Epic Cooking: The Perfect Cook: Difference between revisions
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|"''Now a very rare book, published over a hundred years ago by Stanisław Czerniecki.''"<ref>A. Mickiewicz, ''op. cit.'', Poet's explanatory notes, own translation</ref><br>A copy of ''Compendium ferculorum'' by Stanisław Czerniecki opened on the author' dedication to Princess Helena Tekla Lubomirska.]] | |"''Now a very rare book, published over a hundred years ago by Stanisław Czerniecki.''"<ref>A. Mickiewicz, ''op. cit.'', Poet's explanatory notes, own translation</ref><br>A copy of ''Compendium ferculorum'' by Stanisław Czerniecki opened on the author' dedication to Princess Helena Tekla Lubomirska.]] | ||
So what was it about Czerniecki? Well, he was indeed an experience chef, responsible to organizing aristocratic banquests 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 | So what was it about Czerniecki? Well, he was indeed an experience chef, responsible to organizing aristocratic banquests 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 was – as we shall see tomorrow – precisely from this book that the Tribune got the recipes for all the dishes he would serve at the great banquest in Book XII. | ||
Besides, it wasn't only the recipes that Mickiewicz took from the ''Compendium''. The 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 the dedication its author adressed 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 partoness 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 (rougly 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 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 banquest which Ossoliński gave to the pope was without a doubt no less osstentatious. This is how Czerniecki described it: | Besides, it wasn't only the recipes that Mickiewicz took from the ''Compendium''. The 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 the dedication its author adressed 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 partoness 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 (rougly 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 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 banquest which Ossoliński gave to the pope was without a doubt no less osstentatious. This is how Czerniecki described it: | ||
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[[File:Wjazd Ossolińskiego do Rzymu.jpg|thumb|upright=2 | [[File:Wjazd Ossolińskiego do Rzymu.jpg|thumb|upright=2 | ||
|"'' | |"''This Roman legation was described and depicted multiple times.''"<ref>A. Mickiewicz, ''op. cit.'', Poet's explanatory notes, own translation</ref><br>Ethcing by Stefano della Bella (1633).]] | ||
Of course, Mickiewicz reversed the sequence of events in his poem; if Czerniecki descrbied the Roman banquet as historical fact in his cookbook, then couldn't have been prepared according to the instructions from the same cookbook. | |||
Anyway, it looks like the poet confused two different cookey books (which were, as it happens, the only two Polish language cookbooks printed before the end of the 18th century) – ''Compendium Ferculorum'' by Czerniecki, published in 1628, and ''The Perfect Cook'' by Wielądko, published a hundred years later. How come? Was it a mistake or poetic license? Maybe ''The Pefrect Cook'' just had a better ring in the poet's ear than the bland ''A Collection of Dishes'', so Mickiewicz switched the titles on purpose? But if so, then he could have a least explained this manipulation in a footnote. If he hadn't, then perhaps it was because he was genuinely in error himself. This conjecture is confirmed by a letter written by Edward Odyniec, who travelled together with Mickiewicz in Italy, where he mentions a worn copy of a piece of culinary literature that the poet always would carry in his luggage. | |||
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