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[[File:Babilońska tabliczka kucharska.jpg|thumb|upright|A Babylonian cookery tablet dated to ca. 1900–1600 BCE, containing recipës for 25 different kinds of stew]]
Cookbooks are one of the oldest literary genres in the world. The earliest known culinary recipës were written down in cuneiform script on clay tablets, in Babylonia, around the 19th century BCE.<ref>{{Cyt
| tytuł = Lapham's Lapham’s Quarterly
| nazwisko r = Barjamovic ''et al.''
| imię r = Gojko
| adres rozdziału = https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/roundtable/ancient-mesopotamian-tablet-cookbook
| data = 11 June 2019
}}</ref> And even these were most likely copied from even older tablets, now lost to time. Because the thing with recipës is that they’re much more likely to be copied than written from scratch. You can even see it in the Polish word for ``recipë"“recipë”, ''``przepis"“przepis”''{{czyt|przepis}}, which literally means ``something “something that is rewritten"rewritten”. Oftentimes, the copyist would add something to the recipë, or perhaps makes some abridgements, redactions or modifications – thus allowing the recipë to evolve. In pre-Internet times, culinary recipës were probably some of the best examples of memes, or units of cultural evolution.<ref>Many people think of memes as nothing but silly pictures shared on the Internet, but they are, in fact, as old as human culture itself. The Internet is only a &nbsp;new medium for memes to spread in, faster than ever before. The notion of memes, as cultural equivalents of genes, was coined by the famous biologist Prof. Richard Dawkins in 1976 (when the Interent was still in its infancy), who wanted to show that you can also study evolution outside of biology ({{Cyt
| tytuł = The Selfish Gene
| nazwisko r = Dawkins
| rok = 1989
| strony = 189–201
}}). The very idea of a &nbsp;meme would soon become a &nbsp;successful and quickly evolving meme in and of itself.</ref>
For this reason, when it comes to old cookbooks, it’s difficult to even speak of authorship in any meaningful way. Even if you can see somebody’s name on the title page, you can’t be really sure whether it’s the name of the original author or perhaps of a&nbsp;translator, editor, copyist or publisher. Or maybe of someone who was a&nbsp;little bit of all the above. For the sake of simplicity, I will refer to such a&nbsp;person as ``the author"“the author”, but keep in mind the they need not necessarily be the actual content creator as understood by modern copyright laws. Besides, even the idea of copyright didn’t exist before the 19th century. Before that, people would just go and rewrite or reprint books (culinary or any other) without asking anyone for permission. They would sometimes indicate the original author’s name in the copy, but sometimes not. The very idea of authenticity didn’t exist either, so a&nbsp;copy wasn’t seen as something inferior, but rather as a&nbsp;new, maybe even better version of the original thing. According to Galen of Pergamon (of whom [[Good Humour, Good Health#Whose Idea Is It?|I wrote before]]), the famous Library of Alexandria was so big thanks to a&nbsp;policy of sending royal customs officers to each ship which called at the local port, in order to gather any scroll of papyrus or parchment they could find and take it for scribes to make copies of. Then, they would give the shining new copies to the ship’s captain, while the library would contend itself with the timeworn originals.<ref>{{Cyt
| nazwisko = Smith
| imię = Andrew
| tytuł = Attalus
| nazwisko r = Galen of Pergamon
| rozdział = Commentary on Hippocrates' Hippocrates’ Epidemics
| adres rozdziału = http://www.attalus.org/translate/extracts.html#17a.605
}}</ref> And this was considered progress, not intellectual property theft!
[[File:Melozzo da Forlì 001.jpg|thumb|upright=.9|left|Pope Sixtus IV naming Bartolomeo Platina, author of the world's world’s first printed cookbook, Prefect of the Vatican Library<br>{{small|By Melozzo da Forli (ca. 1477)}}]]
Naturally, copying books by hand was labour-intensive and, therefore, costly (even despite relatively low labour costs in the past). Besides, few people could read anyway, so cookbooks (just like any books for that matter) were a&nbsp;rare luxury. This began to change once Johannes Gutenberg{{czyt|Johannes Gutenberg}} invented the movable-type printing press. He used his invention to publish the first printed book (a&nbsp;Bible, obviously) in 1455. It was only 15 years later in Rome that the first ever cookbook was published in print. It was ''De honesta voluptate et valetudine'' (''Of Honest Pleasure and Good Health'') by Bartolomeo Sacchi{{czyt|Bartolomeo Sacchi}} (1421–1481), better known as Platina, who served as a&nbsp;papal secretary and librarian, although he actually copied most of the recipës from Martin do Como’s handwritten ''Libro de arte coquinaria'' (''Book of Culinary Arts''). It took another 15 years for the first cookbook printed in a&nbsp;vernacular language to come out, namely the German ''Küchenmeisterei''{{czyt|Küchenmeisterei}} published by Peter Wagner{{czyt|Peter Wagner}}. The 15th century also saw the first printed cookbooks in French, Italian and English, and the first half of the 16th century, in Dutch, Catalan, Spanish and Czech. The latter book, entitled ''Kuchařstvi''{{czyt|Kuchařstvi}} and published by Pavel Severýn{{czyt|Pavel Severýn}} in 1535, in Prague, was a&nbsp;translation of the aforementioned German text. Both titles can be translated as ''Cooking Mastery''.
{{clear}}
== A &nbsp;Groundbreaking Discovery ==
[[File:Kuchmistrzostwo - ocet.jpg|thumb|upright=.9|One of the surviving pages of ''Kuchmistrzostwo'' with various recipës for vinegar, currently owned by the Warsaw Public Library (ID number: XVI.O.140)]]
{{ Cytat
| Take the vessel you wish to use for your vinegar, pour enough old wine to fill half of the vessel, place it in the sunshine and let it stay warm, but better keep it a &nbsp;distance away from fire; this way you will always have good wine vinegar.
| oryg = Weźmij naczynie, jakie chcesz mieć ku [octu], wlej do niego wina starego, coby mog[ło być] pół tego naczynia, postaw je na słońce, [niech] się grzeje, ale lepiej u&nbsp;ognia z&nbsp;daleka [przy]lewaj, zawżdy ktemu będziesz miał o[cet do]bry w[i]nny.
| źródło = {{Cyt
}}, f1r, Warsaw Public Library, XVI.O.140, own translation
| jęz = Polish
| oryg2 = Vezmi nádobu nebo soudek a &nbsp;vlij do něho starého vína, což by mohlo polovice soudku býti, a &nbsp;vstav je na slunce až se zhřeje, ale lépe jest k ohni zdaleka přistaviti, ať se zhřeje, a &nbsp;přilévej k tomu vždy, a &nbsp;budeš míti ocet dobrý v[i]nný na místo.
| źródło-oryg2 = {{Cyt
| inni = ed. Čeněk Zíbrt
}}</ref> And this would mean that the first cookbook printed in Polish had at least three different editions from three different printers.
But, perhaps more importantly, on this newly discovered sheet, we finally had recipës not for vinegar, but for decent meat dishes. Even game meat, to boot! In the title of the first recipë we can also see a&nbsp;small, but interesting modification made by the 16th-century Polish translator. The original Czech version speaks of ``buffalo“buffalo, bison or other uncommon game, not found in our lands"lands”, whereas the Polish translation has ``buffalo“buffalo, bison or other game, uncommon in ''Polish'' lands"lands”. On the one hand, I understand the translator’s urge to localize the text a&nbsp;little, but on the other, it seems to me that he did it somewhat half-heartedly. It’s true that, by the 16th century, bison had already been extinct in Bohemia, or what is now the Czech Republic, but it still roamed the vasts forests of Poland, so it wasn’t that exotic to Polish cuisine.
{{clear}}
{{ Cytat
| Buffalo, bison or other game, unusual in Polish lands, but only in foreign countries. Make sauce for it in the following way. Take raisin, figs and make a &nbsp;toast of white bread, put it all in a &nbsp;mortar and let grind, and once it's it’s well ground, pour in some heated wine and strain it through cloth, and having cut up the meat into morsels, cover them with the sauce in a &nbsp;cauldron or a &nbsp;pot, season with pepper, ginger, saffron, cloves and sweeten a &nbsp;little with sugar or honey, and add some fried apples, raisins large and small, almonds and anything else, according to [what you have in] your household.
| oryg = [Zwierzyna bawołowa albo żubrow]a i&nbsp;insze, nie będące w&nbsp;obyczaju polskiej [ziemi, j]edno w&nbsp;cudzych stronach. Tak na nie juchę wyborną działaj. Weźmij rodzynków, fig, a&nbsp;ususz grzankę z&nbsp;białego chleba, włóż wszystko społem do moździerza, a&nbsp;daj tłuc, a&nbsp;gdy już utłuczesz, jako ma być, zagrzawszy wina, wlej w&nbsp;to i&nbsp;przecedź przez chustę, a&nbsp;nadziaławszy sztuk z&nbsp;tej zwierzyny, wlej na nie tę juchę, włóż do kotła albo do garnca, a&nbsp;okorzeń pieprzem, imbirem, szafranem, goździk[am]i, a&nbsp;osłodź mało cukrem albo miodem, a&nbsp;usmaż na nie jabłek, rodzynków małych i&nbsp;wielkich, migdałów albo jako kto chce mieć według swego gospodarstwa.
| źródło = {{Cyt
| jęz2 = Czech }}
And then, there remains the question of how to date this oldest Polish cookbook. Its first edition couldn’t be published earlier than 1535, which was when ''Kuchařství'' came out in Prague. After all, the translation can’t be older that the original. The latest possible date, on the other hand, is 1547, wich is when the cookbook was noted in Szarffenberg’s inventory. It was only in the 21st century that it was possible to significantly narrow this 12-year gap, thanks to a&nbsp;catalogue of the library which belonged to Austrian book collector Hieronymus Beck von Leopoldsdorf{{czyt|Hieronymus Beck von Leopoldsdorf}} (1525–1596). One of the items listed in his catalogue is ``''Kuchmistrzstwo'' [sic] Prossowol 1536”. It’s unclear what ``Prossowol" “Prossowol” could mean; it may have refered to some printer who hailed from the village of Proszowice{{czyt|Proszowice}} near Cracow. In any case, if that printer published an edition of ''Kuchmistrzostwo'' as early 1536, then it would mean that the Polish translation came out only a&nbsp;year after the Czech original.<ref>{{Cyt
| tytuł = Silva Rerum
| nazwisko r = Herman
What we do know is where a&nbsp;bloc of 224 recipës which stand out from the rest as being written in a&nbsp;particularly archaic language come from. They are all old Polish translations of recipës from the Czech ''Kuchařství''. It’s clear from the style and the grammar of these recipës that they were all writtin in early-16th-century Polish, which means that the translation couldn’t have been made at the same time as the manuscript was written. The copyist must have used an existing 200-year-old translation, which was either still preserved in its printed form at the time or had already been copied by hand from a&nbsp;printed book before.
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 recipës that we already saw on the sheet found at the Jagiellonian Library: ``buffalo“buffalo, bison or other game which is uncommon in Polish lands, but only in foreign countries"countries”. Another is a&nbsp;word incorrectly written the letter ``t" “t” where one would expect the letter ``k"“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"“kotła”''{{czyt|kotła}}.</ref> So if the copyist misspelled a&nbsp;word because he misread a&nbsp;printed letter, then he must have been copying a&nbsp;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 means ``of “of a cauldron" &nbsp;cauldron” in Polish.]]
To sum up: not a&nbsp;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&nbsp;translation of the Czech ''Kuchařství'', which had been published a&nbsp;year earlier and which was itself a&nbsp;translation of the German ''Küchenmeisterei''.
And this, in turn, means the ''Compendium Ferculorum'' is not the earliest cookbook to be printed in Polish. But it’s correct to say that it’s the oldest ''surviving'' printed Polish cookbook. It’s also the first printed cookbook that was written ''originally'' in Polish.
== Let's Let’s Cook! ==
Okay, so what interesting recipës can you find in that oldest Polish cookbook? The recipës are divided into three chapters, or actually even four, except that the fourth chapter isn’t visibly separated from the third.
The first chapter contains recipës for meat dishes. Many of these are for chicken and other birds (e.g., ``birds “birds seasoned with onions and encased in dough"dough”), but there are also several recipës for beef (``roast “roast beef in the Hungarian style"style”), pork, hare (``hare “hare with or without onions"onions”), as well as various kinds of game, including: partridges, roe deer and red deer venison, wild boar, ``buffalo “buffalo or bison"bison”, and even… squirrels. This is how you can cook the latter:
{{Cytat
| Skin them and wash them clean inside, and cook them in meat broth, not too salty, and once they are cooked, make yellow or black sauce for them. To make the yellow sauce: roast squirrel livers and make two or three rye-bread toast, grind them all up in a &nbsp;mortar, dissolve in meat broth and strain. Place the squirrels in the sauce and season with pepper, ginger, mace, and fry some apples as you would for other game, serve in a &nbsp;bowl and remember to salt.
And to make the black sauce: take prunes or fried sweet cherries, make toasts of white bread, place them all in a &nbsp;mixture of vinegar and water, and bring to boil, then strain clean through cloth, add squirrels, bring to boil, season with pepper, ginger, cloves and sprinkle some saffron on top.
| oryg = Obłup je, a&nbsp;wewnątrz je wymyj czyście, a&nbsp;zestaw je w&nbsp;mięsnej polewce nie bardzo słonej, a&nbsp;gdy uwreją, uczyń na nie żółtą juchę albo czarną. Żółtą tak: przypiecz wątrobę wiewiórczą, a&nbsp;ususz grzanek dwie albo trzy z&nbsp;chleba rżanego, utłucz to w&nbsp;moździerzu, a&nbsp;rozpuść polewką mięsną i&nbsp;przecedź czyście. Daj [w] tę juchę wiewiórki, a&nbsp;ukorzeń pieprzem, imbirem, muszkatowym kwiatem, a&nbsp;usmaż na nie jabłek jako na inną zwierzynę, daj na misę, a&nbsp;pamiętaj przysolić.
The recipës for buffalo of bison (with beef substituted for the game), as well as various kinds of ''kisielica'', were tried out by Maciej Nowicki, chef at the Wilanów Royal Palace in Warsaw, aided by Prof. Dumanowski, in the [https://vod.tvp.pl/programy,88/historia-kuchni-polskiej-odcinki,1235711/odcinek-4,S01E04,1273194 fourth episode] of the Polish-language TV show ''Historia kuchni polskiej''{{czyt|Historia kuchni polskiej}} (''History of Polish Cuisine''), which was all about the oldest Polish cookbook.
The third chapter has recipës for ``Saturday food"“Saturday food”, which means food allowed by the Catholic Church on the milder fasting days, such as Saturday. The milder version of fasting still excluded the meat of land-dwelling animals, but allowed the consumption of dairy and eggs. This chapter abounds in recipës for various kinds of dumplings, porridges and yolk-thickened soups. At the very end, in an implicit fourth chapter, we can find the vinegar recipës, some of which we already know. But let’s stick to the porridges. The Polish word for ``porridge"“porridge”, ''``kasza"“kasza”''{{czyt|kasza}}, had a&nbsp;boader meaning in the past than it has today and referred not only to boiled cereal grains, but to any kind of food with porridge-like consistency. For example, you could cut some apples into chunks, fry them up and then pass through a&nbsp;sieve to obtain ``apple porridge"“apple porridge”.
One recipë that caught my attention is for ``rice porridge"“rice porridge”, which is rice cooked in cream and served sprinkled with sugar and cinnamon.
{{ Cytat
| To make rice porridge: take as much rice as you want and some clean cream, cook it first and then rinse the rice, and place it in the cream, add some butter and mix, so it doesn't doesn’t burn and you have clean porridge, and then, when you serve it a &nbsp;bowl, sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar.
| oryg = Kaszę z&nbsp;ryżu tak działaj: Weźmij ryżu, coć się widzi, a&nbsp;czystej śmietany, uwarz ją pierwej, a&nbsp;potym ten ryż wypłucz, a&nbsp;kładź do tej śmietany, a&nbsp;omaścisz masłem i&nbsp;mieszaj, aby się nie zewrzało, tedy będzie czysta [tj. nieprzypalona] kasza, a&nbsp;potem, gdy dasz na misę, posyp cynamonem i&nbsp;cukrem.
| źródło = {{Cyt
</gallery>
[[File:{{#setmainimage:Ryż w&nbsp;śmietanie 6.jpg}}|thumb|Sprinkle with cinnamon -- and it's it’s ready!]]
For my reconstruction, I used 30%-fat cream, which I diluted a&nbsp;little with milk. I added cane sugar (beet sugar was unknown in the 16th century) already while cooking, to let it dissolve well in the cream. At the end, I only had sprinkle the porridge with powdered cinnamon – and that’s it! I did like the flavour – it tasted just the way I expected rice with cream, sugar and cinnamon to taste.
| nazwisko r = Piekarski
| imię r = Kazimierz
| rozdział = Miscellanea Bibliograficzne: „Kuchmistrzostwo" „Kuchmistrzostwo” Macieja Szarffenberga
| adres rozdziału = https://cybra.lodz.pl/Content/6228/Przeglad_bibljoteczny_1930_R.4.pdf#%5B%7B%22num%22%3A455%2C%22gen%22%3A0%7D%2C%7B%22name%22%3A%22Fit%22%7D%5D
| wydawca = Wydawnictwo Związku Bibljotekarzy Polskich