Epic Cooking: The Perfect Cook: Difference between revisions
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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. | 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. | 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 Adam Mickiewicz in Italy, where he mentions a worn copy of a piece of culinary literature that the poet always would carry in his luggage. | ||
{{ Cytat | {{ Cytat | ||
| Adam wanted to give a purely Polish-Lithuanian feast, according the the ancient recipes from "The Perfect Cook", that is, a tattered old book which he carries around like a treasure in his traveling library and often reads it with great pleasure. Obviously, this idea fell through {{...}} | |||
| Adam radził wyprawić [ucztę] czysto polsko-litewską, i to podług starożytnych przepisów "Doskonałego kucharza", to jest starej obdartej książki, którą jak co dobrego ma w podróżnej biblioteczce swojej i odczytuje nieraz z wielką przyjemnością. Ma się rozumieć, że ten projekt upadł {{...}} | | Adam radził wyprawić [ucztę] czysto polsko-litewską, i to podług starożytnych przepisów "Doskonałego kucharza", to jest starej obdartej książki, którą jak co dobrego ma w podróżnej biblioteczce swojej i odczytuje nieraz z wielką przyjemnością. Ma się rozumieć, że ten projekt upadł {{...}} | ||
| źródło = Edward Odyniec, | | źródło = Edward Odyniec, letter of 28 April 1830, quoted in: {{Cyt | ||
| nazwisko = Jarosińska | | nazwisko = Jarosińska | ||
| imię = Izabela | | imię = Izabela | ||
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|<poem>"<i>The volume was entitled: "The Excellent Cook", | |<poem>"<i>The volume was entitled: "The Excellent Cook", | ||
Every known Polish dish was writ down in this book…</i>"<ref>A. Mickiewicz, ''op. cit.'', Book XI, verses 117–118</ref> | Every known Polish dish was writ down in this book…</i>"<ref>A. Mickiewicz, ''op. cit.'', Book XI, verses 117–118</ref> | ||
Title page of ''Kucharz doskonały'' (''The Perfect Cook'') by Wojciech Wielądko.</poem>]] | |||
Distinguished Mickiewiczologist, Prof. Stanisław Pigoń, has suggested a quite convincing solution of this puzzle; it was ''Compendium ferculorum'' that Mickiewicz loved to read when pining for Polish cuisine and dreaming of having an actual Old Polish banquet in real life, 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 its title. On the other hand, he probably naver 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 tall 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 traveled until it wondered into Soplicowo. | |||
{{ Cytat | {{ Cytat | ||
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}} | }} | ||
[[File:Pałac w Kopaszewie.jpg|thumb|Kopaszewo Palace, Kościan County]] | |||
This is where the Tribune got interrupted again 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, 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, who lived in the village of Kopaszewo. His widow, Lady Skórzewska, in turn, offered it to Bartek Dobrzyński, a Lithuanian who often travelled to Greater Poland in business. But Dobrzyński was a poor nobleman with a modest kitchen and had no use of a cookbook meant for aristocratic courts, so the gave it to the Tribune, for use in Judge Soplica's household.<ref>{{Cyt | |||
| nazwisko = Mickiewicz | | nazwisko = Mickiewicz | ||
| imię = Adam | | imię = Adam | ||
| tytuł = Pan Tadeusz | | tytuł = Pan Tadeusz | ||
| wydawca = | | wydawca = manuscript }}; quoted in: {{Cyt | ||
| nazwisko = Maciejewski | | nazwisko = Maciejewski | ||
| imię = Jarosław | | imię = Jarosław | ||
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| wydawca = Wydawnictwo Poznańskie | | wydawca = Wydawnictwo Poznańskie | ||
| rok = 1972 | | rok = 1972 | ||
| strony = 313–314 }}; quoted in: {{Cyt | |||
| strony = 313–314 }}; | |||
| nazwisko = Piechota | | nazwisko = Piechota | ||
| imię = Marek | | imię = Marek | ||
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| rok = 2000 | | rok = 2000 | ||
| strony = 190 | | strony = 190 | ||
}} | }}</ref> | ||
[[File:Turew - Chłapowski03.jpg|thumb|left|"''Feast befitting these guests so to Polish hearts dear…''"<ref>A. Mickiewicz, ''op. cit.'', | [[File:Turew - Chłapowski03.jpg|thumb|left|"''Feast befitting these guests so to Polish hearts dear…''"<ref>A. Mickiewicz, ''op. cit.'', Book XI, verses 101–103</ref><br> | ||
Turew Palace, Kościan County.]] | |||
This Greater Poland connection isn't random. This is where Mickiewicz stayed for a few months in 1831, while an anti-Russian uprising was raging in the Russian partition of Poland. He wished to join the insurgency, but the border between Russian and Prussian partitions was guarded so well that the got stuck in Greater Poland, a region on the Prussian side. The uprising had been long quelled while Mickiewicz was still visiting the noble manors of the Prussian partition, sightseeing, romancing and writing poetry. Many of the details of everyday life, allegedly typical for Lithuanian nobility, that you will find in ''Pan Tadeusz'' are actually the result of the observations the poet made in Greater Poland. And his precious cookbook – "a dear souvenit of righteous customs", as he wrote in the deleted passage – really did once belong to an Antoni Poniński, who gifted it to Ludwik Skórzewski and whose widow, Honorata Skórzewska, gave it as a present to… no, not to Bartek Dobrzyński, but to Mickiwicz himself, while he was a guest at Kopaszewo.<ref>{{Cyt | |||
| nazwisko = Kuźmiński | | nazwisko = Kuźmiński | ||
| imię = Andrzej | | imię = Andrzej | ||
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}}</ref> | }}</ref> | ||
This was also where he heard the tales of a great banquet of 1812, which Józef Chłapowski, Captain of Kościan, gave in the neraby palace of Turew, to the soldiers of the 1st Light Cavalry Regiment of the Imperial Guard (an elite unit of Napoleon's army, made up exclusively of Polish noblemen), one of whom was his son, Dezydery Chłapowski.<ref>A. Kuźmiński, ''op. cit.'', p. 126</ref> Mickiewicz would transfer this Greater Poland feast to Soplicowo, while also enhancing it with an Old Polish menu inspired by a cookery book he had kept as a souvenir of his stay in the region. | |||
== Tribune, the Perfect Cook == | == Tribune, the Perfect Cook == | ||