carrying opulent presents for the pope, while the prince's mount was dressed in diamonds, pearls and rubies, and deliberately shod with loose golden horseshoes – so that the horse could lose them along the way for everyone to see. The banquet which Ossoliński gave to the pope was without a doubt no less osstentatious. This is how Czerniecki described it:

| Still freshly remembered in German and Italian lands is the peerless and greatly impressive legacy of your dearest dear Father, His Grace, Prince Jerzy Ossoliński of blessed memory, Grand Chancellor of the Crown, to the Holy See and to the Vicar of Christ, Urban VIII, which was greatly admired by all the West, as was the splendor of His Grace's court and table, so that the princes and lords of Rome, led by their curiosity, were coming to wonder at the abundance of the dishes and, having seen more than they had heard of, amazed they left. As they could not get enough of the view of this munificence, which left none unsatisfied, one of the Roman princes proclaimed, "Rome is fortunate to receive such an envoy today, who has made the Papal States brighter by his presence."

| Adam suggested to give a purely Polish-Lithuanian feast, according to ancient recipes from "The Perfect Cook", a tattered old book which he carries around like a some treasure in his travelling library and often reads with great pleasure. Obviously, this idea fell through {{...}}

Distinguished Mickiewiczologist, Prof. Stanisław Pigoń, has once suggested a quite rather convincing solution to this puzzle: the book that Mickiewicz loved to read when pining for Polish cuisine and dreaming of having an actual Old Polish banquet was indeed ''Compendium ferculorum'', but it was old and tattered, and missing its title page. So Mickiewicz knew very well the contents of the work and the dedication, as well as the author's name, but he was ignorant of the book's title. On the other hand, he probably never read ''The Perfect Cook'', but he might have heard about it; the title could have stuck in his head and he may have later associated it with the mysterious treasure-trove of Old Polish recipes that had somehow found its way into his hands.

And how ''did '' it find its way into his hands? Well, it seems that Mickiewicz intended to tell us that through the Tribune's mouth. The Tribune thought his cookbook so precious that he considered it a worthy gift for Gen. Dąbrowski. While presenting the book to the general, he was also going to recount the itinerary the book had travelled until it wandered into Soplicowo.

This Aaand this is where the Tribune got interrupted again and . And there would be no later occasion to pick up the thread. Now that our appetite for an interesting story has been whetted, the dish is being snatched away from our mouths! But don't despair, not all is lost; if something's missing in the canonical version, then maybe we can find it in the deleted scenes? That's right! There's an original manuscript version of ''Pan Tadeusz'' with a passage that never made it into print. It says that the Tribune's cookbook originally belonged to a Greater Poland nobleman called Captain Poniński who used this book to give opulent feasts. Before he died, he had given it to his neighbour, Lord Skórzewski (pronounced ''skoo-{{small|ZHEFF}}-skee''), who lived in the village of Kopaszewo (pronounced ''kaw-pah-{{small|SHEH}}-vaw''). His widow, Lady Skórzewska, in turn, offered it to Bartek Dobrzyński, a Lithuanian who often travelled to Greater Poland for business. But Dobrzyński was a poor nobleman with a modest kitchen and had no use of a cookbook meant for aristocratic courts, so he gave it to the Tribune, for the benefit of Judge Soplica's household.<ref>{{Cyt

So there was one master chef (with the Tribune in this role, obviously), commanding five cooks, who, in turn, shouted orders to scullions, who were doing all the dirty work. If fifty knives were clattering at the same time, then there must have been at least ten scullions to every cook. The Tribune, meanwhile, was just standing in the middle, reading the recipes aloud and making sure they are were "carried all carried out to the letter": take, chop, pour, boil, take, chop, pour, boil…

And So what came out of this marriage of plenty and art, ? That we shall see in the next post.