Italian Greens from Italian Queens: Difference between revisions
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[[File:{{#setmainimage:Bona.JPG}}|thumb| | [[File:{{#setmainimage:Bona.JPG}}|thumb|Queen Bona and her ladies-in-waiting with Medi Veggies<br>{{small|By Maja Berezowska (1970)}}]] | ||
18 April 1518 marks an important turning point in the history of Polish cuisine — or at least in the version of history as it is traditionally told. It was on that day that Bona Sforza, the second wife of King Sigismund the Old, was crowned Queen of Poland. And, as every child in Poland knows, Bona took the occasion to bring previously unknown vegetables from her native Italy to Poland — which is why to this day soup greens (carrot, parsley root, celeriac and leek) are known in Polish as ''``włoszczyzna"'', or ``Italian stuff". Did she bring just a bunch of these veggies or several cartloads? That we don’t know. What matters is that she revolutionized Polish cooking forever, which, presumably, had been unfamiliar with vegetables prior to her arrival. | 18 April 1518 marks an important turning point in the history of Polish cuisine — or at least in the version of history as it is traditionally told. It was on that day that Bona Sforza, the second wife of King Sigismund the Old, was crowned Queen of Poland. And, as every child in Poland knows, Bona took the occasion to bring previously unknown vegetables from her native Italy to Poland — which is why to this day soup greens (carrot, parsley root, celeriac and leek) are known in Polish as ''``włoszczyzna"'', or ``Italian stuff". Did she bring just a bunch of these veggies or several cartloads? That we don’t know. What matters is that she revolutionized Polish cooking forever, which, presumably, had been unfamiliar with vegetables prior to her arrival. | ||