Italian Greens from Italian Queens: Difference between revisions

Line 291:

| tom = V

| strony = XXXVIII–XXXIX

}}</ref> It seems, then, that Bona indeed imported not only Italian kitchen staff for her private household but also Italian food products – though not necessarily vegetables – but she wasn't inclined to share them or encourage others to partake in her own stock of Mediterranean provisions.

}}</ref> It seems, then, that Bona indeed imported not only Italian kitchen staff for her private household but also Italian food products – though not necessarily vegetables – but she wasn't inclined to share them, let alone encourage others to partake in her own stock of Mediterranean provisions.

But if it wasn’t Bona who introduced vegetables to Poland, then where did all those cultivated plants with unmistakably Italian-sounding names come to the banks of the Vistula from? And did Poles eat any veggies at all before the arrival of these southern imports?

Line 313:

}}</ref> All these plants still grow in the wild and are occasionally foraged by survivalists and ethnobotany enthusiasts. But on most Polish tables, they’ve long since been swapped out for vegetables originating in the Mediterranean climate.

When exactly this swap took place isn’t entirely clear. It was certainly a gradual process and not all of the new vegetables appeared in Poland at the same time. One ~~clue might~~ be ~~the moment~~ when Italian-derived names for individual vegetables first show up in Polish-language written sources.

When exactly this swap took place isn’t entirely clear. It was certainly a gradual process and not all of the new vegetables appeared in Poland at the same time. One way to search for some clues could be to take a look at linguistic data: when did Italian-derived names for individual vegetables first show up in Polish-language written sources?

The earliest to settle into the Polish language – and, one might suspect, onto Polish tables as well — was ''sałata'', or lettuce. The word ''``sałata"'' comes from the Italian ''``insalata"'', which literally means “salted”. That’s because Italians had long served this vegetable seasoned with salt, vinegar and olive oil. Just like its Italian counterpart, the Polish word initially referred to both lettuce as such and a salad made of this and other vegetables (modern Polish distinguishes the two by referring to a salad by the diminutive ''``sałatka"''). The oldest known Polish text in which ''``sałata"'' appears — and in both senses, no less – is a herbal by Stefan Falimirz published in 1534 under the title, ''On Herbs and Their Potency'' (''O ziołach i mocy ich'').

[[File:Sałata.jpg|thumb|upright=.6|~~Sałata według ilustracji w zielniku~~ S. ~~Falimirza~~ (1534)]]

[[File:Sałata.jpg|thumb|upright=.6|Lettuce in an illustration from S. Falimirz's herbal (1534)]]

{{ Cytat

| '''Sałata''' [Polish for lettuce], or lactuca [Latin for the same], comes in two varieties: domestic and wild. The complexion of domestic lettuce is cold and moist in a moderate degree.*

Line 338:

The next source, chronologically, in which Italian-derived vegetable names appear for the first time is the 1549 Polish translation of ''Books on Husbandry'' (''Ruralia Commoda'') by Pietro de’ Crescenzi. This is where we first encounter the word ''``por"'' (from Italian ''``porro"''), which eventually displaced the native Polish ''``łuk"'' as the term for “leek”. Another notable example is ''``faseol"'' (from Italian ''``fagioli"'', “beans”), a word that gradually evolved in Polish into ''``fazoły"'', and ultimately into ''``fasola"''. Beans were the first vegetable from the New World – discovered by Europeans only half a century earlier – to reach Poland, and they did so via Italy.

[[File:Fasola.jpg|thumb|upright=.6|left|~~Fasola według ilustracji w poradniku~~ P. de Crescenzi (1549)]]

[[File:Fasola.jpg|thumb|upright=.6|left|A beanstalk in an illustration from P. de Crescenzi's handbook (1549)]]

{{ Cytat

| Fresh '''por''' [Polish for leek] or łuk [Old Polish for the same], when applied to the site of a snake bite, draws the venom out. Boiled, however, and dressed with almond oil, it stimulates erection and carnal desire.

Line 357:

| źródło = ''Ibid.'', p. 176, own translation }}

The word ''“garczoffy”'' – an old Polish term for artichokes (''“karczochy”'' in modern Polish) – first appeared in Marcin Siennik’s ''Herbarz'' (''Herbal''), published in 1568, which was already twelve years after Queen Bona’s departure from Poland. It stems from the Italian ''“carciofi”'', itself borrowed from the Arabic ''“al-ḵuršūf”''. The English word shares the same origin, though it retained the definite article ''~~“al”~~'', which was later altered to ''~~“ar”~~''.

The word ''“garczoffy”'' – an old Polish term for artichokes (''“karczochy”'' in modern Polish) – first appeared in Marcin Siennik’s ''Herbarz'' (''Herbal''), published in 1568, which was already twelve years after Queen Bona’s departure from Poland. It stems from the Italian ''“carciofi”'', itself borrowed from the Arabic ''“al-ḵuršūf”''. The English word shares the same origin, though it retained the definite article ''“al-”'', which was later altered to ''“ar-”''.

~~That~~ concludes the 16th century. The next wave of vegetable borrowings from Italian came much later. The earliest attested use of ''“szparag”'' (asparagus, from the archaic Italian ''“sparago”'') appears in a dictionary from 1605; ''“seler”'' (celery, from the dialectal Italian ''“sellero”'') is found in a 1656 epigram by Wacław Potocki; ''“kaulifior”'' (cauliflower, from Italian ''“cavolfiore”'', literally “cabbage flower”) is recorded in a dictionary from 1680; while ''“brochuł”'' (broccoli, from Italian ''“broccolo”'') and ''“kaulerapa”'' (kohlrabi, from Italian ''“cavolo rapa”'', literally “cabbage turnip”) feature in Stanisław Czerniecki’s ''Compendium Ferculorum'' from 1682. As for the Polish term for tomato – ''“pomidor”'' – ~~one had to wait~~ until the 19th century.

This concludes the 16th century. The next wave of vegetable borrowings from Italian came much later. The earliest attested use of ''“szparag”'' (asparagus, from the archaic Italian ''“sparago”'') appears in a dictionary from 1605; ''“seler”'' (celery, from the dialectal Italian ''“sellero”'') is found in a 1656 epigram by Wacław Potocki; ''“kaulifior”'' (cauliflower, from Italian ''“cavolfiore”'', literally “cabbage flower”) is recorded in a dictionary from 1680; while ''“brochuł”'' (broccoli, from Italian ''“broccolo”'') and ''“kaulerapa”'' (kohlrabi, from Italian ''“cavolo rapa”'', literally “cabbage turnip”) feature in Stanisław Czerniecki’s ''Compendium Ferculorum'' from 1682. As for the Polish term for tomato – ''“pomidor”'' – it didn't spread into Polish until the 19th century.

[[File:Włoszczyzna.png|thumb|Bundles of ''włoszczyzna'' (literally, ``Italian stuff"), or soup vegetables, as they are commonly sold in Poland, including: carrots, parsley (root and leaves), celeriac (celery root) and leek.]]

It would seem, then, that if any vegetables became widespread in Poland during Queen Bona’s time, they may have included lettuce, leeks, beans and possibly artichokes. Of these, only the leek forms part of the standard Polish set of soup vegetables used for making broth – known collectively as ''włoszczyzna''. Yet in this case, it was only the name that was imported from Italy, supplanting an older Slavic term for a vegetable that was already familiar in Poland.

In any case, the mere fact that certain vegetables began to be cultivated and consumed in Poland around Bona’s time does not necessarily mean that their arrival on the banks of the Vistula was her personal ~~achievement~~. Polish-Italian ties had existed long before Bona and would continue after her return to Bari. Her arrival in Cracow may well have been, at least in part, a reflection of the broader vogue for Italian culture. Sigismund I already had Italian garments, Italian furniture, Italian court artists and musicians, a palace in the Italian style – so it was only natural that he should also take an Italian wife.

In any case, the mere fact that certain vegetables began to be cultivated and consumed in Poland around Bona’s time does not necessarily mean that their arrival on the banks of the Vistula was due to her personal influence. Polish-Italian ties had existed long before Bona and would continue after her return to Bari. Her arrival in Cracow may well have been, at least in part, a reflection of the broader vogue for Italian culture. Sigismund I already had Italian garments, Italian furniture, Italian court artists and musicians, a palace in the Italian style – so it was only natural that he should also take an Italian wife.

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.

Line 387:

}}

~~Przez prawie całe XIX stulecie była to najchętniej czytana powieść historyczna na ziemiach polskich; dopiero w latach 80~~. ~~owego wieku zdetronizowała ją trylogia Henryka Sienkiewicza~~. ~~Nic więc dziwnego~~, ~~że skojarzenie przez Niemcewicza Bony z włoszczyzną dość prędko znalazło się w kategorii prawd oczywistych i przez nikogo niekwestionowanych~~.

''John of Tenczyn'' was, throughout most of the 19th century, the best selling historical novel in Poland. It was only in the 1880s when it was supplanted by Henryk Sienkiewicz's trilogy. It's no surprise, then, that the association which Niemcewicz established between Queen Bona and Italian veggies soon became treated as an obvious and unquestioned truth.

@@ Line 291: / Line 291: @@
   | tom      = V
   | strony   = XXXVIII–XXXIX
-  }}</ref> It seems, then, that Bona indeed imported not only Italian kitchen staff for her private household but also Italian food products – though not necessarily vegetables – but she wasn't inclined to share them or encourage others to partake in her own stock of Mediterranean provisions.
+  }}</ref> It seems, then, that Bona indeed imported not only Italian kitchen staff for her private household but also Italian food products – though not necessarily vegetables – but she wasn't inclined to share them, let alone encourage others to partake in her own stock of Mediterranean provisions.
 But if it wasn’t Bona who introduced vegetables to Poland, then where did all those cultivated plants with unmistakably Italian-sounding names come to the banks of the Vistula from? And did Poles eat any veggies at all before the arrival of these southern imports?
@@ Line 313: / Line 313: @@
   }}</ref> All these plants still grow in the wild and are occasionally foraged by survivalists and ethnobotany enthusiasts. But on most Polish tables, they’ve long since been swapped out for vegetables originating in the Mediterranean climate.
-When exactly this swap took place isn’t entirely clear. It was certainly a gradual process and not all of the new vegetables appeared in Poland at the same time. One clue might be the moment when Italian-derived names for individual vegetables first show up in Polish-language written sources.
+When exactly this swap took place isn’t entirely clear. It was certainly a gradual process and not all of the new vegetables appeared in Poland at the same time. One way to search for some clues could be to take a look at  linguistic data: when did Italian-derived names for individual vegetables first show up in Polish-language written sources?
 The earliest to settle into the Polish language – and, one might suspect, onto Polish tables as well — was ''sałata'', or lettuce. The word ''``sałata"'' comes from the Italian ''``insalata"'', which literally means “salted”. That’s because Italians had long served this vegetable seasoned with salt, vinegar and olive oil. Just like its Italian counterpart, the Polish word initially referred to both lettuce as such and a salad made of this and other vegetables (modern Polish distinguishes the two by referring to a salad by the diminutive ''``sałatka"''). The oldest known Polish text in which ''``sałata"'' appears — and in both senses, no less – is a herbal by Stefan Falimirz published in 1534 under the title, ''On Herbs and Their Potency'' (''O ziołach i&nbsp;mocy ich'').
-[[File:Sałata.jpg|thumb|upright=.6|Sałata według ilustracji w&nbsp;zielniku S. Falimirza (1534)]]
+[[File:Sałata.jpg|thumb|upright=.6|Lettuce in an illustration from S. Falimirz's herbal (1534)]]
 {{ Cytat
 | '''Sałata''' [Polish for lettuce], or lactuca [Latin for the same], comes in two varieties: domestic and wild. The complexion of domestic lettuce is cold and moist in a moderate degree.*
@@ Line 338: / Line 338: @@
 The next source, chronologically, in which Italian-derived vegetable names appear for the first time is the 1549 Polish translation of ''Books on Husbandry'' (''Ruralia Commoda'') by Pietro de’ Crescenzi. This is where we first encounter the word ''``por"'' (from Italian ''``porro"''), which eventually displaced the native Polish ''``łuk"'' as the term for “leek”. Another notable example is ''``faseol"'' (from Italian ''``fagioli"'', “beans”), a word that gradually evolved in Polish into ''``fazoły"'', and ultimately into ''``fasola"''. Beans were the first vegetable from the New World – discovered by Europeans only half a century earlier – to reach Poland, and they did so via Italy.
-[[File:Fasola.jpg|thumb|upright=.6|left|Fasola według ilustracji w&nbsp;poradniku P. de Crescenzi (1549)]]
+[[File:Fasola.jpg|thumb|upright=.6|left|A beanstalk in an illustration from P. de Crescenzi's handbook (1549)]]
 {{ Cytat
 | Fresh '''por''' [Polish for leek] or łuk [Old Polish for the same], when applied to the site of a snake bite, draws the venom out. Boiled, however, and dressed with almond oil, it stimulates erection and carnal desire.
@@ Line 357: / Line 357: @@
 | źródło = ''Ibid.'', p. 176, own translation }}
-The word ''“garczoffy”'' – an old Polish term for artichokes (''“karczochy”'' in modern Polish) – first appeared in Marcin Siennik’s ''Herbarz'' (''Herbal''), published in 1568, which was already twelve years after Queen Bona’s departure from Poland. It stems from the Italian ''“carciofi”'', itself borrowed from the Arabic ''“al-ḵuršūf”''. The English word shares the same origin, though it retained the definite article ''“al”'', which was later altered to ''“ar”''.
+The word ''“garczoffy”'' – an old Polish term for artichokes (''“karczochy”'' in modern Polish) – first appeared in Marcin Siennik’s ''Herbarz'' (''Herbal''), published in 1568, which was already twelve years after Queen Bona’s departure from Poland. It stems from the Italian ''“carciofi”'', itself borrowed from the Arabic ''“al-ḵuršūf”''. The English word shares the same origin, though it retained the definite article ''“al-”'', which was later altered to ''“ar-”''.
-That concludes the 16th century. The next wave of vegetable borrowings from Italian came much later. The earliest attested use of ''“szparag”'' (asparagus, from the archaic Italian ''“sparago”'') appears in a dictionary from 1605; ''“seler”'' (celery, from the dialectal Italian ''“sellero”'') is found in a 1656 epigram by Wacław Potocki; ''“kaulifior”'' (cauliflower, from Italian ''“cavolfiore”'', literally “cabbage flower”) is recorded in a dictionary from 1680; while ''“brochuł”'' (broccoli, from Italian ''“broccolo”'') and ''“kaulerapa”'' (kohlrabi, from Italian ''“cavolo rapa”'', literally “cabbage turnip”) feature in Stanisław Czerniecki’s ''Compendium Ferculorum'' from 1682. As for the Polish term for tomato – ''“pomidor”'' – one had to wait until the 19th century.
+This concludes the 16th century. The next wave of vegetable borrowings from Italian came much later. The earliest attested use of ''“szparag”'' (asparagus, from the archaic Italian ''“sparago”'') appears in a dictionary from 1605; ''“seler”'' (celery, from the dialectal Italian ''“sellero”'') is found in a 1656 epigram by Wacław Potocki; ''“kaulifior”'' (cauliflower, from Italian ''“cavolfiore”'', literally “cabbage flower”) is recorded in a dictionary from 1680; while ''“brochuł”'' (broccoli, from Italian ''“broccolo”'') and ''“kaulerapa”'' (kohlrabi, from Italian ''“cavolo rapa”'', literally “cabbage turnip”) feature in Stanisław Czerniecki’s ''Compendium Ferculorum'' from 1682. As for the Polish term for tomato – ''“pomidor”'' – it didn't spread into Polish until the 19th century.
 [[File:Włoszczyzna.png|thumb|Bundles of ''włoszczyzna'' (literally, ``Italian stuff"), or soup vegetables, as they are commonly sold in Poland, including: carrots, parsley (root and leaves), celeriac (celery root) and leek.]]
 It would seem, then, that if any vegetables became widespread in Poland during Queen Bona’s time, they may have included lettuce, leeks, beans and possibly artichokes. Of these, only the leek forms part of the standard Polish set of soup vegetables used for making broth – known collectively as ''włoszczyzna''. Yet in this case, it was only the name that was imported from Italy, supplanting an older Slavic term for a vegetable that was already familiar in Poland.
-In any case, the mere fact that certain vegetables began to be cultivated and consumed in Poland around Bona’s time does not necessarily mean that their arrival on the banks of the Vistula was her personal achievement. Polish-Italian ties had existed long before Bona and would continue after her return to Bari. Her arrival in Cracow may well have been, at least in part, a reflection of the broader vogue for Italian culture. Sigismund I already had Italian garments, Italian furniture, Italian court artists and musicians, a palace in the Italian style – so it was only natural that he should also take an Italian wife.
+In any case, the mere fact that certain vegetables began to be cultivated and consumed in Poland around Bona’s time does not necessarily mean that their arrival on the banks of the Vistula was due to her personal influence. Polish-Italian ties had existed long before Bona and would continue after her return to Bari. Her arrival in Cracow may well have been, at least in part, a reflection of the broader vogue for Italian culture. Sigismund I already had Italian garments, Italian furniture, Italian court artists and musicians, a palace in the Italian style – so it was only natural that he should also take an Italian wife.
 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.
@@ Line 387: / Line 387: @@
 }}
-Przez prawie całe XIX stulecie była to najchętniej czytana powieść historyczna na ziemiach polskich; dopiero w&nbsp;latach 80. owego wieku zdetronizowała ją trylogia Henryka Sienkiewicza. Nic więc dziwnego, że skojarzenie przez Niemcewicza Bony z&nbsp;włoszczyzną dość prędko znalazło się w&nbsp;kategorii prawd oczywistych i&nbsp;przez nikogo niekwestionowanych.
+''John of Tenczyn'' was, throughout most of the 19th century, the best selling historical novel in Poland. It was only in the 1880s when it was supplanted by Henryk Sienkiewicz's trilogy. It's no surprise, then, that the association which Niemcewicz established between Queen Bona and Italian veggies soon became treated as an obvious and unquestioned truth.
 {{clear}}
 {{Przypisy}}