Italian Greens from Italian Queens: Difference between revisions
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Where, then, does the legend of Queen Bona introducing Mediterranean vegetables to Poland come from? Most likely, it arose as a Polish counterpart to a similar French legend about Catherine de’ Medici. If the French believed that the culinary riches of Italy had been brought to their country by a Renaissance queen from the peninsula, it must have seemed logical that a similar role could be attributed to Bona Sforza in Poland. We now know that the French version of this legend emerged during the Enlightenment. The Polish version, then, may well have its roots in the same era. | Where, then, does the legend of Queen Bona introducing Mediterranean vegetables to Poland come from? Most likely, it arose as a Polish counterpart to a similar French legend about Catherine de’ Medici. If the French believed that the culinary riches of Italy had been brought to their country by a Renaissance queen from the peninsula, it must have seemed logical that a similar role could be attributed to Bona Sforza in Poland. We now know that the French version of this legend emerged during the Enlightenment. The Polish version, then, may well have its roots in the same era. | ||
The earliest suggestion I’ve found that it was Bona who brought the Mediterranean veggies to Poland comes from the novel ''John of Tenczyn'' (''Jan z Tęczyna''), by Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz, first published in 1824. Niemcewicz – a distinguished figure of the Polish Enlightenment, co-author of the nation's first constitution, personal secretary to the Polish and American hero Tadeusz Kościuszko, and the first Pole to receive U.S. citizenship – was also the author of Poland’s first historical novel. It is a fictionalized account of the true story of Jan Baptysta Tęczyński, a promising young aristocrat who fell in love with the Swedish princess Cecilia Vasa (and she with him) but tragically died in Danish captivity in 1563, before he could marry her. And it's in the opening chapter of this Walter-Scottian romantic tale that we find the following passage: | |||
[[File:Ogrody wawelskie.jpg|thumb|upright|left| | [[File:Ogrody wawelskie.jpg|thumb|upright|left|A herb garden from the time of Queen Bona as reconstruncted on the Wawel Hill]] | ||
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| Teodorowa had already put the chickens in the pot and she was now holding leeks and celeriacs in her hand. ``Back in my childhood," she said, ``we didn’t know any of this Italian stuff. Queen Bona brought it to us from those – what do you call them? – lands overseas. From the royal gardens it spread throughout the Cracow region and even farther, because the old queen loves her gardens and she lays them out and tends them everywhere. They say she even planted grape vines in Czersk and her other estates." | | Teodorowa had already put the chickens in the pot and she was now holding leeks and celeriacs in her hand. ``Back in my childhood," she said, ``we didn’t know any of this Italian stuff. Queen Bona brought it to us from those – what do you call them? – lands overseas. From the royal gardens it spread throughout the Cracow region and even farther, because the old queen loves her gardens and she lays them out and tends them everywhere. They say she even planted grape vines in Czersk and her other estates." | ||