Earthly Delights : Economies and Cultures of Food in Ottoman and Danubian Europe, C. 1500-1900 [1 ed.] 9789004367548, 9789004324251

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Earthly Delights

Balkan Studies Library Series Editors Zoran Milutinović (University College London) Alex Drace-Francis (University of Amsterdam) Advisory Board Gordon N. Bardos (SEERECON) Marie-Janine Calic (University of Munich) Lenard J. Cohen (Simon Fraser University) Jasna Dragovic-Soso (Goldsmiths, University of London) Radmila Gorup (Columbia University) Robert M. Hayden (University of Pittsburgh) Robert Hodel (Hamburg University) Anna Krasteva (New Bulgarian University) Galin Tihanov (Queen Mary University of London) Maria Todorova (University of Illinois) Christian Voss (Humboldt University, Berlin) Andrew Wachtel (Northwestern University)

VOLUME 23

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/bsl

Earthly Delights Economies and Cultures of Food in Ottoman and Danubian Europe, c. 1500–1900

Edited by

Angela Jianu Violeta Barbu

LEIDEN | BOSTON

Cover illustration: The Last Supper. The Church of Suceviţa Monastery (Courtesy of Petru Palamar). Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Jianu, Angela, editor. | Barbu, Violeta, editor. Title: Earthly delights : economies and cultures of food in Ottoman and Danubian Europe, c. 1500–1900 / edited by Angela Jianu, Violeta Barbu. Description: Leiden ; Boston : Brill, 2018. | Series: Balkan studies library, ISSN 1877-6272 | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2018015945 (print) | LCCN 2018024766 (ebook) | ISBN 9789004367548 (E-book) | ISBN 9789004324251 (hardback : alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Food habits—Balkan Peninsula—History. | Food habits—Europe, Eastern—History. | Food habits—Turkey—History. | Balkan Peninsula—Social life and customs. | Europe, Eastern—Social life and customs. | Turkey—Social life and customs. Classification: LCC GT2853.B35 (ebook) | LCC GT2853.B35 E37 2018 (print) | DDC 394.1/2094—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018015945

Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill-typeface. issn 1877-6272 isbn 978-90-04-32425-1 (hardback) isbn 978-90-04-36754-8 (e-book) Copyright 2018 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Hes & De Graaf, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Rodopi, Brill Sense and Hotei Publishing. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.

This volume is dedicated to the memory of Violeta Barbu, scholar, colleague, friend.

∵

Contents Acknowledgements xi List of Illustrations xii Notes on Contributors xiv Notes on the Translation and Transliteration xxi Chronology xxii Map xxv Introduction 1 Angela Jianu and Violeta Barbu

Part 1 Flavours, Tastes and Culinary Exchange: Food and Drink in the Ottoman World 1 Should it be Olives or Butter? Consuming Fatty Titbits in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire 33 Suraiya Faroqhi 2 Simits for the Sultan, Cloves for the Mynah Birds: Records of Food Distribution in the Saray 50 Hedda Reindl-Kiel 3 The Cuisine of Istanbul between East and West during the 19th Century 77 Özge Samancı 4 Turkish Flavours in the Transylvanian Cuisine (17th–19th Centuries) 99 Margareta Aslan 5 Exotic Brew? Coffee and Tea in 18th-Century Moldavia and Wallachia 127 Olivia Senciuc

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Part 2 Ingredients, Kitchens and the Pleasures of the Table 6

Kitchen Gardens and Festive Meals in Transylvania (16th–17th Centuries) 149 Kinga S. Tüdős

7

Food and Culinary Practices in 17th-Century Moldavia: Tastes, Techniques, Choices 170 Maria Magdalena Székely

8

The “Emperor’s Pantry”: Food, Fasting and Feasting in Wallachia (17th–18th Centuries) 217 Violeta Barbu

Part 3 Food and Cities: Supply, Mobility, Trade 9

Food Supply and Distribution in Early Modern Transylvania (1541–1640): The Case of Cluj 271 Enikő Rüsz-Fogarasi

10

Spices and Exotic Foods in 17th-Century Transylvania: The Customs Accounts of Sibiu 295 Mária Pakucs-Willcocks

11

The Food Trade in 18th-Century Wallachia between Daily Subsistence and Luxury 311 Gheorghe Lazăr

Part 4 Cooking between Tradition and Innovation: Food Recipes Old and New 12

Two South-East European Manuscript Recipe Collections in their 17th-Century Historical Context 341 Castilia Manea-Grgin

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From Istanbul to Sarajevo via Belgrade—A Bulgarian Cookbook of 1874 376 Stefan Detchev

Part 5 Representations, Travellers’ Tales, Myths 14

“It is in Truth an Island”: Impressions of Food and Hospitality in 19th-Century Transylvania 405 Andrew Dalby

15

“The Taste of Others”: Travellers and Locals Share Food in the Romanian Principalities (19th Century) 426 Angela Jianu

16

Voyages, Space, Words: Identity and Representations of Food in 19th-Century Macedonia 459 Anna Matthaiou

17

Jewish Tavern-Keepers and the Myth of the Poisoned Drinks: Legends and Stereotypes in Romanian and Other East-European Cultures (17th–19th Centuries) 478 Andrei Oişteanu



General Index 513

Acknowledgements We would like to thank all our colleagues and contributors for their valuable work, for their dedication and professionalism in helping us put together this collection of studies, and for the patience with which they responded to our queries and demands. The anonymous peer-reviewers offered encouraging and constructive criticism as well as important suggestions for improvement and development. Alex Drace-Francis and Zoran Milutinović significantly supported us in making the right decisions in terms of content, argument and style. We are grateful for the time, care and attention they devoted to this project. Ivo Romein, the Balkan Studies Library series editor at Brill, was enthusiastic about this project from the start and we owe him gratitude for managing the volume’s production with patience and tact, offering advice, support and much-needed extra time. Also at Brill, Gera van Bedaf and the text editors’ team expertly guided a massive, complex text on the last steps of its journey from computer screen to print. Angela Jianu would like to acknowledge the support of staff at the Library of the University of Warwick (UK), who always responded promptly to her requests for often hard to access material. We can only hope that the volume as it stands now before our readers does justice to all these important contributions. Angela Jianu Violeta Barbu January 2018

List of Illustrations Map

East-Central Europe in the 1840s xxv

Figures 5.1 An illustration from Le divan en turc-oriental de Sultan Hoseïn Mirza, 1485 (Bibliothèque nationale de France, Département des manuscrits, Supplément turc 993) 130 7.1 The Supper at Mamre (The Holy Trinity of the Old Testament). The Church of Suceviţa Monastery. Courtesy of Petru Palamar 199 7.2 The Supper at Mamre (The Holy Trinity of the Old Testament). The Church of Suceviţa Monastery. Courtesy of Petru Palamar 199 7.3 The Supper at Mamre (The Holy Trinity of the Old Testament). The Church of Suceviţa Monastery. Courtesy of Petru Palamar 200 7.4 The Last Supper. The Church of Suceviţa Monastery. Courtesy of Petru Palamar 201 7.5 “Wisdom has built her house”. The Church of Suceviţa Monastery. Courtesy of Petru Palamar 202 7.6 The Nativity of Saint Anne. The Church of Suceviţa Monastery. Courtesy of Petru Palamar 203 7.7 The Nativity of Saint John the Baptist. The Church of Suceviţa Monastery. Courtesy of Petru Palamar 204 7.8 The Nativity of Saint George. The Church of Suceviţa Monastery. Courtesy of the “Stephen the Great” Research and Documentation Centre of Putna Monastery 205 7.9 The Miracles of Saint Nicholas. The Church of Suceviţa Monastery. Courtesy of the “Stephen the Great” Research and Documentation Centre of Putna Monastery 206 7.10 Bread loaf discovered at Negreşti-Neamţ. Courtesy of Rodica Popovici 207 7.11 Tablecloth from Suceviţa Monastery, currently at Dragomirna Monastery. Courtesy of the “Stephen the Great” Research and Documentation Centre of Putna Monastery 207

list of illustrations

17.1 Jewish tavern vs Christian church. Caricature from a Romanian anti-­semitic pamphlet (1937) which shows the endurance of the Jewish tavern-keeper stereotype into the 20th century. Courtesy of Andrei Oişteanu 485 17.2 Ukrainian tree fellers in a Jewish tavern. Engraving by F. Lewicky, Podolia (1870). Courtesy of Andrei Oişteanu 490 17.3 Romanian and Albanian burghers in a tavern in Iaşi (Moldavia). 19th-century drawing. Courtesy of Andrei Oişteanu 493 17.4 Polish peasants in a tavern run by Jews. Woodcut after a painting by Wladisław Grabowski (1850–1885), meant to support the myth of the poisoning of beverages by Jewish tavern-keepers. Courtesy of Andrei Oişteanu 497

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Notes on Contributors Margareta Aslan obtained a PhD in History, Civilization and Culture from Babeș-Bolyai University (Cluj, Romania). She is a researcher and tutor of Turkish language and culture at the Institute of Turkology and Central Asian Studies of the Babeş-Bolyai University. She has research interests in the areas of Turkology (Romanian-Ottoman relations in the Middle Ages, the Renaissance and the modern era), Oriental studies and the history of migrations (the Syrian Muslims from the 19th century until today). Her most recent publication is: Atitudini civice şi imaginea Imperiului Otoman în societatea transilvăneană în perioada Principatului (1541–1688) [Civic attitudes and the image of the Ottoman Empire in Transylvanian society during the Principality (1541–1688)] (2015). Violeta Barbu initially studied linguistics (PhD 1997, University of Bucharest, Romania) before obtaining a further PhD in the history of early-modern Romania (University of Bucharest, 2008). She was a senior research fellow at the “Nicolae Iorga” Institute of History (Bucharest). She was co-editor (with Gheorghe Lazăr) and coordinator of the collection of mediaeval documents Documenta Romaniae Historica B. Wallachia, published by the Romanian Academy (1998–2016, 10 volumes). Violeta Barbu’s main research interests were in the areas of cultural history, religious anthropology and social history (family and gender). She was also professor of Church History in the Department of Catholic Theology (University of Bucharest), specializing in the 17th-century CounterReformation in the Romanian lands and the Balkans. Her publications include: De bono conjugali (2003); Purgatoriul misionarilor: Contrareforma în ţările române în secolul al XVII-lea [The missionaries’ purgatory: the CounterReformation in the Romanian Lands in the 17th century] (2008) (Romanian Academy Award 2010); Ordo amoris (2011); Grădina rozelor: Femei din Moldova, Ţara Românească şi Transilvania (sec. XVII–XIX) (2015) [A garden of roses: women from Moldavia, Wallachia and Transylvania, 17th–19th centuries] (co-authored with Maria Magdalena Székely, Kinga Tüdős and Angela Jianu). Andrew Dalby studied classics and linguistics at Cambridge and ancient history at Birkbeck College, where he gained a PhD in 1993. He is a historian and linguist and lives in deepest France, where he grows fruit and makes cider. He usually writes on or around food history. Recent titles are The Treatise of Walter of Bibbesworth

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(2012), The Breakfast Book (2013) and The Shakespeare Cookbook (with Maureen Dalby, 2013). He contributed to The Oxford Companion to Sugar and Sweets (2015) and to The Oxford Companion to Cheese (2016). He is a trustee of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery and a frequent contributor to Petits Propos Culinaires, most recently with “Wild Parties in Prehistoric Greece” in no. 100 (2014) and “Towards a New Solution of the Butt of Malmsey Problem,” in no. 102 (February 2015). Stefan Detchev is associate professor of modern and contemporary Bulgarian history and historiography in the Department of History of the Southwestern University in Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria. He also teaches at the University of Sofia. His research interests and publications are in the field of modern and contemporary Bulgarian history with emphasis on political ideologies and the public sphere, Bulgarian nationalism, the history of masculinity and sexuality, and the history of food in South-East Europe. His publications include: “Between Slavs and Old Bulgars: ‘Ancestors,’ ‘race’ and identity in the late nineteenth century,” in Manufacturing Middle Ages: Entangled history of medievalism in nineteenthcentury Europe, eds. Patrick Geary and Gábor Klaniczay (2013); “Mezhdu vishata osmanska kukhnia i Evropa: Slaveikovata kniga ot 1870 g. i pŭtjat kŭm modernoto gotvarstvo” [Between high Ottoman cuisine and Europe: Slaveikov’s book and the road to modern cooking], Littera et Lingua (2014); “ ‘Shopska salat’”: the road from a European innovation to the national culinary symbol,” in From Kebab to Ćevapčići: Foodways in (post)-Ottoman Europe, eds. Arkadiusz Blaszczyk and Stefan Rohdewald (“Interdisziplinäre Studien zum östlichen Europa,” Harrassowitz/Wiesbaden: forthcoming, 2018). Suraiya Faroqhi is professor of history at Istanbul Bilgi University (Department of History). She has published extensively on Ottoman economic, social, religious and cultural history. Her most recent publications include: A Cultural History of the Ottomans: The imperial elite and its artefacts (2016); (as editor) Bread from the Lion’s Mouth: Artisans struggling for a livelihood in Ottoman cities (2015); Travel and Artisans in the Ottoman Empire: Employment and mobility in the early modern era (2014; pbk. ed. 2016); Artisans of Empire: Crafts and craftspeople under the Ottomans (2009); pbk. ed. 2012). She is the editor of The Cambridge History of Turkey (vol. 3, 2006) and co-editor (with Kate Fleet) of vol. 2 in the same series. In 2014 Suraiya Faroqhi received the World Congress of Middle East Studies (WOCMES) Award for outstanding contribution to Middle Eastern studies.

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Angela Jianu studied English and classics at the University of Bucharest in Romania and obtained a PhD in history from the University of York (UK) in 2004. In recent years, she has taught modern European history at the Centre for Lifelong Learning of the University of Warwick (UK) and the Department of Continuing Education at Oxford University. Her publications include: “Women, Fashion and Europeanisation in the Romanian Principalities,” in Women in the Ottoman Balkans, eds. Amila Buturović and Irvin C. Schick (2007) (trans. into Turkish as Osmanlı Döneminde Balkan Kadınları (2009); entries in the Berg Encyclopedia of World Dress and Fashion, vol. 9, ed. Joanne B. Eicher (2010); A Circle of Friends: Romanian revolutionaries and political exile, 1840–1859 (2011); Grădina rozelor: Femei din Moldova, Ţara Românească şi Transilvania (sec. XVII–XIX) (2015) [A garden of roses: women from Moldavia, Wallachia and Transylvania, 17th–19th centuries] (with Violeta Barbu, Maria Magdalena Székely, and Kinga Tüdős). Gheorghe Lazăr is senior research fellow at the “Nicolae Iorga” Institute of History (Bucharest), co-editor (with Violeta Barbu) and coordinator of the collection of mediaeval documents Documenta Romaniae Historica B. Wallachia published by the Romanian Academy (10 volumes, 1998–2016). He obtained a PhD in history at Laval-Québec University in 2005. His doctoral dissertation was published in 2006 as: Naissance et ascension d’une catégorie sociale: Les marchands en Valachie (XVII e–XVIII e siècles) (Romanian Academy Award 2008). His published works include edited documents of social, economic, and family history: Mărturie pentru posteritate: Testamentul negustorului Ioan Băluţă din Craiova [Testimony for posterity: the testament of the merchant Ioan Băluţă from Craiova] (2010); Documente privitoare la negustorii din Ţara Românească, vol. 1 (1656–1688), vol. 2 (1689–1714) [Documents on the Wallachian merchants] (2013, 2014); Catastife de negustori din Ţara Românească (secolele XVIII–XIX) [Registers of Wallachian merchants, 18th–19th centuries] (2016). Castilia Manea-Grgin obtained her MA degree in mediaeval studies from the Central European University (CEU) in Budapest (Hungary) in 1994 and defended her DPhil thesis in 2004 in Zagreb (Croatia). She is currently senior research fellow at the Ivo Pilar Institute of Social Sciences and associate professor at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences (University of Zagreb). She is the president of the Croatian National Committee (since 2009 also a member of the International Committee) of the AIESEE (Association Internationale d’Études du Sud-Est Européen). The focus of Castilia Manea-Grgin’s research is on the intellectual and religious history of Romania and Croatia in the late mediaeval

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and early modern period. Her publications include: Povijest karaševskih Hrvata u rumunjskom Banatu (16.–18. Stoljeće) [The history of the Carashevian Croats of the Romanian Banat, 16th–18th centuries] (2012); “Uvod” [Introduction] in Antun Vrančić, Historiografski fragmenti [Historiographical fragments]. eds. Šime Demo and Castilia Manea-Grgin (2014); “Wallachian and Moldavian Boyars in the Travel Writings of two Dubrovnik-born Authors, Ruđer Bošković and Stjepan Rajčević (18th century),” in Revue de l’Association internationale d’études du sud-est européen (2010–4). Anna Matthaiou studied English literature at the University of Athens and history at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (Paris). She obtained a PhD in history at Université de Paris 1, Sorbonne. She is currently associate professor in the Department of History, Archaeology, and Social Anthropology of the University of Thessaly (Volos). She specializes in modern Greek history and her main areas of interest include social and cultural history (the history of food, the history of family and sexuality, and of modern publishing). Her published work in the area of food history includes: Aspects de l’alimentation en Grèce sous la domination ottomane (1997) and I mageirike: Anonyme metafrase tou 1828 [A cookbook: anonymous translation of 1828] (1992). Other works includes: Itineraries of Melpo Axioti (1999) and The Publishing Adventure of Greek Communists, 1947–1968 (2003). Andrei Oişteanu is a cultural anthropologist and historian of religions and mentalities. He is a researcher at the Institute for the History of Religions of the Romanian Academy), lecturer in the Department for Jewish Studies (University of Bucharest), and president of the Romanian Association for the History of Religions. His book The Image of the Jew in Romanian Culture (which has been published in Romanian, Hungarian, French, German, and English), received many prestigious awards in Romania, Belgium and Israel, including the Romanian Academy Award (2011) and the European B’nei B’rith Award (2015). His other works include: Narcotics in Romanian Culture: History, religion and literature (published in Romanian and German); Cosmos vs Chaos: Myth and magic in Romanian traditional culture (1999) (published in Romanian, Italian, and English). Mária Pakucs-Willcocks obtained a PhD from the Central European University (Budapest) in 2004 and is senior researcher at the “Nicolae Iorga” Institute of History in Bucharest, with interests in the economic and social history of early modern Transylvania.

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Her works include a monograph on the trade of Sibiu published in 2007 as Sibiu-Hermannstadt: Oriental trade in sixteenth-century Transylvania, and an edition of the first town protocols of Sibiu: “zu urkundt in das stadbuch lassen einschreiben”: Die ältesten Protokolle von Hermannstadt und der sächsischen Nationsuniversität (1522–1565), published in 2016. Other publications include: “Economic Relations between the Ottoman Empire and Transylvania in the Sixteenth Century: Oriental trade and merchants,” in Osmanischer Orient und Ostmitteleuropa: Perzeptionen und Interaktionen in den Grenzzonen zwischen dem 16. und 18. Jahrhundert, eds. Robert Born and Andreas Puth (2014). Hedda Reindl-Kiel studied at the universities of Munich and Istanbul, focusing on Ottoman and South-East European history as well as Mongolian studies. In 1979 she obtained her PhD from Munich University. Before retiring in 2012, she taught at the Institute of Middle Eastern and Asian Studies of the University of Bonn, where she headed the Turkish division. In 2013–2014 she was a senior research fellow at the Research Centre for Anatolian Civilizations, Koç University, Istanbul. Her research interests are in the history of Ottoman culture, particularly material culture and gift exchange. Her many publications in the area of food history include: “Breads for the Followers, Silver Vessels for the Lord: The system of distribution and redistribution in the Ottoman Empire (16th–18th c.)” (2013); “Der Duft der Macht: Osmanen, islamische tradition, muslimische mächte und der Westen im spiegel diplomatischer geschenke” (2005); “No Pigeons for the Princes: Food distribution and rank in the Ottoman Palace, according to an unknown type of a ta‘yinat defteri (late 17th century)” (2006); “The Chickens of Paradise: Official meals in the Ottoman Palace (mid-17th Century),” in The Illuminated Table, the Prosperous House: Food and shelter in Ottoman material culture, eds. Suraiya Faroqhi and Christoph Neumann (2003). Enikő Rüsz-Fogarasi is professor in the Department of History of Babeş-Bolyai University (Cluj, Romania) and deputy dean of the Faculty of History and Philosophy. Her research interests include: urban history (civic administration, welfare, the history of guilds, food and women) in Transylvania in the 14th–17th centuries, as well as auxiliary disciplines (sigillography, historical ecology, cartography, historical geography). Her published works include: Egy elfeledett intézmény története: A kolozsvári Szentlélek-ispotály kora újkori története [The history of a forgotten institution: the early modern history of the Holy Spirit Hospital in Cluj] (2012); “Transylvanian Hospitals in the Early Modern Age,” in Mitteilungen des Instituts für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung (2007); “Habitat, alimentaţie,

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meserii” [Habitat, alimentation, handicrafts] in Istoria Transilvaniei [History of Transylvania] vol. 2, eds. Ioan Aurel Pop et al. (2005). Özge Samancı obtained a PhD in history from the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (Paris) and is currently associate professor and Head of the Department of Gastronomy and Culinary Arts at Özyeğin University in Istanbul. She has lectured, run workshops and published widely in the area of Ottoman food history. Her recent publications include: La Cuisine d’Istanbul au XIX e siècle (2015); (with Sharon Croxford) Flavours of Istanbul: A selection from original 19th-century Ottoman recipes (2007); “Les Techniques culinaires dans la cuisine d’Istanbul au XIXe siècle,” in Du feu originel aux nouvelles cuissons, ed. Jean-Pierre Williot (2015); “Culinary Consumption Patterns of the Ottoman Elite during the First Half of the 19th century,” in The Illuminated Table, the Prosperous House: Food and shelter in Ottoman material culture, eds. Suraiya Faroqhi and Christoph Neumann (2003); “Ten Years in Ottoman-Turkish Food Historiography”, Food & History (2013), and “Les sens symboliques du pain dans la culture ottomane,” Food & History (2008). She is a member of the Advisory Board of the European Institute of History of Food & Culture (IECHA) (Tours, France). Olivia Senciuc received a PhD in history from the “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University (Iaşi, Romania, 2013) with a dissertation entitled Alimentaţie şi societate în Moldova şi Ţara Românească (secolele XVI–XVIII) [Food and society in Moldavia and Wallachia, 16th–18th centuries]. Her published works on food history include: “Istoriografia românească a alimentaţiei: Geneză, surse documentare, direcţii şi metode de cercetare,” [Foodways in Romanian historiography: documentary sources, research methods], Cercetări istorice 30–31 (2011–2012); “Consumul de alcool şi beţia în Moldova şi Ţara Românească, secolul al XVI-lea—începutul secolului al XIX-lea: Semnalări documentare” [The consumption of alcohol and drunkenness in Moldavia and Wallachia, 16th-early 19th century: documentary evidence], Cercetări istorice 34 (2015). She currently works as an independent scholar. Maria Magdalena Székely is professor in the History Department of the “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University (Iaşi. Romania). Her published works include: Sfetnicii lui Petru Rareş: Studiu prosopografic [Petru Rareş’s advisors: a prosopographic study] (2002); Princeps omni laude maior: o istorie a lui Ştefan cel Mare (2005) (co-authored with

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Ştefan S. Gorovei); Maria Asanina Paleologhina: o prinţesă bizantină pe tronul Moldovei (2006) [Maria Asanina Palaiologina: A Byzantine princess on the Moldavian throne] (co-authored with Ştefan S. Gorovei); Grădina rozelor: Femei din Moldova, Ţara Românească şi Transilvania (sec. XVII–XIX) [A garden of roses: women from Moldavia, Wallachia and Transylvania, 17th–19th centuries] (2015) (co-authored with Violeta Barbu, Kinga S. Tüdős and Angela Jianu); (as editor) Lumea animalelor: Realităţi, reprezentări, simboluri [The animal world: facts, representations, symbolism] (2012). In the area of food history, she has published: “La curte, la Petru vodă” [At the court of Prince Petru], in Revista istorică (1997); “Bucate şi leacuri de altădată” [Food and remedies from the past], in Revista de istorie socială (2003–2004). Kinga S. Tüdős studied art history and psychology at the Eötvös Loránd University (Budapest), where she obtained a PhD in history. She is interested in art history, material culture and gender history of the Hungarian population in Transylvania. Before she retired in 2014, she was senior researcher at the “Nicolae Iorga” Institute of History in Bucharest, focusing on the edition of sources for the social history of the Transylvanian nobility in the 17th–18th centuries (military records and testaments). Her publications include: A régi gernyeszegi várkastély [The old castle from Gorneşti] (2009); Grădina rozelor: Femei din Moldova, Ţara Românească şi Transilvania (sec. XVII–XIX) [A garden of roses: women from Moldavia, Wallachia and Transylvania, 17th–19th centuries] (2015) (coauthored with Violeta Barbu, Maria Magdalena Székely and Angela Jianu) and Erdélyi nemesek és föemberek végrendeletei Erdélyi testamentumok [Testaments of Transylvanian nobility and gentry] (vols. 1–4) (2006–2011).

Notes on the Translation and Transliteration All chapters submitted in Romanian were translated into English by Angela Jianu and revised by the authors. There is no standard, internationally-recognized system for the transliteration of Ottoman Turkish terms and proper names into English. We have chiefly used the Redhouse Dictionary of Ottoman Turkish and English Dictionary (1997) and double-checked wherever possible against glossaries and indices in recent English-language studies. Well-known terms such as pasha and sherbet, for example, have been used in their by now familiar English spelling, rather than as paşa and şerbet as in Turkish, although the Turkish spelling was used in certain contexts. English plurals have occasionally been used for some Turkish words as in, for example, kadıs (Islamic judges) or eyalets (administrative division in the Ottoman Empire). This was done for the sake of simplicity, as the Turkish plurals would have been a little cumbersome in an English text. In the case of modern Greek historical names, historians writing in English often have to improvise and mix a number of more or less ad-hoc systems, as Stratos Myrogiannis pointed out in his study The Emergence of a Greek Identity (1700–1821) (2012). In the case of Greek and Greek-Phanariot notables, we have decided to use the Greek names for personalities who never lived in the Romanian Principalities and attempted to offer both the original Greek and the Romanianized variant for ruling princes of Moldavia and Wallachia. For example, a Phanariot ruler of 18th-century Wallachia appears as Alexandros Soutzos in Greek and Alexandru Suţu in Romanian. In the case of names of food items in the regions considered, we have attempted to offer as many regional variants as we could identify.

Chronology 1456 1459 1461 1463 1466 1476 1497 1458–90

1521 1526 1541

1541 1613–29 1657–1705 1686 1699 1703–11 1740–90 1774

János Hunyadi (Rom. Iancu de Hunedoara), governor of Transylvania and regent of Hungary, stops Turkish expansion at Belgrade Ottoman conquest of Serbia Ottoman capture of the Byzantine empire of Trebizond (Trabzon) Ottoman conquest of Bosnia Ottoman conquest of Hercegovina Ottoman conquest of Wallachia Consolidation of Ottoman control over Moldavia King Matthias I Corvinus (Hung. Mátyás Corvinus. Rom. Matei Corvin), son of János Hunyadi (Rom. Iancu de Hunedoara) reconstructs the Hungarian kingdom and introduces Renaissance culture Ottoman conquest of Belgrade Battle of Mohács: Süleyman I the Magnificent defeats the Hungarian army Ottoman occupation of Buda; division of Hungary into three parts: Ottoman, Transylvanian, Habsburg (in the west), an arrangement which lasts until the late 17th century Transylvania becomes a semi-autonomous principality under Ottoman control Transylvania’s ‘golden age’ under Prince Gábor Bethlen Leopold I, King of Hungary and Habsburg Emperor, introduces absolutism in Hungary Liberation of Buda and retreat of the Turks Peace treaty marks the end of 158 years of Ottoman occupation in Hungary Anti-Habsburg wars under Prince Ferenc (Francis) Rákoczi I Reforms under the enlightened Habsburg rulers Maria Theresa and Joseph II Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca between Russia and Turkey establishes Russia’s right to intervene on behalf of Christians in the Romanian Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia

chronology

1783 1789–1814 14 August 1804 1815 5 November 1817 March 1821 22 April 1821 1821–30 15 July 1822 24 April 1824 27 October 1826 6 July 1827 1828–9 3 February 1830 October 1833 1840 1849 1853 1854 1856 1867 1878 June–July 1878

xxiii Crimea incorporated into Russia The French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars Proclamation of Austrian Empire Serbian anti-Ottoman revolts Turkey grants Serbia partial autonomy Revolt in Moldavia and Wallachia. Rebels appeal to Russia for support against the Ottoman Porte Greeks massacre Turks in the Peloponnese; Ottoman repression Greek War of Independence The Ottomans invade Greece Lord Byron dies at Missolonghi while supporting the Greek cause The Ackerman Convention: Russia gains Serbia and the Romanian (Danubian) Principalities Treaty of London: Britain, Russia and France recognize Greek autonomy Russo-Turkish War London Conference: Greek independence guaranteed by Great Powers Russia, Austria and Prussia agree to maintain the integrity of the Ottoman Empire The Hungarian Diet legislates on the substitution of Hungarian for Latin as official language Convention of Balta Liman provides for joint RussoTurkish supervision of the Romanian (Danubian) Principalities after the failed Revolutions 0f 1848 Russia occupies the Romanian Principalities claiming protectorate of Christians in the Ottoman Empire Britain and France declare war on Russia in support of Turkey; outbreak of the Crimean War Congress of Paris: Black Sea declared neutral; the integrity of the Ottoman Empire guaranteed the Ausgleich (Austro-Hungarian Compromise): Dual Monarchy created Treaty of San Stefano: creation of Bulgaria; Romanian independence from Turkey Congress and treaty of Berlin: the Great Powers formally recognize the independence of the de facto sovereign principalities of Romania, Serbia and Montenegro

xxiv

chronology

1878

Austria occupies Ottoman-controlled Bosnia-Hercegovina Bulgaria recognized as an autonomous united principality Austrian annexation of Bosnia-Hercegovina (accepted by Russia in 1909) Treaty of Bucharest signed by Bulgaria, Serbia, Romania, Montenegro and Greece; Bulgaria loses most of Macedonia to Greece and Serbia, and southern Dobrudja to Romania.

1886 1908 10 August 1913

Map SWEDEN DENM

ARK

Scotland

SMALLER KINGDOM ND LA OF L KINGDOM O BE LG H OF PRUSSIA IU M PRUSSIA SAXONY GERMAN STATES Bohemia Moravia

Galicia

N DE

RT T

AUSTRIAN EMPIRE

WU

BA

BAVARIA

Y CAN TUS

A

SERBIA

ALB

C O R S IC

PAPAL STATES

BOSNIA

Transylvania

A

CROATIA

WALLACHIA BULGARIA

OTTOMAN

ANI A

KINGDOM OF TWO SICILIES

East-Central Europe in the 1840s.

I AV

LOMBARDY

KINGDOM OF PIEDMONT SAVOY

Hungarian Provinces

VENETIA

LD

SWITZERLAND

MO

FRANCE

EMB

E RG

England

RUSSIAN EMPIRE

SC HL ES W IG HO LS TE IN

GREECE

EMPIRE

Introduction Angela Jianu and Violeta Barbu The destiny of nations depends on how they nourish themselves. Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, The Physiology of Taste, 1826

…

The study of culinary cultures must encompass both the material nature of ingredients and the beliefs and practices connected to food.

Jeffrey M. Pilcher, Food in World History, 2006

∵ Food matters. Whether you are a foodie, a dieter, a modest eater or simply insensitive to food, what you ingest is important for your survival, for the enjoyment you derive from food, and for its nourishing virtues and health-related values. However, in most periods and most societies, eating rises above a basic animal need to become a gourmet pleasure, a political act (as in royal, elite or state banquets), a spiritual fact (as in fasting), an act of charity (if one gives food to the poor) or a way of strengthening bonds and alliances (if one dines with family, guests or clients). Given the centrality of food, cooking and eating in the lives of humans, it is surprising that a specific sub-discipline of history devoted to food is a relatively new addition to modern academic historiography. In the past, more specifically starting with the late 19th century, an interest in the history of food as an object of study per se was considered the remit of amateur historians, cooks, re-enactors and the like, ‘marginals’ deemed to ‘emasculate’ history as a serious pursuit, to use Jeffrey M. Pilcher’s words.1 With the notable exception of Fernand Braudel, Jean-Louis Flandrin and the Annales school, it was largely researchers working in the field of food studies, anthropologists and ethnographers who helped raise awareness about the ‘seriousness’ of food as 1  Jeffrey M. Pilcher, “Introduction” to The Oxford Handbook of Food History, ed. Jeffrey M. Pilcher (Oxford: 2012), xviii.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi 10.1163/9789004367548_002

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a topic for the professional, academic historian. Food studies, of course, operate within a well-established tradition, with major early contributions from structuralism (Claude Lévi-Strauss, Mary Douglas), from archaeology (for instance, the study of Kwang-Chih Chang, Food and Chinese Culture, 1977), from anthropology (for example, Sidney Mintz, with his material-cultural approach to the study of sugar in Sweetness and Power, 1985), from sociology (for example, Priscilla Parkhurst Ferguson, who has analyzed the discourses of food), or psychology (for instance, Elisabeth and Paul Rozin, who focus on the sensorial aspects of food).2 Building on such promising foundations, the history of food soared quite rapidly towards the heights of academic respectability to become a growing area of research and an established sub-discipline of history which is currently recruiting increasing numbers of professional practitioners. The editors of the recently launched Global Food History have argued that historians can make an important contribution to the study of food and foodways “by examining how cuisines have developed over time and by situating them within particular social and cultural contexts of production, distribution and consumption.”3 This encouraging nod to historians in a new specialist journal would suggest that, even though historians of food have been busy in Western Europe and the United States for a few decades now, the discipline is still, if not exactly in its infancy, at least in its ‘awkward’ teenage years. The same editorial recognizes, however, that gender studies, women’s history, histories of labour, consumption and capitalism, environmental history, and other subdisciplines have, in recent years, given an impetus to the study of food history.4 There is no scope in this Introduction for a thorough survey of the multifaceted developments in the history of food in the West and the United States in the 20th and 21st century. Readers interested in recent updates on the current state of international research in food history may look at a growing body of work from which we will cite—not without committing a grave sin of omission—a few titles: The Routledge International Handbook of Food Studies (2012), edited by Ken Albala, The Oxford Handbook of Food History (2012), edited by Jeffrey M. Pilcher, and Food in Time and Place: the American Historical Association companion to food history, edited by Paul Freedman, Joyce E. Chaplin, Ken Albala (Oakland, California: 2014). A number of peer-reviewed journals, such as Food & History (Revue de l’Institut Européen d’Histoire de 2  Pilcher, “Introduction,” xvii–xviii. 3  Katarzyna J. Cwiertka, Megan J. Elias and Jeffrey M. Pilcher, “Editorial Introduction: Writing global food history,” Global Food History 1 (1) (2015): 7. 4  Ibid. For a comprehensive survey of food history’s fairly long journey to professional respectability, see Pilcher, “Introduction” to The Oxford Handbook of Food History, xvii–xxxii.

Introduction

3

l’Alimentation), launched in 2003, and the more recent Global Food History (2015) are becoming increasingly important international forums for sharing and debating themes in food history. Most of the aforementioned titles and journal editorials include useful reminders that the use of food in bolstering family and community ties, the role of the state in food provisioning, the symbolic role of food and cuisines as markers of class and ethnicity, and numberless other food-historical themes, have a very old lineage and are best studied comparatively from a comprehensively global perspective. The latter term brings us to a concern voiced by many historians in the West and in America, a concern which historians of food in the Balkans, Central-East Europe, as well as in extra-European areas are well-placed to address: the elusiveness of truly global histories of food. For anyone working in areas of food history in the Balkans, South-East Europe and Central Europe, the existence of an already considerable and diverse body of research in the West and in the United States is a sobering and humbling consideration. Is it the case that, as often said about Eastern Europe, it is time to ‘catch up’? The notion of Eastern Europe as lagging behind the West not only in terms of economic growth and technological sophistication, but also in terms of lifestyles and culture, is now part of the historic baggage carried by these regions into the 21st century,5 and makes frequent appearances in the present volume. It is linked to some of the themes addressed by our contributors, such as, to mention only one, the perceived ‘otherness’ and/ or backwardness of the regions and nations considered here, as illustrated, for instance in the narratives of foreign travellers, especially from the 18th century onwards. What is the place of food and eating patterns in such assessments of the region? On the world map of food history, the Balkan and South-East European cuisines represent a ‘new world,’ only recently discovered and hardly explored. The expression ‘Balkan cuisine’ itself is a fairly recent cultural and historiographic construct,6 mapped onto a liminal region between East and West, a 5  It is an enduring negative image, as noted by Dennis Deletant, “Romanians,” in Imagology: The cultural construction and literary representation of national character, a critical survey, eds. Manfred Beller and Joep Leerssen (Amsterdam: 2007), 223–6. (Incidentally, this collection includes entries on imagological representations of most ethnic communities in EastCentral Europe). 6  Klaus Steinke, “Balkanküche: Revised,” in Culinaria balcanica, eds. Thede Kahl, Peter Mario Kreuter and Christina Vogel (Berlin: 2015), 17–18; Alberto Becherelli, “I Balcani tra le differenze etnico-nazionalistiche e cultura alimentare condivisa,” in I tempi e i luoghi del cibo, ed. Giovanna Motta (Rome: 2016), 233–43.

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region in which the perceived geographical, as well as cultural, boundaries are often fluid.7 In terms of the history of food, this region shares a common culinary tradition and a core alimentary lexicon, but this overlap sometimes obscures a significant diversity of practices and of superimposed cultural strata, sediments of the region’s turbulent human geology.8 Like the Balkan region itself, the notion of a ‘Balkan cuisine’ runs the risk of being construed and constructed as a culinary-geographic ensemble haunted by phantasms and stereotypes. Moreover, such representations are formed by an Other often inclined to look at the region as a mirror which reflects or distorts His/Her own image.9 When considered as a cultural component of regional identity,10 the notion of a ‘Balkan cuisine’ is expected to cover a transnational geographical area with a shared culinary patrimony resulting from processes of Ottomanization.11 Linguistically, this is supported by the use of the same vocabulary, albeit with national variations, for dishes and recipes used across the region.12 This might suggest that compiling a list of keywords should be enough to show the location of the imaginary boundaries separating a ‘Balkan cuisine’ from its Mediterranean and Central-European counterparts. In contrast to this totalizing approach stand the various analytical endeavours which try to unpick the differences and discontinuities of nation-building processes in the modern age. The latter approach presupposes a contradictory dynamic of two utopian

7  For the fluidity of boundaries in the region, see Pål Kolstø (ed.), Myths and Boundaries in South-Eastern Europe (London: 2005). 8  Maria Kaneva Johnson, The Melting Pot: Balkan food and cookery (Totnes: 1995). 9   Dimitra Gefou-Madianou, “Mirroring Ourselves through Western Texts: The limits of an indigenous anthropology”, in The Politics of Ethnographic Reading and Writing: Confrontations of Western and indigenous views, ed. Henk Driessen (Saarbrücken: 1993), 160–81; Maria Todorova, Imagining the Balkans (Oxford: 1997), 7; Božidar Jezernik, Wild Europe: The Balkans in the gaze of Western travellers (London: 2004), 29. 10  Cristina Bradatan, “Cuisine and Cultural Identity in Balkans” [sic], The Anthropology of East Europe Review 21 (1) (2003): 43–7. 11  One of the earliest academic engagements with the notion of a ‘Balkan cuisine’ was that of Amy Singer in her edited volume Starting with Food: Culinary approaches to Ottoman history (Princeton: 2011). 12  Artificial reconstructions of this kind can be found in the earliest popular compilations of ‘Balkan’ recipes, e.g. Inge Kramarz, The Balkan Cookbook (New York: 1972); Trish Davies, The Balkan Cookbook: Traditional cooking from Romania, Bulgaria and the Balkan countries (London: 1999). Cf. Alexander Kiossev, “Heroes against Sweets: The split of national and ‘anthropological’ cultures in South-East Europe,” in Proceedings of the conference Understanding the Balkans, 13–16 October 2000, Ohrid, Republic of Macedonia (2005).

Introduction

5

ideologies.13 The first is recognizable in efforts by individual nations in the second half of the 19th century directed at inventing their own native culinary tradition. The sources for these autochthonous traditions were found in a patriarchal past14 and had been transmitted from one generation to the next. Subsumed to a specific national ethos—which was easily recognizable in its essential ethnographic aspects15—these traditions were presented as unique by comparison to neighbouring peoples and communities. In opposition to such idealization of a supposed authencity, the second cultural utopia rests on a consensus among nation-building elites in their efforts at Europeanizing their nations.16 Such efforts involved the adoption and adaptation of Western culinary models, alimentary habits and table manners. Our approach in the present volume was shaped by the status of South-East Europe as a contact zone generated by multiple imperial projects, from the legacy of the Byzantine Empire and the Levantine heritage of the Venetian ‘empire,’ to the long-term Ottoman domination and control extending for four centuries over many areas in the region, as well as the emerging Habsburg claims, intent on securing a sphere of influence starting with the 17th century.17 Within a longue durée perspective (from the 16th to the late 19th century), the studies included in the present volume highlight the seductive power and the imprint of the dominant Ottoman culture on the way foodstuffs were produced, circulated and consumed, as well as the resistance opposed by local and regional traditions. Between the adoption and rejection of the Ottoman cuisine lay a wider range of culinary options which often produced more fluid, ‘multi-cultural’ ways of cooking and eating in the Ottoman-controlled areas. In this respect, food history as a discipline provides a useful angle from which 13  Alexander Kiossev, “The Dark Intimacy: Maps, identities, acts of identifications,” in Balkan as Metaphor: Between globalization and fragmentation, eds. Dušan Bjelić and Obrad Savić (Cambridge, Mass, London: 2002), 165–90. 14  Karl Kaser, Hirten, Kämpfer, Stammeshelden: Ursprünge und Gegenwart des Balkanischen Patriarchats (Vienna: 1992), 346–52; Hans-Michael Miedlig, “Patriarchalische Mentalität als Hindernis für die staatliche und gesellschaftliche Modernisierung in Serbien im 19. Jahrhundert,” Südost-Forschungen 50 (1991): 163–90. 15  Klaus Roth, “Nahrung als Gegenstand der volkskundlischen Erforschung des östlichen Europa” in Esskultur und kulturelle Identität: Ethnologische Nahrungforschung im östlichen Europa, eds. Heinke M. Kalinke, Klaus Roth and Tobias Weger (Munich: 2010), 27–38. 16  Tanja Petrović, “Europeanization and the Balkans: An introduction to the volume,” in Mirroring Europe: Ideas of Europe and Europeanization in Balkan societies, ed. eadem (Leiden: 2014), 13. 17  Rachel Laudan, Cuisine and Empire: Cooking in world history (Berkeley-Los AngelesLondon: 2013), 5–7.

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it is possible to look at the social and cultural history of this region in ways which are not limited by the dialectic of imperial centre vs. periphery. This perspective is likely to confirm the uneven patterns of imperial integration of territories situated in the second and third circle of the classic model suggested by Gilles Veinstein.18 As tribute-paying territories, the Danubian (Romanian) Principalities, Transylvania, and areas around the Black Sea engaged with the Ottoman Porte differently, compared to areas neighbouring the Aegean and the Mediterranean Seas. This difference in their social and economic integration within the Ottoman Empire was not only the outcome of specific political-contractual terms, but was also due to the fact that majority of their populations lived within the frameworks of Eastern Orthodox, Catholic or Protestant Christianity. One key methodological question which might be asked is: what is the specific contribution of food history to the understanding of the socio-cultural dynamics of the Balkans and South-East Europe compared to the more established approaches of social, and economic history, or religious anthropology? First of all, the examination and comparison of the culinary practices addressed in this volume have allowed us to understand more clearly the relation between territorial conquest and imperial administrative control. The Ottoman Balkans were territories of vast—spontaneous as well as enforced— movements of populations, which led to multiple interactions and acculturations, as well as to the construction of social networks which channelled exchanges of foodstuffs, spices, household implements, and the transmission of practices, tastes and trends. Along the fluid frontiers of the Ottoman and Habsburg Empires, around and within the area called by 19th-century diplomacy ‘la Turquie d’Europe’ (‘Turkey-in-Europe’), the mobility of foods and alimentary techniques stands in sharp contrast to representations of a static, un-evolving world left by European travellers and historians in the early modern period. For example, the advance towards Western Europe of foodstuffs such as spices, watermelons, caviar, sherbet, and coffee would be unthinkable without their earlier distribution and adoption in the Balkans, Southern and Central Europe. Other sources show that some foods and the techniques for their preparation made spectacular detours from Western Europe to the Balkans, via the Mediterranean and the Venetian dominions (Crete, Chios) and 18  Gilles Veinstein, “Le province balcaniche (1606–1774)” in Storia dell’Impero Ottomano, ed. Robert Mantran, trans. Jean-Claude Bara et al. (Lecce: 2004), 319–73. On other contributions to the debate on the status of Ottoman-controlled areas in South-East Europe, see Gábor Kármán and Lovro Kunčević (eds.), The European Tributary States of the Ottoman Empire in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (Leiden: 2013).

Introduction

7

all the way to the Ottoman capital. From Istanbul, loaded onto caravans by tradesmen, the goods travelled to the Danube—a central axis of communication in the volume’s geographical coverage—,19 then on land as far as the Carpathians and beyond, into Transylvania. The outcome of our approach is a cross-regional, cross-border analysis of the international traffic in foodstuffs which has not only shed light on regional agents and sites of trade, but has also revealed patterns, continuities and discontinuities which were specific to the European economy in general.20 All this shows that neither globalization, nor multi-culturalism in food practices are recent, 20th-century trends.21 Secondly, the food history perspective has allowed us to reconstruct the significant roles of interactions between local elites (nobles, merchants, ecclesiastics) and foreigners (visiting missionaries, merchants, diplomats) in shaping alimentary practices by spreading the use of certain foods and technologies across the empire, but also by allowing imports from Western Europe. It may be possible to speak of ‘policies of food consumption,’ which, like similar processes in sartorial fashions, oscillated between the endorsement of colonialtype imperial monopolies22 by regional elites and resistance to them. Some of the contributions to the present volume have attempted to identify and ana­ lyse the extent to which and the channels whereby elite networks contributed to the evolving culinary tastes and fashions in wider society. Finally, one cannot exclude from food history studies the specific local— social and religious—contexts which add to already complex constructions of culinary alterity. The religious ethos of the Eastern Orthodox and Muslim communities of South-East Europe was characterised by orality and ritualism. Consequently, the key source for the historian of Balkan communities on both sides of the Danube is the body of social and cultural practices as performed in these societies. The normative side of these practices comes from documents issued by the imperial Ottoman administration.23 In the present volume, however, the various approaches to local and regional culinary practices as forms of individual and collective experience24 (which include religious prescriptions, 19  Cf. Valeria Heuberger and Gottfried Stangler (eds.), Vom Schwarzwald bis zum Schwarzen Meer: Die Donau als Mittlerin europäischer Esskultur (Frankfurt am Main-Berlin: 2001). 20  Jean Yves Grenier, L’économie d’Ancien Régime: Un monde d’échange et d’incertitude (Paris: 1996). 21  Jeffrey M. Pilcher, Food in World History (New York: 2006), 13. 22  John R. Lampe and Marvin R. Jackson, Balkan Economic History, 1550–1950: From imperial borderlands to developing nations (Bloomington: 1982), 13. 23  Anna Matthaiou, Aspects de l’alimentation en Grèce sous la domination ottomane: Des réglementations au discours normatif (Bern: 1997). 24  Bernard Lepetit (ed.), Les formes de l’expérience: Une autre histoire sociale (Paris: 1995).

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collective mentalities, social links, economic behaviours and political options) draw largely on indirect sources. The general poverty of written sources, with which historians of pre-modern and early modern South-East Europe have traditionally grappled, remains an even more frustrating challenge in the culinary domain. In the present volume, the investigation of various indirect sources such as: archaeological sites, testaments, customs registers, lists of expenses, commercial correspondence, iconographic sources, religious texts and fiction, are complemented by exercises in linguistic archaeology.25 Several of the contributions rely on this method, which traces the history and circulation of culinary terms and proves its strengths whenever the reconstruction of contacts and transfers is not possible solely on the basis of material evidence. In this context, accounts by foreign observers are key sources, in spite of the risks involved in using texts which are essentially intercultural mediators of subjective representations. First-hand sources26 such as cookery books and collections of recipes are rare in these geographic areas in the 17th and 18th century, and they would appear to have circulated mainly as manuscripts. In contrast, some provinces of the Ottoman Empire such as Transylvania, annexed into the Habsburg orbit after 1700, had the confessional and institutional profile of Central-European regions. Croatia showcases the convoluted imperial history of East-Central Europe. The different regions of present-day Croatia were in the orbit of different imperial powers at various points: for example, while Ragusa (today’s Dubrovnik) a city-state paying tribute to the Ottomans in the 17th century, other areas were under Habsburg (e.g. Nikola VII Zrinski’s domain, as discussed by Castilia Manea-Grgin in the present volume) or Venetian (e.g. Dalmatia) control. For these regions, the historian is in the privileged position of being able to study the relation between institutional prescriptions and individual or collective practices in the area of culinary attitudes. At the same time, the researcher can rely on a wider range of narrative sources (memoirs, diaries) relating to the private sphere. This has allowed some of our contributors to change the scale of their investigations of social attitudes to food and consumption by shifting between the macro- and the

25  Reinhard Koselleck, Vergangene Zukunft: Zur Semantik geschichtlicher Zeiten, Begriffsge­ schichte und Sozialgeschichte (Frankfurt am Main: 1989), 121. 26  Ken Albala, “Cookbooks as Historical Documents,” in The Oxford Handbook of Food History, ed. Pilcher, 227–40; Kyri W. Claflin, “Representations of Food Production and Consumption: Cookbooks as historical sources,” in The Handbook of Food Research, eds. Warren Bellasco, Anne Murcroft and Peter Jackson (London-Oxford: 2013), 109–28.

Introduction

9

micro-historical level,27 as well by re-positioning themselves creatively as observers. The outcome is a volume which, we hope, acknowledges the variety of social contexts involving food, as well as the corresponding variety of the roles of food in our regions. Some contributors have examined various discourses on food or have analysed food from the angle of material culture (technologies of food production and preparation), from the angle of religious ceremonial and ritual, of display and representation, of consumption and dissemination of food knowledge, of social stratification, family bonds and kinship. With the notable exception of Ottoman studies, the national historiographies of the Balkan regions have not manifested a particular interest in the food history of the Ottoman period. Unsurprisingly, Turkey’s contemporary Ottoman historiography has attempted, especially after the year 2000,28 to meet the demands of an international audience increasingly curious about Turkish food traditions, a rich heritage which today’s Turkish cuisine is exploiting to the full. From a socio-cultural perspective, in recent years, Turkish historians have produced important studies on a diverse range of food-related topics: the haute cuisine of the saray, in the classical period, old recipes, typical dishes, rare ingredients, consumptions patterns, cooking techniques, the etiquette and ritual of the table, and the history of foodstuffs.29 Drawing on a rich corpus of quantitative, serial documents,30 on literary sources and life narratives, and cross-fertilized by international research into Ottoman culinary culture, recent Turkish historiography has started engaging with the study of the dissemination of foodstuffs and gastronomy over wider areas, for instance in the Mediterranean basin and Central Asia. New research themes, such as the relations between food and power, food and war, food and charity (e.g. soup kitchens, Tr. imarethane),31 offer guidelines for the exploration of 27  Giovanni Levi, “Avant la ‘révolution’ de la consommation,” in Le jeux d’échelle: La microanalyse à l’expérience, ed. Jacques Revel (Paris: 1996), 187–207. 28  See the historiographical surveys by Özge Samancı: “Food History in Ottoman-Turkish Historiography,” in Writing Food History: A global perspective, eds. Kyri W. Claflin and Peter Scholliers (London-New York: 2012), 107–120; eadem, “Ten Years in Ottoman-Turkish Food Historiography,” Food & History 10 (2) (2012): 233–42. 29  Arig Bilgin and Özge Samancı (eds.), Turkish Cuisine, trans. Cumhur Oranci et al. (Ankara: 2008). 30  Kâmil Toygar, Historical Sources on Turkish Cuisine, URL: http://www.turkish-cuisine.org/ culinary-culture-202/historical-sources-on-turkish-cuisine-207.html [accessed 4 October 2017]. 31  Amy Singer, Constructing Ottoman Beneficence: An imperial soup kitchen in Jerusalem (Albany: 2002); Suraiya Faroqhi, “Food for Feasts: Cooking recipes in sixteenth- and

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foodways beyond the gates of the the imperial palace. The study of food production, distribution, conservation and transport as integrated within systems of domination offer insights into the interactions of imperial subjects and the state administration. Research into the Ottoman food culture in the 17th–19th century period has already produced considerable results, richer by far than the emerging historiographies of Balkan cuisines. There have been a number of privileged lines of enquiry. Firstly, research has focused so far on the metropolitan and Eastern areas of the empire. Central areas such as Anatolia and the Balkans remain largely understudied, with the notable exeption of German scholarly explorations into the culinary culture of Ottoman Turks in Balkan areas.32 Secondly, research has focused mainly on the food practices of Muslim communities rather than on those of ethno-religious communities (millet) such as the Christians, Jews, the Arabic populations of the Levant, the Druze, and others. Despite such asymmetries, the domain is enjoying the increased interest of European scholars and does not suffer from the excesive ‘feminization’ of the national Balkan historiographi. The wide-ranging thematic coverage sourced from a rich archival material have earned Ottoman food history a respectable place within the disciplines of Ottoman social history, historical anthropology and literary studies. In contrast, the overall picture of explorations into Balkan foodways within the region’s national historiographies remain patchy, which is understandable, given this sub-discipline’s late start. Before 1990, Greek historiography focused largely on the imperial cuisine of the Byzantine period, and especially on the material aspects of food culture. More recently, Greek historians, for example Anna Matthaiou, Marianna Yerasimos and Sula Bozis, have conducted research into the food culture of Greece in the Ottoman period, from different perspectives. Having edited an anonymous translation of a cookbook from 1828,33 Matthaiou (who also contributes to the present volume) then studied the normative aspects of Ottoman regulations of urban markets, as seventeenth-century Anatolian hostelries (imaret),” in Feeding People, Feeding Power: Imarets in the Ottoman Empire, eds. Amy Singer, Christoph Neumann and Nina Ergin (Istanbul: Eren, 2007), 197–208. 32  Gabriella Schubert, “Deutschsprachige Reiseberichte zu Eßgewohnheiten und Tischsitten der Muslimen auf dem osmanisch besetzten Balkan,” in Körper, Essen und Trinken im Kulturverständnis der Balkanvölker, ed. Dagmar Burkhart (Wiesbaden: 1991), 107–16: Klaus Steinke, “Die Türken und die Balkanküche: Kulinarisches und sprachliches aus Bulgarien und Rumänien,” in Körper, Essen und Trinken, ed. Burkhart, 219–27. 33  Anna Matthaiou, Aspects de l’alimentation en Grèce; eadem, “Apo tis ‘koinotites tis omoiotitas’ sta fagita tis siopis,” Historica 56 (2012): 81–100.

Introduction

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well as food consumption in rural areas and the culinary habits of the Greek population.34 Marianna Yerasimos suggested the label “Rum cuisine” for the alimentary culture of the Greek population under Ottoman domination, which she has studied from the perspective of religious anthropology.35 An expert on Ottoman cuisine,36 Yerasimos highlights specific features and differences without, however, neglecting cultural transfers between the region’s diverse communities. Bozis chose to focus more narrowly on a single city, Istanbul, and studied recipes used by the Greek population of the imperial city from an anthropologic-ethnographic perspective, largely devoid of a diachronic dimension.37 We cannot conclude this brief overview without a reference to the special inter-disciplinary 2016 issue of the journal Cahiers balkaniques devoted to the theme “Manger en Grèce.” The highlights of the issue’s history section include contributions to the understanding of table manners and eating habits in the Greek colony of Venice, in territories still under Venetian control in the 17th century (Crete), and in the Aegean isles. There are important suggestions for future research on culinary culture in the 18th-century Balkans in the article by Alkisti Sofou on the Greek conduct manuals [Christoitheia] by Antonios Vyzantios and Chesarios Daponte. Published in Vienna in 1770,38 these manuals of etiquette also circulated in the Romanian Principalities. Starting with their beginnings in the 19th century, and in phase with Western, and particularly with German developments in the professionalization of the discipline,39 the national historiographies in the Balkan region have been overwhelmingly, and understandingly, concerned with issues of national identity and nation-building.40 The first stirrings of an interest in social history

34  Anna Matthaiou, I mageirike: Anonyme metafrase tou 1828 (Athens: 1992); eadem, “Prier comme un Turc et manger comme un chrétien: La circulation des cultures alimentaires sous la domination ottomane,” in Histoire et identités alimentaires en Europe, eds. Martin Bruegel and Bruno Laurioux (Paris: 2002), 217–28. 35  Marianna Yerasimos, “Rum (Greek) cuisine in the Ottoman Period,” in Turkish Cuisine, eds. Bilgin and Samancı, 219–30. 36  Marianna Yerasimos, 500 Years of Ottoman Cuisine, trans. Sally Bradbrook (Istanbul: 2005). 37  Sula Bozis, The Taste of Istanbul: Culinary culture of Istanbul’s Greeks (Istanbul: 2000). 38  Alkisti Sofou, “Se mettre à table au XVIIIe siècle,” Cahiers balkaniques 2016 (special issue), URL: http://journals.openedition.org/ceb/7709 [accessed 5 January 2018]. 39  Burkhart (ed.), Körper, Essen und Trinken (Wiesbaden: 1991); Kalinke et al. (eds.), Esskultur und kulturelle Identität (Munich: 2010); Kahl et al. (eds.), Culinaria balcanica (Berlin: 2015). 40  On the retrograde step taken by historians’ interest in the ‘social’ (including food) as a result of these 19th-century developments, see Pilcher, “Introduction,” xvii.

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and historical anthropology41 as such date back to the 1950s. For a long time, they remained essentially Marxist-oriented sub-disciplines of history in the countries of the Eastern Bloc. It is only in recent years that the national historiographies of the Balkans and South-East Europe have opened up to the study of food history, but the study of food and of Balkan traditional alimentary habits remained for a long time the preserve of ethnographers.42 After 1990, historians in these regions started to collect and edit important primary sources related to the study of food culture. In Romania,43 Bulgaria44 and Croatia45 the publication of manuscript cookbooks or the reissue of such books first published in the 19th century were early steps towards the launch of a new area of historical investigation. There were some early and unexpected findings: for instance, a comparative analysis of 19th-century cookbooks printed in Norway, Greece, Slovakia and Romania shows that, rather than being compilations of traditional dishes, these were collections of heavily Westernized recipes and culinary practices.46 Alongside cookbooks, historians paid increasing attention to new editions and compilations of narrative sources such as travel accounts and diaries,47 which, as shown by the majority of the studies in the present 41  Karl Kaser, Siegfried Gruber and Robert Pichler (eds), Historische Anthropologie im südöstlichen Europa: Eine Einführung (Vienna: 2003). 42  See, for example, the case of Bulgaria: Christo Vakarelski, Bulgarische Volkskunde (Berlin 1969), 62–78. Wassil Marinow, “Nahrung und Ernährung des alten bulgarischen Volkes Schopen in der Umgebung von Sofia (18.–20. Jh.), in Ethnologische Nahrungsforschung. Ethnological Food Research, eds. Niilo Valonen and Juhan E. Lehtonen (Helsinki: 1975), 175–90. 43  Ioana Constantinescu and Matei Cazacu (eds.), O lume într-o carte de bucate: Manuscris din epoca brâncovenească (Bucharest: 1997). This is a study of a manuscript cookbook dated 1749, but probably compiled earlier, as Castilia Manea-Grgin argues in the present volume. 44  Petko Slaveikov, Gotvarska kniga ili nastavlenia za vsiakakvi gostbi spored kakto gi praviat v Tsarigrad i razni domashni spravi: Sŭbrani ot razni knigi (Istanbul: 1870; repr. Shumen: 1991; Varna: 1992; Sofia: 2001); Petko Slaveikov, Gotvarski recepti (Shumen: 1994). 45  Petar Hektorović, Ribanje i ribarsko prigovaranje, trans. Marko Grčić (Zagreb: 2011); Zlatko Puntijar and Matea Puntijar (eds.), Kuharska knjiga Čakovečkog dvora obitelji Zrinski: Iz vremena Nikole Zrinskog Ban hrvatski 1647–1664 (Zagreb: 2007). Darko Varga, Hrana, kuhinja i blagovanje u doba Zrinskih (Zagreb: 2016) (these are divulgative editions). 46  Henry Notaker, “En contrepoint: L’identité nationale à travers les livres de cuisine du XIXe siècle,” in Histoire et identités alimentaires, eds. Bruegel and Laurioux (Paris: 2002), 140–7. 47  Vesna Goldsworthy, “The Balkans in Nineteenth-Century British Travel Writing,” in Travel Writing in the Nineteenth Century: Filling the blank spaces, ed. Tim Youngs (Cambridge: 2012), 19–36; Maria Holban, M.M. Alexandrescu-Dersca Bulgaru and Paul Cernovodeanu (gen. eds.), Călători străini despre ţările române [Foreign travellers on the Romanian

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volume, include a wealth of references to the alimentary cultures of the Balkans as perceived by foreign visitors. In Romania, monographs in the area of food history include: a short overview by Matei Cazacu published in English as The Story of Romanian Gastronomy (1999), and an unpublished doctoral dissertation by Iosif Lukács on the gastronomy of the Transylvanian city of Cluj in the Renaissance (2012).48 Two more studies are also worth mentioning, both approaching food from a philological and linguistic angle: one, by Mariana Neţ (1998), looks at 19th-century cookbooks,49 the other, by Petronela Savin (2012), examines the Romanian culinary vocabulary.50 It is also worth mentioning here that Transylvanian gastronomy has been specifically the object of research which resulted in doctoral dissertations and monographs, published both in Hungary,51 and in Romania. Some of these contributions are available in Caiete de antro­ pologie istorică, a journal published by Babeş-Bolyai University in Cluj.52 When we launched a call for contributions for a volume on the history of food in the Ottoman Balkans, South-Eastern and Central Europe from roughly the 16th to the late 19th century, we did not have an already-established core group of researchers working in this field, although we were familiar with the work of members of the Centre for South-East European Studies at Giessen. The respondents to our appeal included well-established scholars working in the field of food history, as well as academics and scholars at various stages in their careers who had already produced some work on food history or those who were ready to postpone whatever they were doing at that moment for the sake of meeting the challenges of a new, but enticing, topic. The lands], 10 vols. (Bucharest: 1968–2001); new series, 9 vols. to date (Bucharest: 2004–); Giuseppe Motta, Viaggiando nelle terre romene (Viterbo: 2004); Mihailo Popović, Von Budapest zu Istanbul: Die via Traiana im Spiegel der Reiseliteratur des 14 bis 16 Jahrhunderts (Leipzig: 2010); Virginia Petricǎ, Identitate culinară românească din perspectiva călătorilor străini (Bucharest: 2013); Auguste De Gérando, Transilvania și locuitorii săi, vol. 1, trans. Laurenţiu Malomfălean and Marius Mitrache (Cluj-Napoca: 2014). 48  Iosif Lukács, Clujul Renascentist: Aspecte privind viața cotidiană în Cluj în secolul al XVI-lea și al XVII-lea: Alimentația și gastronomia, unpublished doctoral thesis (BabeşBolyai University, Cluj-Napoca: 2012). 49  Mariana Neţ, Cărţile de bucate româneşti: Un studiu de mentalităţi (Bucharest: 1998). 50  Petronela Savin, Universul din lingură: Despre terminologia alimentară românească (Iaşi: 2012). 51   Balázs Gábor Füreder, A “Hosszú reneszánsz konyhakultúra”: Magyar nyelvű szakácskönyveinek bemutatása és összehasonlitó elemzése, unpublished doctoral thesis (Debrecen University: 2009). 52  See, for instance, the thematic issue 5 (2006): Identităţi şi sensibilităţi culinare europene.

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volume editors’ greater familiarity with the three Romanian historic provinces (Wallachia, Moldavia, Transylvania) has inevitably left its imprint on its general outline. The second section, “Ingredients, Kitchens and the Pleasures of the Table,” includes three summative studies on food culture and traditions in these regions which reveal two key characteristics pertaining more generally to a Balkan culinary culture: its regional diversity and its role as a cultural conduit between West and East. There are geographic and thematic areas for which we could not find contributors, either because we did not cast our net far enough, but more likely because of the scarcity of researchers working on food history in the countries of our region. The turbulences which have affected and reconfigured areas of the Balkans (Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, Macedonia, Albania) in the last two decades have also had an impact on the choice of research thematics. Historians’ interests remained focused on the region’s geopolitics and national ‘questions,’ the traditional historical themes over the previous century and a half. Regional culinary traditions are starting to earn a place among studies of nationalist ideologioes, “social poetics” of cultural intimacy,53 founding myths, contested memories and entangled identities. They join other regional particularities, previously of interest only to ethnographers and anthropologists, and are fast emerging as heritage ‘country brands’ often used in discourses of self-identification.54 Historical research into the culinary cultures of the Western Balkans must regain its scientific detachment and re-invent its tools, particularly in the recently-created states.55 More importantly from our perspective, it has to rediscover the roots of shared tradition and sociability which characterized the region’s communities in premodern times. Inns, caravanserais, commercial routes and markets were some of the sites of conviviality for nomadic, migrating populations, facilitating the circulation of goods, foods, artefacts and ideas.56 It would have been utopian 53  Michael Herzfeld, Cultural Intimacy: Social poetics in the nation-state (New York-London: 2006), 1–36; Alexander Kiossev, “The Dark Intimacy”, 166–8. 54  Tatjana Aleksić, (ed.), Mythistory and Narratives of the Nation in the Balkans (Cambridge: 2007). 55   The Anthropological Field on the Margins of Europe, eds. Alexander Bošković and Chris Hann (Vienna-Berlin: 2013). 56  As a textbook example of such interchanges, see the circulation of a Bulgarian cookbook between Istanbul, Sarajevo and Belgrade as discussseed by Stefan Detchev in his contribution to the present volume. For inter-ethnic contacts in the Balkans, see François Georgeon, “Présentation,” in Vivre dans l’Empire Ottoman: Sociabilités et relations intercommunautaires (XVIIIe–XIXe siècles), eds. François Georgeon and Paul Dumont (Paris: 1997), 3–18.

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to hope that the present volume might offer a comprehensive picture of early modern shared culinary traditions. But their study should gradually find its way towards the ‘infrastructure’ of academic periodicals with an inter-regional Balkan coverage such as Études balkaniques, Revues des études sud-est européennes, Südost-Forschungen, Cahiers balkaniques, Zeitschrift für Balkanologie, and others. The publication of primary sources should play a major role in filling in the blanks in the history of food and foodways in the Balkans. Areas of present-day Albania inhabited by neighbouring communities of Vlachs and Morlachs, as well as areas of Bosnia, were in the past the object of attention of Catholic missions in the region. Their reports, written in Latin and Italian, often include references to local culinary traditions and eating habits and should in the future help researchers place these regions on the map of Balkan and European food history. As Ken Albala noted fairly recently (with respect to culinary history rather than its older sister, food history), the lack of translated sources (and, we would add, translated secondary literature) explains why, so far, this subdiscipline has remained “resolutely European and North American.”57 Language and translation barriers can, indeed, constitute a logistic difficulty in a volume of this kind, a difficulty which we met by resorting to the—often convoluted— method of having texts translated, for example, from one language into the editors’ native Romanian and then into English. (Issues of transliterations of Ottoman terms are explained in the “Notes on translation and transliteration.”) Much remains to be done in research on the production, trade, distribution and consumption of food among the peasant populations of the Balkans. Although some of the studies in our volume include urban-rural comparisons, the nature of our sources and the state of research dictated a focus on elite consumption at court and in urban environments. Balkan rural economies remained autarkical, closed systems throughout our period and the beginnings of a consumer society were late compared to other regions of pre-modern and early modern Europe.58 Likewise, we would have liked to learn more about the preparatiom and storage of food as well as about table etiquette, beyond the examples for 16th- and 18th-century Transylvania offered by Kinga Tüdős in her contribution and the coffee-drinking rituals of the Romanian boyar 57  Ken Albala, “Culinary History,” in The Routledge International Handbook of Food Studies (London, New York: 2012, repr. 2013), ed. idem, 119. 58  Cf. Anne Radeff, Du café dans le chaudron. Économie globale d’Ancien Regime: Suisse occidentale, Franche Comté et Savoie (Lausanne: 1996); Beat Kümin, “Introduction” to A Cultural History of Food in the Early Modern Age, ed. idem., vol. 4 of A Cultural History of Food, gen. eds. Fabio Parasecoli and Peter Scholliers (London: 2012, repr. pbk. 2016), 4–8.

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elites discussed by Olivia Senciuc. The vast topic of representations of food in art (illustrated here by Maria Magdalena Székely’s references to Moldavia’s 16th-century church murals) is an important area to be tapped by historians of food in the Balkans and East-Central Europe. The volume editors did not impose a common methodological framework and, consequently, our colleagues and contributors were free to approach food in their respective regions from a number of different vantage points. Many of us, especially those at relatively early stages in our research on food history, have decided to be resolutely ‘empirical’ and opt for a minimalist method: we followed the trail of our primary sources to see what groundwork we could cover and what signposts we could offer for further research. In many of the contributions to this volume, from the descriptive and often erudite accumulation of detail emerge patterns of behaviour, influences and processes. These, as well as the promise of comparative analyses of cultural exchange and influences over wider territorial areas should remain the goal of those pursuing research in the history of Balkan foodways. We hope that, far from being a drawback, the volume’s linguistic and methodological diversity is a strength in terms of providing a trans-national, comparative dimension and might contribute towards the ‘globalization’ of food history.

Earthly Delights

Section 1: Flavours, Tastes and Culinary Exchange: Food and Drink in the Ottoman Empire One crucial aspect of food history in the regions under consideration here is the impact of Ottoman culinary traditions and the diverse ways in which it manifested itself according to locale. The first section of the volume (“Flavours, Tastes and Culinary Exchanges: Food and Drink in the Ottoman world”) considers various aspects of Istanbul’s food culture and of its impact in Transylvania and the Romanian Principalities. Suraiya Faroqhi (“Should it be Olives or Butter? Consuming Fatty Titbits in the Ottoman Empire”) looks at a wide range of sources—from Ottoman imperial account books to price registers and travel narratives—in order to chart the ‘competition’ between the use of butterfat vs. olive oil both as cooking ingredients and as fuel. She uncovers the astonishing fact that the modern use of olives as ingredients of healthy diets took longer to get established than we would expect today, in an age which places much emphasis on healthy, fat-free eating.

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Hedda Reindl-Kiel (“Simits for the Sultan, Cloves for the Mynah Birds: Records of Food Distribution in the Saray”) cites complementary evidence of ‘conservative,’ ‘elitist’ attitudes among imperial and elite circles in Istanbul which marginalized olive oil until the 20th century. Her main focus, however, is the distribution of bread at the very top of Ottoman society, its centre of power in Istanbul. She examines the quality and amount of the bread allocations in the saray as markers of rank: the rank and status of the recipients were reflected in the amount of bread, a basic food (rather than a luxury food item), which they received and which they subsequently re-distributed to their networks of dependants and clients. Thus, a staple food was used by the Ottoman elites both to reinforce hierarchies and to strengthen family and clientelar networks. Özge Samancı (“The Cuisine of Istanbul between East and West during the 19th Century”) draws on Ottoman cookbooks published in Istanbul between 1844 and the 1920s and on 19th-century palace kitchen registers to show how: a. the impact of the Columbian Exchange on the cuisine of Istanbul was only felt in the last period of the empire and b. how Turkish (“alaturka”) and European (“alafranga”) foods, dishes and table manners continued to co-exist in this period. The term ‘melting pot’ is a more than apt descriptor for the mingling of ingredients and flavours which resulted in the fusion cuisine adopted by most of the nations in Eastern Europe and the Balkans, a fusion which had echoes in Central Europe as well. Margareta Aslan (“Turkish Flavours in the Transylvanian Cuisine, 17th–19th Centuries”) offers a survey of Ottoman influences on the local gastronomical traditions of Transylvania using recipe collections, as well as narrative and linguistic evidence. She shows that the main channels for the transmission of new cooking ingredients and techniques from the Ottoman Porte to Transylvania were travellers and diplomats on the one hand, and merchants and artisans, on the other. The former sampled the Ottoman cuisine and encouraged emulation and innovation, while merchants, both Turkish and Central-European, managed the exchanges of commodities and expertise between the Porte and the areas it controlled in the region. Olivia Senciuc (“Exotic Brew? Coffee and Tea in 18th-Century Moldavia and Wallachia”) completes the tableau of Ottoman culinary influences with a look at the adoption of coffee in the Romanian Principalities. It might be interesting to note that the Arabic name for the drink, ḳahwa, was originally a name for wine, later transferred to the beverage made from the berry of the coffee tree (see entry in the Encyclopedia of Islam). Today an almost obligatory breakfast or post-prandial drink all over the world, until the 1690s coffee was imported into Western and Central Europe in small amounts via the Levantine ports of the Ottoman Empire, before regular supply sources shifted to Mocha, Java and

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Saint Domingue.59 As tribute-paying states, the Romanian Principalities were in a privileged position to offer their elites an early opportunity of sampling the drink. Olivia Senciuc shows that, although we may not know who was the first Romanian to have a sip of the hot, flavoured drink, coffee-drinking took both provinces by storm in the 18th and early 19th century. In phase with developments elsewhere in Europe, the period also saw the emergence of the first coffee-houses as places of sociability and arguably as sites of potentially subversive political debate.60 Section 2: Ingredients, Kitchens and the Pleasures of the Table In the volume’s second section, Kinga Tüdős, Maria Magdalena Székely and Violeta Barbu discuss the farming potential of the land and the locally-sourced foods in Transylvania and the Romanian Principalities. They also look at the material aspects of cooking such as kitchen and dining spaces, table service and the different ways in which food was enjoyed across social and religious boundaries. At one point in her survey of 16th- and 17th-century Transylvanian cookbooks and memoirs, Kinga Tüdős (“Kitchen Gardens and Festive Meals in Transylvania, 16th–18th Centuries”) cites the gourmet Baron Apor Péter’s comments in 1736 on the use of lard being the mark of a “truly Hungarian dish,” as opposed to the preferred choice of butter in German—and implicitly French—dishes. It could have been a casual observation, but one which makes the historian wonder whether this could in fact provide incipient evidence that the 18th century witnessed the emergence of a new awareness of national tastes and cuisines in Central-East Europe, an issue analysed in greater detail by Anna Matthaiou (Macedonia/Greece) and Castilia Manea-Grgin (Romania/ Croatia) in this volume. Maria Magdalena Székely (“Food and Culinary Practices in 17th-Century Moldavia: Tastes, Techniques, Choices”) and Violeta Barbu (“‘The ‘Emperor’s Pantry’: Food, Fasting and Feasting in Wallachia, 17th–18th Centuries”) have 59  Jan de Vries, “Understanding Eurasian Trade in the Era of the Trading Companies,” in Goods from the East, 1600–1800: Trading Eurasia (2015), eds. Maxine Berg et al., 28. 60  Holly Chase has shown that there had been precedents for the surveillance and closure of coffee-houses in Istanbul itself as early as 1633, when Sultan Murat IV ordered the demolition of such establishments. See Holly Chase, “The Company of Qahwa,” Proceedings of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery (1991), 58, note 17. For early coffee-drinking from a Polish perspective, see Anna Malecka, “How Turks and Persians Drank Coffee: A little-known document of social history by Father J.T. Krusiński,” Turkish Historical Review 6 (2015): 175–93.

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contributed two comprehensive surveys of foodways in the two Romanian Principalities, drawing on a rich source base and on the secondary literature available so far for the history of food in Romania. Székely looks at narrative, as well as archaeological, visual, anthropological and linguistic sources to provide not only reconstructions of dishes and kitchen spaces, but also to discuss the use of foods in the treatment of various medical conditions, the superstitions constructed around certain goods, the link between eating and faith and the period’s prescriptions on excessive eating and drinking. She devotes a special section to table displays and service as parts of a system of social representation. Violeta Barbu considers a number of inter-related aspects of food history in early-modern Wallachia starting from the well-documented contrast between the fertility of the soil and the deprivation of the general population. Based on published and unpublished archival sources (inventories, registers of expenses, private notes and diaries etc.), Barbu’s study uses a religiousanthropological angle to examine the possibility that the inefficient farming and exploitation of natural resources was due not only to an entrenched economy of subsistence and to the quasi-colonial nature of Ottoman control, but also to the natives’ submission to the cosmic cycle of nature as determined by the inscrutable will of the Creator. Such a reading undermines observations by many observers, including foreign visitors, who often attributed poor farming to the natives’ alleged sloth, a well-established trope in representations of the Romanian peasant. Barbu’s overview also offers much detail on the types of foods and dishes available to the elites, as well as to the general population, in a religious calendar dominated by days of fasting. Section 3: Food and Cities: Supply, Mobility, Trade In the volume’s third section, three historians look at patterns of food supply and channels of food exchange and trade in two Transylvanian major cities (Cluj and Sibiu), as well as at fashionable food imports in Wallachia, one of the Romanian (Danubian) principalities. Enikő Rüsz-Fogarasi (“Food Supply and Distribution in early modern Transylvania (1541–1711): the Case of Cluj”) examines the production and supply of bread and meat in one of the largest Transylvanian cities, Cluj (Hung. Kolozsvár; Ger. Klausenburg). She looks at the legislation governing the activities of mills, guilds and trade associations, as well as at the control exercised by municipal authorities concerned to feed the population as a priority. It is noteworthy in this context that it was under the influence of incoming Saxon and Magyar settlers that some towns in the Romanian Principalities adopted the ‘Transylvanian model’ of guild organization in the 16th century. However,

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the development of an autonomous system of local trade and urban provisioning was hindered by the fact that 17th-century towns in the Romanian Principalities were the personal domains of the ruling princes. The Saxon, Magyar and Armenian colonists were gradually assimilated and replaced by Levantine, Greek, Turkish and Jewish artisans and traders.61 Further research is needed before patterns of food supply and of the state’s approach to ‘food security’ in Transylvania and the two Principalities can be studied comparatively. A key practical role in making culinary exchanges possible and in exposing wider social groups to the new ‘fashions’ belongs to the merchants and the legal-economic contexts in which they operated in early-modern CentralEast Europe. Globalization is not a recent development,62 and the engine that drove it—and the economic rise of the West as opposed to the ‘rest’—was the emergence in Western Europe and the Americas of an increasingly influential merchant class. By the 18th century, it was the affluent members of this group who, apart from their purely entrepreneurial roles, led the way in the creation of a modern urban culture with new forms of consumption, sociability and intellectual exchanges.63 In a recent study on the multi-ethnic network of traders in the Balkans, Evguenia Davidova has argued that these “professional boundary-crossers” mediated forms of co-existence and cooperation in the region (including, we would add, East-Central Europe) which is often obscured by perceptions of confrontation and violence.64 In the present volume, Mária Pakucs-Willcocks and Gheorghe Lazǎr both focus on trade to show that Transylvania (in Central Europe) and the Romanian Principalities (in the East) participated, albeit more modestly, in the new global trade networks and, crucially, mediated some of the East-West culinary exchanges. Mária Pakucs-Willcocks (“Spices and Exotic Foods in 17th-Century Transylvania: The Customs Accounts of Sibiu”) uses customs accounts and expenditure accounts of town officials in Sibiu ((Hung. Nagyszeben, Ger. Hermannstadt) to analyse the imports of exotic fruits, spices, rice, coffee and tobacco from the Ottoman Empire and the city’s role in provisioning Transylvania’s premier princely court at Alba Iulia as the seat of elite weddings and official events. A spice-laden cuisine had been typical of the late Middle 61  Laurenţiu Rădvan, Oraşele din ţările române în Evul Mediu (Iaşi: 2011), 594–9. 62  Jeffrey M. Pilcher, Food in World History (London, New York: 2006), 6. 63  Ibid., 18. 64  Evguenia Davidova, Balkan Transitions to Modernity and Nation-states: Through the eyes of three generations of merchants (1780s–1890s) (Leiden: 2013). Davidova borrowed the expression “professional boundary-crossers” from Norman O. Brown, Hermes the Thief: The evolution of a myth (University of Wisconsin Press: 1947), 44. Davidova, “Introduction,” 1.

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Ages in Western Europe, but by the 17th century the heavy use of spices had peaked in favour of a greater use of sugar in cooking.65 In contrast, the elite cuisine of Central Europe, including Transylvania, remained very much in thrall to intensely-flavoured spices in food, as both Pakucs-Willcocks and Margareta Aslan show in their contributions to the present volume. Gheorghe Lazǎr (“The Food Trade in 18th-Century Wallachia between Daily Subsistence and Luxury”) grapples with one of the greatest handicaps faced by historians of the Romanian early modern period: the relative poverty of written sources. Nevertheless, he comes up with a cogent analysis of the methods used by Wallachian merchants in purchasing and distributing food produce, both the ‘basic’ items used in everyday consumption and ‘luxury’ items such as spices and exotic fruit (lemons, pineapples). He argues that the growing taste for such produce was due to a ‘civilizing’ process among the elites, but also to their desire to display their status through ‘conspicuous consumption,’ a trend also noted by foreign visitors to the country in the period.66

Section 4: Cooking, Tradition, and Innovation: Food Recipes Old and New As early as 1980, when food history as a modern academic sub-discipline was still in its infancy, participants at the Oxford Symposium on Food & Cookery, today still one of the leading forums for debate on food historical issues, acknowledged the importance of cookbooks and recipes for an understanding of what and how humans ate in the past (Petits Propos Culinaires, 1979).67 Two studies in the present volume draw our attention to the contribution of Central- and East-European cookery books and compendia of recipes to what Stephen Mennell has called the “public sphere of gastronomic discourse,”

65  For further comments on the rise and decline of spices in Western cuisines see, for example, Pilcher, Food, “Introduction.” 4–5, and 30–5. 66  For further observations on the role of merchants in disseminating new culinary trends, see also Stefan Detchev’s comments on the Bulgarian merchant and cookbook author Dimitri Smrikarov in his contribution to the present volume. On foreign travellers’ critique of luxury among the Romanian native elites, see also Violeta Barbu’s and Angela Jianu’s chapters. 67  On the importance of cookery books and the methodology for analysing them, see Kyri W. Claflin, “Food among the Historians: Early modern Europe,” in Writing Food History: A global perspective, eds. Kyri W. Claflin and Peter Scholliers (London, New York: 2012), p. 52; Ken Albala, “Culinary History,” in The Routledge International Handbook of Food Studies, ed. Ken Albala (London, New York: 2012, repr. 2013), 114–21.

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which evolved in the long eighteenth century and expanded significantly in the nineteenth.68 Castilia Manea-Grgin (“Two South-East European Recipe Collections in their 17th-Century Historical Context”) looks at two manuscript collections of recipes from 17th-century Croatia and Romania and explores what they have to say about elite food consumption not only in terms of ingredients, especially in terms of the impact of other culinary traditions. While such compilations, being manuscripts privately-owned by high-ranking affluent nobles, do not shed any light on food consumption in the wider society, they do indicate the main sources and influences on the food eaten in rarefied elite circles. In the case of Ban Nikola Zrinski’s Croatia, such influences were a fusion of Italian, Austrian-German, and, to a lesser extent, French, cultures. In the Romanian Principality of Wallachia, at the court of Prince Constantin Brâncoveanu and his top courtier Constantin Cantacuzino, Italian influence mingled with French, while, strangely enough, the Ottoman Turkish culinary tradition was present only at the level of the vocabulary of food. Manea-Grgin argues that such Western and Central-European influences in cooking can be linked to the anti-Ottoman political stance of these rulers and to their sense of the place of their nations in Europe. In contrast, Stefan Detchev (“From Istanbul to Sarajevo via Belgrade: A Bulgarian Cookbook from 1874”) looks at the first cookery writings to be published in the Bulgarian language in the 1870s and at their role in forging the ‘modern Bulgarian housewife’ and a Bulgarian modern cuisine. He makes some surprising discoveries. One was that, well into the 19th century, Bulgarian women lacked basic cooking and household management skills, a lack which the two texts set out to remedy. However, even though we are far from the exclusive circles of the Croatian Zrinskis and the Wallachian Cantacuzinos (see above), the complex and expensive recipes in the two collections were only affordable to affluent, elite urbanites rather than to modest rural wives. Detchev’s second argument is that, with both compendia chiefly recommending the types of food served at the Ottoman court in Istanbul, they helped to embed the Turkish elite culinary tradition into what ultimately became the ‘national’ cuisine of modern Bulgaria. 68   Stephen Mennell, “Eating in the Public Sphere in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries”, in Eating Out in Europe: Picnics, gourmet dining, and snacks since the late eighteenth century, eds. Marc Jacobs and Peter Scholliers (Oxford: 2003), 245–60. Cited by Ludmilla Kostova in “Meals in Foreign Parts: Food in writing by nineteenth-century British travellers to the Balkans,” Journeys: The international journal of travel and travel writing 4 (1) (Summer 2003): 25.

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Section 5: Representations, Travellers’ Tales, Myths Travel narratives are an important historical source for some of the relatively source-poor areas of South-East Europe. Travellers, military men and diplomats had key roles in disseminating gastronomic trends, knowledge of new ingredients and culinary expertise as mediators between East and West, chiefly at elite level. The last section of the volume reviews the ‘hard’ facts of the production, sourcing and exchange of foodstuffs through the ‘soft-focused’ lens of eyewitness representations and travel narratives. Andrew Dalby and Angela Jianu explore culinary encounters between WestEuropean travellers and locals as recorded in travel accounts from the 18th and 19th centuries. Dalby’s contribution is a highly readable account of foods, dishes and commensality in Transylvania from the 17th to the early 20th century (“ ‘It is in truth an island’: Impressions of Food and Hospitality in 19th-Century Transylvania”). He performs a close reading of a great array of such narratives, including Emily Gerard’s The Land Beyond the Forest (1888) which famously was one of Bram Stoker’s sources for Dracula, to highlight the perceived ‘difference’ of this European outpost. This difference was later obscured by the arrival or railways, the transformation of inns into hotels and cafés, in sum, by the shift from travel to tourism. Angela Jianu (“The Taste of Others: Travellers and Locals Share Food in the Romanian Principalities, 19th Century”) samples a number of travel narratives to the Romanian lands and analyses the use of stereotypes of ‘othering’ and ‘mirroring’ in Western visitors’ descriptions of regional foods and the ways they were eaten. Dalby’s and Jianu’s sampled texts point to at least two overlapping broad themes. One general impression is that, until the mid-19th century at least, a tendency to ‘patronize’ the ‘natives’ from the vantage point of West-European metropolitan cultures was equalled— if not actually surpassed—by a sense of “vulnerability,” as noted by Nigel Leask.69 At the mercy of their guides and interpreters, of Romanian, Austrian or Russian officials, of the inclemency of the weather and the roads, as well as plagued by the scarcity of public eating establishments, these travellers often relied on the kindness of strangers. They were also perpetually bemused by the half-Oriental character of the lands they transited. This brings us to the second broad theme which emerges from travellers’ accounts: the extent of the Ottoman impact on the culture and lifestyles of these regions. Travellers often performed their own imaginary mapping of these multi-ethnic areas and objects of imperial rivalry. When Augustus Slade arrived in Prague on his way to Constantinople in 1838, he looked at the “oriental minarets” and perceived the “influence of Turkishness and tastes which become more evident, the further 69  Nigel Leask, Curiosity and the Aesthetics of Travel Writing 1770–1840 (Oxford: 2002), 16.

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one advances eastward until in Transylvania and Croatia distinctions cease.”70 Two decades later, in an ethnographic study of Transylvania, which, like Emily Gerard’s account, was on Bram Stoker’s reading list for Dracula, Charles Boner (1865) described the Carpathian Mountains as a “barricade against northern barbarism, and Turkish hate and tyranny.”71 Leaving aside the political dimension of the Ottoman imprint on the region, which remains contentious, recent research in Ottoman and Balkan history (including some contribution to the present volume) has shown that in the culinary and sartorial spheres, the Ottoman influence led to interesting types of borrowings and fusions, which arguably enriched the native traditions. Both Anna Matthaiou and Andrei Oişteanu remain in the area of imagology. The former (“Voyages, Space, Words: Identity and Representations of Food in 19th-Century Macedonia”) looks at the classic, multi-volume account of the Balkans by the traveller-cum-ethnologist Ami Boué (1840) to argue that his template of a positive perception of native cultural traditions (including food) in the Balkans was ignored and/or obscured in the hegemonic discourses of nation-building promoted by Greek intellectuals and the Greek state in the late 19th and early 20th century. Her case study is Macedonia, where, she argues, the regional culinary traditions were incorporated into mainstream Greek culture through a unilateral act of ethnic-linguistic annexation. Andrei Oişteanu (“Jewish Tavern-keepers and the Myth of the Poisoned Drinks: Legends and Stereotypes in Romanian and East-European cultures, 17th–19th Centuries”) looks at literary and journalistic representations of the Jewish tavern-keeper in 19th-century Romania and Poland. Whereas in earlymodern Western Europe Jews were sometimes demonized as well-poisoners or killers of Christian babies, in East-Central Europe stereotypes arguably centred round the image of the Jewish tavern leaseholders who adulterated and poisoned the drinks they brewed or sold in a ‘deliberate’ attack against the Christian populations. Oişteanu analyses the representational accumulation which led to the amalgamation of the traditional imagery of the Jewish ‘enemy within,’ with 19th-century economic realities (Jews had monopolies on the brewing and sale of alcohol in many areas of the Habsburg Empire in the 18th century, for example), and with late 19th-century pseudo-scientific ‘evidence’ collected from little-understood chemical processes.72 Such imagery, 70  Martin Farr and Xavier Guégan (eds.), The British Abroad Since the Eighteenth Century: Travellers and tourists (Houndmills, Basingstoke: 2013), vol. 1, 82. 71  Ibid. 72  Andrei Oişteanu’s discussion of the ‘science’ behind myths of drink adulteration can be usefully contextualised by Castilia Manea-Grgin’s contribution on the use of chemicals

Introduction

25

propagated by intellectual representatives of exclusionary nationalism, persisted well into the modern era. Epilogue It might be objected that the present volume does not have a conclusive section. Given the current state of research on the history of food in South-East Europe and the Balkans, as well as the gaps in the volume (both outlined in this “Introduction”), the editors decided to leave it open-ended, for pragmatic as well as symbolic reasons. This is only the start of a, hopefully, long journey, and this volume is meant to inspire and kick-start new explorations into this largely uncharted territory. Future research will most certainly address important aspects of food history in our regions, such as the Muslim / non-Muslim fault-lines in cooking and eating patterns and will adopt more comprehensive approaches to the multi-ethnic nature of the ‘Balkan’ cuisine, a notion which remains elusive. The food cultures of ethnic communities such as the Jewish, Armenian and other populations in the region, which we had to leave out in this volume, are awaiting their historians. In such a multi-cultural context, future research must address the tensions between the cosmopolitanism of the Central-East European culinary ‘fusion’ and the potentially divisive force of ‘national’ cuisines (as suggested by Anna Matthaiou’s study in this volume). As Jeffrey Pilcher has observed, the “potential for research in the history of food is […] limited only by our own imaginations.”73 Bibliography “Identităţi şi sensibilităţi culinare europene” [European culinary identities and sensibilities], Caiete de antropologie istorică 5 (2006) (thematic issue). Albala, Ken, “Cookbooks as Historical Documents,” in The Oxford Handbook of Food History, ed. Jeffrey M. Pilcher (Oxford: 2012), 227–40. Albala, Ken, “Culinary History,” in The Routledge International Handbook of Food Studies, ed. idem (London, New York: 2012, repr. 2013), 114–21.

for the processing of wines and spirits in early modern Eurpope. See Manea-Grgin’s chapter “Two South-East European Recipe Collections in their 17th-Century Historical Context.” 73  Jeffrey M. Pilcher, “Introduction” to The Oxford Handbook of Food History (2012), xix.

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Appadurai, Arjun, “Theory in Anthropology: Center and periphery,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 28 (2) (1986): 356–61. Berg, Maxine, Felicia Gottmann, Hanna Hodacs and Chris Nierstrasz (eds.), Goods from the East, 1600–1800: Trading Eurasia (London: 2015). Becherelli, Alberto, “I Balcani tra le differenze etnico-nazionalistiche e cultura alimentare condivisa,” in I tempi e i luoghi del cibo, ed. Giovanna Motta (Rome: 2016), 233–42. Bošković, Alexander and Chris Hann, The Anthropological Field on the Margins of Europe (Vienna-Berlin: 2013). Božidar Jezernik, Wild Europe: The Balkans in the gaze of Western travellers (London: 2004). Bozis, Sula, The Taste of Istanbul: Culinary culture of Istanbul’s Greeks (Istanbul: 2000). Bradatan, Cristina, “Cuisine and cultural identity in Balkans” [sic], The Anthropology of East Europe Review, 21 (1) (2002): 43–7. Burkhart, Dagmar (ed.), Körper, Essen und Trinken im Kulturverständnis der Balkanvölker (Wiesbaden: 1991). Cazacu, Matei, The Story of Romanian Gastronomy, trans. Laura Beldiman (Bucharest: 1999). Chase, Holly, “The Company of Qahwa,” Proceedings of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery (1991), ed. Halran Walker (London: 1992), 54–60. Claflin, Kyri W., “Food among the Historians: Early modern Europe,” in Writing Food History: A global perspective, eds. Kyri W. Claflin and Peter Scholliers (London, New York: 2012), 38–58. Claflin, Kyri W., “Representations of Food Production and Consumption: Cookbooks as historical sources,” in the Handbook of Food Research, eds. Anne Murcroft and Warren Bellasco (London-Oxford: 2016), 106–26. Constantinescu, Ioana, and Matei Cazacu (eds.), O lume într-o carte de bucate: Manuscris din epoca brâncovenească [A world in a cookbook: a manuscript from the Brâncoveanu era] (Bucharest: 1997). Cwiertka, Katarzyna J., Megan J. Elias and Jeffrey M. Pilcher, “Editorial Introduction: Writing Global Food History”, Global Food History 1(1) 2015: 5–12. Davidova, Evguenia, Balkan Transitions to Modernity and Nation-states: Through the eyes of three generations of merchants (1780s–1890s) (Leiden: 2013). Davies, Trish, The Balkan Cookbook: Traditional cooking from Romania, Bulgaria and the Balkan countries (London: 1999). De Gérando, Auguste, Transilvania și locuitorii săi [Transylvania and its inhabitants], vol. 1, trans. Laurenţiu Malomfălean and Marius Mitrache (Cluj-Napoca: 2014). Deletant, Dennis, “Romanians,” in Imagology: The cultural construction and literary representation of national character, a critical survey, eds. Manfred Beller and Joep Leerssen (Amsterdam: 2007), 223–6.

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Kalinke, Heinke M., Klaus Toth and Tobias Weger (eds.), Esskultur und kulturelle Identität: Ethnologische Nahrungforschung im östlichen Europa (Munich: 2010). Faroqhi, Suraiya, “Food for Feasts: Cooking recipes in 16th and 17th century Anatolian hostelries (Imaret),” in Turkish Cuisine, eds. Özge Samancı and Arif Bilgin (Ankara: 2008) 115–124. Farr, Martin, and Xavier Guégan (eds.), The British Abroad Since the Eighteenth Century: Travellers and tourists (Houndmills, Basingstoke: 2013). Füreder, Balázs Gábor, A “Hosszú reneszánsz konyhakultúra”: Magyar nyelvű szakácskönyveinek bemutatása és összehasonlitó elemzése [“Food Culture in the Renaissance: an outline and comparative analysis of Hungarian cookery books], unpublished doctoral thesis (Debrecen University: 2009). Freedman, Paul, Joyce E. Chaplin and Ken Albala (eds.), Food in Time and Place: the American Historical Association Companion to food history (Oakland, California: 2014). Gefou-Madianou, Dimitra, “Mirroring Ourselves through Western Texts: The limits of an indigenous anthropology,” in The Politics of Ethnographic Reading and Writing: Confrontations of Western and indigenous views, ed. Henk Driessen (Saarbrücken: 1993) 160–81. Georgeon, François and Paul Dumont (eds.), Vivre dans l’Empire Ottoman: Sociabilités et relations intercommunautaires (XVIII e–XIX e siècles) (Paris: 1997). Goldsworthy, Vesna, “The Balkans in Nineteenth-Century British Travel Writing,” in Travel Writing in the Nineteenth Century: Filling the blank spaces, ed. Tim Youngs (Cambridge: 2012), 19–36. Grenier, Jean Yves, L’économie d’Ancien Régime: Un monde d’échange et d’incertitude (Paris: 1996). Hektorović, Petar, Ribanje i ribarsko prigovaranje [Fishing and Fishermen’s Talk], trans. Marko Grčić (Zagreb: 2011). Herzfeld, Michael, Cultural Intimacy: Social poetics in the nation-state (New YorkLondon: 2006). Heuberger, Valeria, and Gottfried Stangler (eds.), Vom Schwarzwald bis zum Schwarzen Meer: Die Donau als Mittlerin europäischer Esskultur (Frankfurt am Main-Berlin: 2001). Holban, Maria, Maria M. Alexandrescu-Dersca Bulgaru, and Paul Cernovodeanu (eds.), Călători străini despre Ţările Române [Foreign travel narratives on the Romanian lands], vols. 9–11, new series (Bucharest: 1997–2001). Kahl, Thede, Peter Mario Kreuter and Christina Vogel (eds.), Culinaria balcanica (Berlin: 2015). Kaneva Johnson, Maria, The Melting Pot: Balkan food and cookery (Totnes: 1995). Kármán, Gábor and Lovro Kunčević (eds.), The European Tributary States of the Ottoman Empire in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (Leiden: 2013).

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Kaser, Karl, Hirten, Kämpfer, Stammeshelden: Ursprünge und Gegenwart des Balkanischen Patriarchats (Vienna: 1992). Kaser, Karl, Siegfried Gruber and Robert Pichler (eds.), Historische Anthropologie im südöstlichen Europa: Eine Einführung (Vienna: 2003). Kiossev, Alexander, “The Dark Intimacy: Maps, identities, acts of identification,” in Balkan as a Metaphor, eds. Dušan Bjelić and Obrad Savić (Cambridge, London: 2002), 165–90. ̓ Kiossev, Alexander, “Heroes against Sweets: The split of national and a̒ nthropological̓̕ ̓̓ cultures in South-East Europe” in Proceedings of the conference Understanding the Balkans October 13–16 October 2000, Ohrid, Republic of Macedonia. (2005), URL: http://www.scca.org.mk/utb/utb2000/syn_alex.htm. Koselleck, Reinhard, Vergangene Zukunft: Zur Semantik geschichtlicher Zeiten, Begriffs­ geschichte und Sozialgeschichte (Frankfurt am Main: 1989). Kostova, Ludmilla, “Meals in Foreign Parts: Food in writing by nineteenth-century British travellers to the Balkans,” Journeys: The international journal of travel and travel writing 4 (1) (Summer 2003): 21–44. Kramarz, Inge, The Balkan Cookbook (New York: 1972). Kümin, Beat, “Introduction” to A Cultural History of Food in the Early Modern Age, ed. idem (vol. 4 of A Cultural History of Food, gen. eds. Fabio Parasecoli and Peter Scholliers) (London: 2012, repr. pbk. 2016). Lampe, John R. and Marvin R. Jackson, Balkan Economic History, 1550–1950: From imperial borderlands to developing nations (Bloomington: 1982). Laudan, Rachel, Cuisine and Empire: Cooking in world history (Berkeley-Los AngelesLondon: 2013). Leask, Nigel, Curiosity and the Aesthetics of Travel Writing 1770–1840 (Oxford: 2002). Lepetit, Bernard (ed.), Les formes de l’expérience: Une autre histoire sociale (Paris: 1995). Levi, Giovanni, “Avant la ‘révolution’ de la consommation,” in Le jeux d’échelle: La micro-analyse à l’expérience, ed. Jacques Revel (Paris: 1996), 187–207. Lukács, Iosif, Clujul Renascentist: Aspecte privind viața cotidiană în Cluj în secolul al XVI-lea și al XVII-lea. Alimentația și gastronomia [Renaissance Cluj: aspects of daily life in Cluj in the 16th and 17th centuries. Food and gastronomy], unpublished doctoral thesis (Babeş-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca: 2012). Malecka, Anna, “How Turks and Persians Drank Coffee: A little-known document of social history by Father J.T. Krusiński,” Turkish Historical Review 6 (2015): 175–93. Marinow, Wassil, “Nahrung und Ernährung des alten bulgarischen Volkes Schopen in der Umgebung von Sofia (18.–20. Jh.), in Ethnologische Nahrungsforschung. Ethnological Food Research, eds. Niilo Valonen and Juhan E. Lehtonen (Helsinki: 1975), 175–90. Matthaiou, Anna, I mageirike: Anonyme metafrase tou 1828 [The cookbook: an anonymous translation of 1828] (Athens: 1992).

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Matthaiou, Anna, Aspects de l’alimentation en Grèce sous la domination ottomane: Des réglementations au discours normatif (Studien zur Geschichte Südosteuropas, 14) (Bern: 1997). Matthaiou, Anna, “Apo tis ‘koinotites tis omoiotitas’ sta fagita tis siopis” [From the ‘communities of similarities’ to the dishes of silence], Historica 56 (2012): 81–100. Mennell, Stephen, “Eating in the Public Sphere in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries,” in Eating Out in Europe: Picnics, gourmet dining, and snacks since the late eighteenth century, eds. Marc Jacobs and Peter Scholliers (Oxford: 2003), 245–60. Motta, Giuseppe, Viaggiando nelle terre romene (Viterbo: 2004). Neţ, Mariana, Cărţile de bucate româneşti: Un studiu de mentalităţi [Cookbooks in Romania: a study of mentalities] (Bucharest: 1998). Notaker, Henry, “En contrepoint: L’identité nationale à travers les livres de cuisine du XIXe siècle,” in Histoire et identités alimentaires en Europe, eds. Martin Breugel and Bruno Laurioux (Paris: 2002), 140–7. Petricǎ, Virginia, Identitate culinară românească din perspectiva călătorilor străini [Foreign travellers’ narratives and Romanian culinary identities] (Bucharest: 2013). Petrović, Tanja, “Introduction: Europeanisation of the Balkans” in eadem (ed.), Mirroring Europe: Ideas of Europe and Europeanization in Balkan societies [Balkan Studies Library volume 13] (Leiden: 2014), 3–19. Pilcher, Jeffrey M., Food in World History (London, New York: 2006). Pilcher, Jeffrey M. (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Food History (Oxford: 2012). Popović, Mihailo, Von Budapest zu Istanbul: Die via Traiana im Spiegel der Reiseliteratur des 14 bis 16 Jahrhunderts (Leipzig: 2010). Puntijar, Zlatko, and Matea Puntijar (eds.), Kuharska knjiga Čakovečkog dvora obitelji Zrinski: Iz vremena Nikole Zrinskog Ban hrvatski 1647–1664. [The cookbook of the Zrinski family’s court at Čakovec: from the times of Nikola Zrinski, Ban of Croatia 1647–1664] (Zagreb: 2007). Radeff, Anne, Du café dans le chaudron. Économie globale d’Ancien Régime: Suisse occidentale, Franche Comté et Savoie (Lausanne: 1996). Rădvan, Laurenţiu, Oraşele din ţările române în Evul Mediu [Mediaeval towns in the Romanian Principalities] (Iaşi: 2011). Samancı, Özge, and Arif Bilgin (eds.), Turkish Cuisine (Ankara: 2008). Samancı, Özge, “Food History in Ottoman-Turkish Historiography,” in Writing Food History: A global perspective, eds. Kyri W. Claflin and Peter Scholliers (London-New York: 2012), 107–20. Samancı, Özge, “Ten Years in Ottoman-Turkish Food Historiography,” Food & History 10 (2012): 233–42. Savin, Petronela, Universul din lingură: Despre terminologia alimentară românească [A universe in a spoon: the vocabulary of the Romanian cuisine] (Iaşi: 2012).

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Singer, Amy, Constructing Ottoman Beneficence: An imperial soup kitchen in Jerusalem (Albany: 2002). Slaveikov, Petko, Gotvarska kniga ili nastavlenia za vsiakakvi gostbi spored kakto gi praviat v Tsarigrad i razni domashni spravi. Sŭbrani ot razni knigi [A cookbook or directions for all kinds of dishes as they prepare them in Istanbul] (Istanbul: 1870; repr. Shumen: 1991; Varna: 1992; Sofia: 2001). Slaveikov, Petko, Gotvarski recepti [Cookbook recipes] (Shumen: 1994). Sofou, Alkisti, “Se mettre à table au XVIIIe siècle,” Cahiers balkaniques (2016) (thematic issue), URL: http://journals.openedition.org/ceb/7709. Steinke, Klaus, “Balkanküche: Revised,” in Culinaria balcanica, eds. Thede Kahl, Peter Mario Kreuter and Christina Vogel (Berlin: 2015), 17–28. Todorova, Maria, Imagining the Balkans (Oxford: 1997). Toygar, Kâmil, Historical Sources on Turkish Cuisine, URL: http://www.turkish-cuisine .org/culinary-culture-202/historical-sources-on-turkish-cuisine-207.html [accessed 4 October 2017]. Varga, Darko, Hrana, kuhinja i blagovanje u doba Zrinskih [Food, kitchen and dining in the time of the Zrinskis] (Zagreb: 2016). Veinstein, Gilles, “Le province balcaniche (1606–1774)” in Storia dell’Impero Ottomano, ed. Robert Mantran, trans. Jean-Claude Bar, Antoanella Colletta, Cristiana Cordella, Anna Paola Malinconico and Elisa Quarta (Lecce: 2004), 319–73. Vries, Jan de, “Understanding Eurasian Trade in the Era of the Trading Companies,” in Goods from the East, 1600–1800: Trading Eurasia, eds. Maxine Berg, Felicia Gottmann, Hanna Hodacs and Cris Neirstrasz (London: 2015), 7–39. Yerasimos, Marianna, 500 Years of Ottoman Cuisine, trans. Sally Bradbrook (Istanbul: 2005).

Part 1 Flavours, Tastes and Culinary Exchange: Food and Drink in the Ottoman World

∵

Chapter 1

Should it be Olives or Butter? Consuming Fatty Titbits in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire* Suraiya Faroqhi Fatty substances, together with water, proteins and carbohydrates are the basic ingredients of any human diet, apart from fibres, vitamins, and trace elements. At the same time, fatty substances impart special flavour and/or consistency to the dishes of which they form a part. In addition, they may evoke emotional reactions, for example the revulsion that many people of Muslim background, even if not necessarily believers, will feel toward bacon. Given Muslim and non-Muslim identity concerns, Marianna Yerasimos has suggested that the very popularity of olive oil among the Orthodox may have resulted in many Muslims finding this type of fat less than desirable, although there is no Islamic injunction against the consumption of olives and olive oil.1 Groups of people, in the Balkans and beyond, use or refuse to eat olives and olive oil. These practices allow us to highlight the cultural implications connected with a vegetable-based fat which already has a long history in the eastern Mediterranean. On the other hand, given the centuries-long history of the Balkans as part of the Ottoman Empire and the resulting problematic relationships between Christians and Muslims, the ‘opposition’ between olives and butterfat is significant not only for the history of food, but for cultural history in a broader sense. Despite the uncertainties involved, the choice between the two kinds of fat is thus of interest beyond the specific case of (western) Turkey and more particularly, of Istanbul—after all, the Ottoman capital occupies the very edge of south-eastern Europe. In the future, we may be able to determine whether, and if so to what extent, the preference for olives and olive oil—or their rejection—is common to a substantial part of the Balkans. However,

* A different version of this chapter, which also covers the use of olive oil in lighting and soap manufacture, will appear in Turkish in Zeytinin Akdeniz’deki Yolculuğu, ed. Ayşegül Sabuktay (Izmir: forthcoming). I thank Dr. Sabuktay for permitting the publication of the present revised text. 1  Marianna Yerasimos, Evliya Çelebi Seyahatnâmesi’nde yemek kültürü: Yorumlar ve sistematik dizin (Istanbul: 2011), 68.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi 10.1163/9789004367548_003

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the present author knows too little about the food culture of Bulgaria, Serbia, Greece, or Bosnia to tackle this question. Our study deals with the early modern period; in other words, we begin the story with the later 1400s and end it with the set of political and cultural changes known as the Tanzimat, proclaimed in 1839. The setting is mostly Istanbul. As for the principal topic, it is a rather enigmatic situation: why, given the presence of olive trees in the Mediterranean coastlands from classical antiquity and even earlier, did Ottoman subjects eat such modest quantities of olives and olive oil? This enigma further deepens when we consider that from the late 19th and especially the 20th century, there was a clear reversal in taste; and by the late 1900s, olive oil had become the preferred cooking fat in Turkish cuisine. Given the limited amount of information provided by our sources, a clearcut solution to these two inter-related enigmas is impossible. However, we may assume that in the 12th, 13th, and 14th centuries, when large groups of sheepbreeding nomads and semi-nomads entered Anatolia, they brought a preference for butterfat with them. Unfortunately, there are no sources which allow us to explain why the consumption of butterfat spread to places where olive trees had long existed and the locals had mostly consumed olive oil. Apart from the numerous references to olive consumption recorded by the traveller Evliya Çelebi (1611–after 1683), the primary sources employed in this chapter mostly come from Ottoman archives. The officials authoring this material often had a clear understanding of the food preferences of the society in which they lived. However, this observation does not mean that Ottoman bureaucrats did not make assumptions and express prejudices of their own. A general methodology for dealing with such biases does not exist, every case needing examination on its own merits. If we were to introduce the different document categories employed here item by item, and detail the caveats involved, the result would be a separate study. Therefore, we must limit the discussion of primary sources to some of the most significant items. Registers of administratively decreed prices (narh) will occupy centre stage, as they have the advantage of not only recording certain prepared foods available in the marketplace, but sometimes even specify the ingredients which should enter a given dish. Moreover, there is a degree of continuity over the centuries, at least where the Ottoman capital is involved, as officials emitted such regulations from the early 1500s all the way to the mid19th century. As an added advantage, we may note that the Balkan town of Edirne possesses an early register of this type, dating to 1501–02.2 Certainly, we 2  Ömer Lütfi Barkan, “Bazı Büyük Şehirlerde Eşya ve Yiyecek Fiyatlarının Tesbit ve Teftişi Hususlarını Tanzim Eden Kanunlar,” Tarih Vesikaları 1 (5) (1942): 326–40; 2 (7) (1942): 15–40; 2 (9) (1942): 168–77.

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often do not know for how long these prices and/or regulations continued to be valid; nor do we have any information about the zeal—or lack of same— with which officialdom enforced the relevant rules. But as a record of the kinds of foodstuffs and dishes known at a given point in time, these narh registers are surely ‘priceless.’ Records produced by and for the sultans’ kitchen are another important primary source. As Hedda Reindl-Kiel discusses them in extenso in her chapter, we ignore them and focus instead on dispute resolution as reflected in the registers of the Istanbul judges. In the Ottoman craft world, the rules that merchants and craftspeople needed to follow normally were part of the ‘oral memory’ of the group or guild concerned; only if a plaintiff took his cause to the kadı or the sultan’s council did the matter enter into the written record. As an example, we may use a case involving olive oil: in the 1700s, growers of table grapes at the Aegean seaboard often dipped their produce into this kind of fat, in order to preserve the fruit during the journey to Istanbul.3 However, as persons belonging to the governing apparatus had begun to use this technique to disguise the low quality of the grapes they remitted, an irate merchant, probably relaying the disgust of his customers, demanded that this practice should cease.4 It is by now unnecessary to introduce the travelogue of Evliya Çelebi in any detail: apart from the study of Marianna Yerasimos, which deals specifically with the traveller’s comments on food, we possess two recent works of reference that discuss virtually all aspects of Evliya’s personality and travel experience.5 Suffice it to say that Evliya evidently liked to eat well, accepting invitations to meals hosted by a variety of dignitaries. Intriguingly, he considered the foods served in any given place as part of the ‘praiseworthy qualities’ of the town in question; perhaps he was one of the earliest Ottoman gourmets on whom we have information. While Evliya always claimed to have avoided wine as well as the ‘new-fangled’ drink of coffee, abhorred by Murad IV (r. 1623–40), whose page he had once been, the traveller acquired an extensive knowledge of the pubs of Galata/Istanbul, of the wines served in these locales, and of 3  Fuat Recep et al. (eds.), İstanbul Kadı Sicilleri İstanbul Mahkemesi, 24 Numaralı Sicil (H. 1138– 1151/M. 1726–1738) (Istanbul: 2010), 207. It is impossible to say whether this technique had supplanted an older one, employing mustard seed: Augerius Gislenius Busbequius, Legationis turcicae epistolae quatuor, ed. Zweder von Martels, trans. into Dutch by Michel Goldsteen (Hilversum: 1994), 95. 4  Recep et al. (eds.), 24 Numaralı Sicil, 207. 5  M. Yerasimos, Evliya Çelebi; Nuran Tezcan, Semih Tezcan and Robert Dankoff (eds.), Evliya Çelebi: Studies and essays commemorating the 400th anniversary of his birth (Ankara: 2012); Coşkun Yılmaz (ed.), Evliya Çelebi Atlası: Project by Bekir Karlıga and Özkul Eren (Istanbul 2012).

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coffee-houses everywhere. After a lengthy period of scholarly neglect, Evliya is now the Ottoman historian’s premier guide to food culture. With respect to the Balkans, he focuses on the Muslim communities but to some extent, includes Christians and Jews as well.

A Cuisine with a Good Deal of Butterfat but Few Olives

Given our exclusive concern with food and drink, we will focus on references in our primary sources specifying “olives” as opposed to “olive oil,” for presumably olives sold as fruit after the necessary treatment, were for eating exclusively. By contrast, olive oil also had industrial uses, such as the manufacture of soap, the care of leather, and above all—as far as the Ottoman elite was concerned—it served for the lighting of stately homes and mosques. In the present study, we will ignore these non-food uses wherever possible, and concentrate on the consumption of olives and—occasionally—of butterfat. Throughout, we will try to place the consumption of these substances into a broader geographical context; for both olives and butterfat being easy to transport were likely to ‘go places.’ If we can believe folkloric evidence, in the Ottoman world fatty food was desirable: the expression “bir elim yağda bir elim balda” (one of my hands is in the fat, the other in the honey) still describes a person whose every desire has been fulfilled.6 From the early Ottoman years onward and perhaps even earlier, clarified butter was the preferred kind of edible fat. To make it last in the absence of refrigeration, people melted their butter and removed the whitish foam rising to the surface, as the latter would not keep and was fit only for immediate consumption. By contrast, after the addition of some salt, the yellow translucent fat underneath the foam was suitable for transportation over long distances. It is perhaps a small matter, but indicative nonetheless, that the recent study of Nicolas Trépanier on mediaeval Anatolian food culture contained only a single reference to olives.7 Butter, however, occurred eleven times. As for the early modern Ottoman sultans, their palace kitchen did use olives and olive oil, but in rather moderate quantities when compared to butterfat.8

6  Anonymous author, URL: http://www.tr-portal.net/ne-nedir/bir-eli-yagda-bir-eli-baldadeyiminin-anlami.html [accessed 16 December 2015]. 7  Nicolas Trépanier, Foodways and Daily Life in Medieval Anatolia: A new social history (Austin, TX: 2014), 77. 8  Arif Bilgin, Osmanlı Saray Mutfağı (1453–1650) (Istanbul: 2004), 203.

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In many cases, the latter fats arrived from the northern shores of the Black Sea, where in this period animal-breeding was the principal source of livelihood. Often people sewed up the skins of sheep to form sacks, similar to those which enclose modern Turkish tulum peyniri (cheese-in-a-sack). This mode of transportation had the additional advantage that in case of shipwreck, the sacks would float. Presumably, the owners were not likely to retrieve them, but the inhabitants of seaside villages must have had better luck.9 On the other hand, impurities from the sheepskins were likely to contaminate the butterfat.

The Late 15th and Early 16th Centuries

In spite of the limitations outlined above, the consumption of olives and olive oil was of some importance already around 1500, when archival documentation was still in its beginnings. According to a list of administratively decreed prices (narh), otherwise known as a law book (İhtisab Kanunnamesi, 1502), which the market supervisor of Bursa needed to enforce, the inhabitants of this city could find three kinds of olive on the market. The fruit went by the names of the localities from which they had originated, namely Karaburun and Çerkeşde (or Çerkeşdiye). In addition, the register recorded a variety known as “olives from the seashore” (yalı zeytunu).10 The olive-growing area of Karaburun is a peninsula to the west of İzmir, in other words at a considerable distance from Bursa, whose inhabitants even today define their local identity in part through the very special olives which they grow.11 Evliya recorded that these Karaburun olives were edible without prior treatment, just like other fruit; and probably the inhabitants of early 16th-century Bursa consumed these olives in the same fashion. In the Bursa market, olives from Karaburun and Çerkeşde cost 1 akçe per 200 dirhem, a quantity equivalent to 0.62 kg if we assume that a dirhem weighed 3.1 g, slight variations always being possible. As for the yalı zeytunu, they were available at 1 akçe for 1 kıyye12 (about 1.28 kg): presumably they sold at ‘half

9  Suraiya Faroqhi, Towns and Townsmen of Ottoman Anatolia: Trade, crafts, and food production in an urban setting 1520–1650 (Cambridge: 1984), 92. 10  Barkan, “Bazı Büyük Şehirlerde,” section 2, 21. 11  URL: http://www.karaburunzeytinyagi.com/ [accessed 13 October 2015]. 12   Kiyye is the short version of the learned vuqqiye = okka = 1.2828 kg. See Walther Hinz, Islamische Masse und Gewichte: Umgerechnet ins metrische System (Leiden: 1955), 24.

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price’ because the quality was significantly lower.13 This differential pricing also indicates that the inhabitants of Bursa distinguished between different qualities, a fact which in itself indicates that certain consumers had enough purchasing power and sophistication to be somewhat choosy in their foods. However, if we compare the three varieties of olives sold in Bursa with the numerous different types of pear also available in the markets of this city, the limits of local olive consumption rapidly become apparent. Interestingly, the list of administratively determined prices (narh) that formed a major part of any ihtisab regulation, in the case of Bursa (sauf erreur on my part) says nothing at all about olive oil; yet the compiling officials go into great detail concerning the different kinds of fat from slaughtered animals, bought mainly by candle- and soap-makers (mumcu, sabuncu). Given the few sources available, it would be hazardous to deduce that, at the beginning of the 16th century, the people of Bursa did not trade in olive oil. At the same time, in inland Edirne, we find no references to olives at all and only a single note about olive oil.14 As for Istanbul, the section on food is short to begin with and does not contain any references to either olives-as-fruit or to olive oil. As for butterfat, the regulations applied by the Bursa market inspector (muhtesib) do not specify the manner of production; nor do we learn about possible abuses which this official would have to repress. We only learn that the price per kıyye, which presumably was the retail price, depended on the price of the batman; as the latter is a much larger unit, the law book may have meant that the retail price depended on the wholesale market.15 Butterfat was significantly more expensive than sesame oil or oil pressed from other seeds, including linseed: 6.5–8 akçe per kıyye as opposed to 3.5 to 4 akçe for the vegetable product.16 The Edirne and Istanbul regulations are even less indicative. While, as already noted, the chapter by Hedda Reindl-Kiel deals comprehensively with the palace kitchen, a few remarks on the consumption of edible fats in the sultan’s palace are necessary for the coherence of the present chapter as well. As previously noted, in the later 15th century, the kitchen of Mehmed the Conqueror used olive oil in addition to butter and sheep’s

13  URL: http://www.osmanice.com/osmanlica-16136-nedir-ne-demek.html [accessed 16 December 2015]. 14  Barkan, “Bazı Büyük Şehirlerde,” section 3, 171. 15  1 batman = 7200 dirhem = 23.090 kg. Halil Inalcık, “Introduction to Ottoman Metrology,” Turcica 15 (1983): 320. 16  Barkan, “Bazı Büyük Şehirlerde,” section II, 24.

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tail fat.17 However, Faruk Doğan is not sure whether at this time olive oil was in use as food, pointing out that in a register of the imperial kitchen from 1473, olive oil does not appear among the edible fats. Recorded as a separate category, it may thus have served for lighting and other non-culinary purposes.18 Moreover, in 1594–95, the kitchen of Prince Mehmed, soon to become Mehmed III, also used considerable quantities of olive oil, which in terms of popularity followed butter, but preceded suet and sheep’s tail fat. This princely palace, located in the Aegean town of Manisa, also consumed 54 kıyye of olives, costing 4 akçe per kıyye; as the scribes had not specified the place of production, it is likely that they meant the local variety.19 From the references collected and analysed by Arif Bilgin, it does not seem that the Istanbul palace had established preferences for the olive oils of this or that locality.20 However in quantitative terms, the difference between the two varieties was enormous: 7753 kıyye of clarified butter as opposed to 1527 kıyye of olive oil. Analysed by Mübahat Kütükoğlu, the tax registers of the 16th century covering the Aegean coastlands reflect the cultivation of olives as well. In the district of Çeşme, to which the famed olive-producers of Karaburun belonged, between 1529 and 1575 the production of oil increased significantly (24 per cent). In the settlements of Çeşme and Bozyaka, the increase was 500 per cent and more, although admittedly these two places had started out with very low production levels; on the other hand, there also were some villages whose output decreased during this period. The reasons for these variations are all but impossible to determine. First of all, olive trees will produce abundant fruit in one year and very few in the next; and we cannot tell how—in real life, often different from regulations—the men in charge of compiling the registers responded to this variability. Secondly, there may have been local problems, for instance attacks by robbers, which have not left many traces in the scanty documentation but could have affected output nonetheless.

17  Necdet Sakaoğlu. “Sources for our Ancient Culinary Culture,” in The Illuminated Table, the Prosperous House: Food and shelter in Ottoman material culture, eds. Suraiya Faroqhi and Christoph Neumann (Istanbul: 2003), 35–49, see p. 40. 18  Faruk Doğan, “Osmanlı Devletinde Zeytinyağı Üretimi ve Tüketimi,” in Türk Mutfağı, eds. Arif Bilgin and Özge Samancı (Ankara: 2008), 240. 19  Feridun Emecen, “The Şehzade’s Kitchen and its Expenditures: An account book from Şehzade Mehmed’s Palace in Manisa, 1594–1595,” in The Illuminated Table, eds. Faroqhi and Neumann, 96. 20  Bilgin, Osmanlı Saray Mutfağı, passim (see index).

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Archival Sources from the 1600s and the Comments of Evliya Çelebi

By 1600, olive oil appears in a further detailed list of administratively decreed prices, which were to be valid on the Istanbul market.21 As there is only a single entry concerning olive oil, apparently there was no grading according to place of origin and/or quality. By contrast, the text mentions three kinds of olives-asfruit, named after Aydıncik (Edincik) and the island of Midilli, in addition to a third type without a geographical origin, simply called hasır zeytunu. This variety was more expensive than the other two: 5–6 akçe before the new regulation and 3–4 akçe afterward; the scribe took the trouble to specify that hasır zeytunu was better than the other kinds.22 Thus it makes sense to assume that when harvesting, people put mats (hasır) under the trees to catch the falling olives; some present-day growers spread wire mesh under their trees as a modernized version of hasır.23 Now French merchants of the 1700s quite often complained about the poor quality of Cretan olive oil, as the cultivators allowed all sorts of impurities to enter the presses. Therefore, we may assume that the hasır zeytunu had enjoyed more careful treatment; and by means of naming, the salesmen emphasized this fact and perhaps advertised their wares as well.24 As the palace in Manisa had paid 4 akçe in 1594–95 and probably enjoyed a discount on its purchases, the olives consumed by the household of the prince may have resembled the hasır zeytunu in terms of quality. In an often-cited narh register of 1640, once again published by Mübahat Kütükoğlu, the scribes had little to say on the subject of olives. But at least, the text clarified that by this time, people regarded olive oil as equivalent to oil of sesame (şir-i revgan), as both cost 20 akçe per kıyye.25 As for the varieties 21  Mübahat Kütükoğlu, “1009 (1600) tarihli Narh Defterine göre İstanbul’da çeşidli eşya ve hizmet fiyatları,” Tarih Enstitüsü Dergisi 9 (1978): 26–7. 22  By this registration, the authorities aimed to impose prices significantly lower than those charged in the past. 23  In a discussion with olive growers at the symposium where an earlier version of this paper was read (October 2015), one participant suggested that the text might refer to mats holding the olives when placed in the press. But other participants opposed this notion; and while the group did not decide whether putting the olives between such matting is technically feasible or not, the presence of wire mesh in modern olive groves has made me opt for mats spread out under 16th-century olive trees as well. Of course, new elements may enter the discussion at any time. 24  Patrick Boulanger, Marseille marché international de l’huile d’olive: Un produit et des hommes 1725–1825 (Marseille: 1997), 45. 25  Mübahat Kütükoğlu, Osmanlılarda Narh Müessesesi ve 1640 Tarihli Narh Defteri (Istanbul: 1983), 91 and 94.

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of olive available in the Istanbul market, we find the kind called “Karaburun,” already known in 1502 and which in 1640, cost twice as much as the olives from Edincik/Aydıncık; but there is no explanation for this substantial price difference. Olives from Lesbos (Tr. Midilli), while on record in 1600, do not occur in this register at all. Although we thus know that the Istanbul consumer with some money to spend had access to four different varieties of olives, olive oil seems to have been of standard quality, with even the imperial palace not demanding anything more recherché. This state of affairs does make us wonder once again how much of the olive oil used in Istanbul was indeed a foodstuff, and how large was the percentage powering the numerous lamps that at least the sultans’ household surely possessed. On the other hand, Evliya Çelebi’s remarks demonstrated that butterfat came in many kinds: he referred to fats from Akkirman, Kefe, Kili and Kerş; and while he did not specify that these were all butterfat, the likelihood is very high.26 The traveller also commented on the leather sacks filled with fat, already mentioned in a previous context, which on the occasion of the 1638 procession that he described in great detail, served for a range of practical jokes as well.27 In the late 1500s and early 1600s, the Ottoman palace received significant quantities of butterfat from Bursa, where the so-called Hassa Harç Emaneti or “office of special expenditures” had the duty to supply the Sultan’s palace and particularly his kitchen. However, obtaining supplies does not seem to have been difficult; for the archival sources studied by Arif Bilgin treat this issue as comparatively routine.28 We now return to Evliya Çelebi, who as a sophisticated traveller also knew quite a few varieties of olive, if only because he had actually visited most of the empire’s provinces where olive trees grew.29 Remarkably, he did not mention Aydıncık (Edincik) or Lesbos (Midilli); it is hard to tell whether by the middle of the 17th century, when the traveller assembled his data, the relevant olives no longer arrived in Istanbul. The only kind known to us from the narh registers, and recorded by Evliya too, is that of Karaburun; he mentioned the olives of nearby Urla as well. Furthermore, the traveller noted the crops of today’s 26  Yerasimos, Evliya Çelebi, 520. 27  Evliya Çelebi b Derviş Mehemmed Zılli, Evliya Çelebi Seyahatnâmesi: Topkapı Sarayı Bağdat 304 yazmasının transkripsyonu—Dizini, vol. 1, eds. Robert Dankoff, Seyit Ali Kahraman and Yücel Dağlı (Istanbul: 2006), 298. 28  Arif Bilgin, Osmanlı Taşrasında bir Maliye Kurumu: Bursa hassa harç eminliği (Istanbul: 2006), 164–66. 29  Yerasimos, Evliya Çelebi, 538.

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southern Greece [Aydonat (Gk. Paramythia), Koron (Gk. Koroni), Modon (Gk. Methoni), and Crete], in addition to Mekri (today: Fethiye) and Edremit on the western coast of Anatolia. In the mid-17th century, dues for all these different fats were paid in the yağhane, located on the outskirts of Galata, where the traders had to present their wares to the head (ağa) of this institution and his many servitors. While as usually, we should take Evliya’s figures with a grain of salt, it is still apparent that the dues paid from all types of edible fat were a major source of the sultan’s revenue. In the course of time, the yağhane became a business district of some importance, where in the 1700s totally unrelated goods including cheap textiles were available for sale. It would be interesting to know whether at that time, the tax office for edible fats was still in the same place.

Focusing on Edremit and the Olive Grower Müridoğlu

Evliya’s note about Edremit olives is interesting, as after the 16th-century documents found by Fikret Yılmaz, it is one of the earliest references to this place as a producer of olive oil. In fact, Yılmaz has pointed out that major olive plantations around Edremit first appear in the estate inventories of deceased persons during the later 16th century. However, even in the early 1500s, Edremit’s villages had produced limited quantities of olives for palace consumption.30 Edremit’s olive oils appear again in Istanbul records during the year 1144/ 1731–32, when a deficient harvest had caused local merchants to ask for an increase in the price that they might charge.31 Once again, the olives grown in Edremit come to our notice in 1822–23, shortly before the end of the period covered here: for at this time, a local tax collector named Hacı Mehmed Ağa, of presumed dervish background for he was known as Müridoğlu (son of the beginner on the mystical path), appeared as the owner of no less than 19,209 olive trees. He apparently operated his own oil presses and soap workshops/factories, selling his oil and soap at least partly on credit. It is also likely, but not proven, that Müridoğlu made loans to local peasants and appropriated their trees if they were unable to repay.32 30  Fikret Yılmaz, “16. yüzyılda tarımsal yapılarda değişim ve yağ kullanımı”, Tarih ve Toplum 10 (Spring 2010): 23–42. 31  Recep et al. (eds.), 24 Numaralı Sicil, 398; the petitioners received a positive reply. 32  Suraiya Faroqhi, “Wealth and Power in the Land of Olives: The economic and political activities of Müridoğlu Hacı Mehmed Ağa, notable of Edremit (died in or before 1823),” in Landholding and Commercial Agriculture in the Middle East, eds. Çağlar Keyder and Faruk

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Some of the olive oil went to the Naval Arsenal in Istanbul, where it may have helped to feed the labourers but also provided light to workplaces on dark days. Throughout, the producers of Edremit, located at a convenient distance to Istanbul, seemingly concentrated on the market of the Ottoman capital.

‘Fatty Titbits’ of the 1700s

In the 18th century, the Ottoman administration made great efforts to ‘fix’ artisans to specific urban locations, especially where Istanbul was concerned; and among the people covered by the bureaucrats in charge of the operation, we find quite a few artisans who pressed seeds for oil, both for the preparation of food and the lighting of lamps.33 Pressing oil from sesame and other seeds in 1720s and 1730s Istanbul was largely a non-Muslim craft: of 96 masters on record, only ten were clearly Muslims, although quite a few men had names that were “religiously neutral” such as Bali or Kaplan. In addition, there were men on record only with nicknames such as “Parmaksız” (lacking a finger) or “Turşucuoğlu” (the son of the manufacturer of pickles). The religion of these people remains unclear. However, as they were “mixed in” with the non-Muslims they may well have been Christians or Jews as well—but it is impossible to be sure. More interestingly, the recording officials seem to have aimed at ensuring that a large number of Istanbul’s inhabitants had convenient access to an oil-presser’s shop. At least that is how I would interpret statements like: “Altımermer’de ve Irgadpazarı ve Lâleli çeşmede Yorgi”.34 It seems that the oil-presser Yorgi was in charge of supplying three separate Istanbul districts. It is also worth noting that oil-pressers were about as numerous as halva-sellers, which may indicate that the demand for these two foods was comparable.35 We have already noted that complaints and attempts to redress them produced a ‘paper trail’ leading us to many aspects of Istanbul’s social life that would otherwise remain hidden; and the supply of butterfat to 18th-century

Tabak (Albany: 1991), 77–96, repr. in Making a Living in the Ottoman Lands, 1480–1820 (Istanbul: 1995), 297–317. 33  Recep et al. (eds.), 24 Numaralı Sicil, 259–60. 34  Ibid., 259. 35  Suraiya Faroqhi, “Selling Sweetmeats: Istanbul in the mid-eighteenth century,” in eadem, Travel and Artisans in the Ottoman Empire: Employment and mobility in the early modern era (London: 2014), 175–85.

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Istanbul grocers is no exception.36 We find that these men—or rather the Muslims among them—had turned to the Sultan complaining that while in the past, it had been standard to add 3 kıyye or 3.84 kg of salt to 100 kıyye (128 kg) of butterfat, in recent years the producers on the northern shores of the Black Sea had poured in much more, and also adulterated the butterfat by yoghurt mixed with water (ayran) and other unidentified—and perhaps unidentifiable—additives. It is a somewhat intriguing question why the nonMuslim grocers did not join in; for in the mid-1700s a guild of Orthodox grocers did exist, and possessed enough wealth and public spirit to finance a shelter for plague victims from among their community.37 Perhaps they considered that the Muslims alone would make more of an impression on the authorities, or else the Sultan’s officials had merely omitted to mention them. In the kadı registers of Istanbul, we find two sultanic commands sent out in response to this complaint.38 The kadı of the butterfat-producing regions of Kili and İsmail (in today’s Ukraine) received identical orders, a generic admonition to supply the capital with better goods. However, in the document sent to the kadı of Taman (today in Russia), we find detailed references to transportation problems absent from the other text. In the past, so we are told, traders had been free to select whatever—presumably small—ships they found awaiting them in port. But now the owners of large vessels had formed a sort of cartel, which was to ensure that transportation took place only in their own ships; according to a prearranged sequence, the latter would leave when they were full. Therefore, the conveyors of butterfat might have to wait for up to three months before a ship was ready for departure, with the goods spoiling in the process. Now the kadı of Taman received notification that the Sultan had abolished the entire arrangement, and that the merchants should, as in the past, load their butterfat onto whichever ship they preferred. It is, however, anybody’s guess whether the command of a remote monarch sufficed to break up the cartel.

Eating Olives and Olive Oil in the Early 1800s

In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, wars with Russia, and later on, naval campaigns occasioned by the uprising in southern Greece (1821) endangered the Istanbul food supply. Perhaps most importantly from our present 36  Recep et al. (eds.), 24 Numaralı Sicil, 393–95. 37  Aleksandros Paspatis, Balıklı Rum Hastanesi Kayıtlarına göre: İstanbul’un Ortodoks Esnafı 1833–1860, trans. and ed. Marianna Yerasimos (Istanbul: 2014), 14. 38  Recep et al. (eds.), 24 Numaralı Sicil, 393–94.

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perspective, Sultan Mahmud II (r. 1808–39) entered into a lengthy confrontation with Mehmed Ali (Muhammad Ali), Paşa of Egypt, whose son İbrahim Paşa held Syria until 1840. As a result, for many years probably neither Crete nor Greater Syria supplied olive oil in any quantity; and furthermore, this was a time in which the sultans issued edict upon edict in often futile efforts to secure food for Istanbul’s inhabitants.39 In this context, we should interpret an order of Mahmud II concerning the supply of olive oil to the inhabitants of the capital. In 1818, the authorities declared that Istanbul needed 5,632,000 kg of olive oil per year; unfortunately, we do not know the criteria by which they had calculated this sum, nor can we tell how much of this oil was intended for non-alimentary purposes. In 1830, producers in regions close to Istanbul received orders to send the required oil in monthly instalments, while the sultan established a new special office, to organize the trade and supervise or even side-line private traders, whom the authorities tended to consider as profiteers.40 However, these arrangements did not remedy the situation, and down to the Tanzimat there were significant deficits in the Istanbul supply; perhaps the elimination of large-scale cultivators like Müridoğlu of Edremit had had a share in disrupting production. It is also of interest that in the early 19th century, the administration intervened in the olive oil trade in a fashion that had not been customary earlier on. While in the 16th century, grain, leather, metals, arms, cotton, and grapes/ raisins had been the principal objects of governmental concern, the export trade in olive oil during most of the 18th century had continued without many impediments, at least in the ports of the Peloponnesus and Crete.41 We may wonder whether the Ottoman central administration’s increased interest in regulating the supply of olive oil indicated a growing consumption, perhaps even an increased use as a cooking fat, or whether it was simply an outcome of the crisis situation of the early 1800s. Conclusion This brief survey of accessible primary sources confirms the findings of Faruk Doğan, Marianna Yerasimos, Fikret Yılmaz and other scholars, namely that olive oil as food played a limited role in the cuisine of pre-Tanzimat İstanbullus. 39  For an example compare: Özge Samancı (ed.), “1835 Yılına Ait bir Narh Defterine göre İstanbul’ da Bazı Gıdaların Fiyatları,” Yemek ve Kültür 17 (Summer 2009): 56–60. 40  Doğan, “Osmanlı Devletinde Zeytinyağı Üretimi,” 234. 41  Zeki Arıkan, “Osmanlı İmparatorluğunda İhracı Yasak Mallar (Memnu Meta)” in Professor Dr. Bekir Kütükoğlu’na Armağan (Istanbul: 1991), 279–307; Boulanger, Marseille, 45.

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When compared, for instance to pears or grapes, references to olives in lists of administratively prescribed prices were quite rare, probably because consumers focused on butterfat and sesame and had only scant interest in olives. After all, Fikret Yılmaz has pointed out that in the 16th century, sesame oil was a significant rival to butterfat and olives, suggesting that the expansion of olive groves, which he has demonstrated for the Edremit region, mainly served the needs of a growing population for lighting and soap. Faruk Doğan, on the other hand, has focused on the relative disinterest in quality typical of olive growers during the 1800s and early 1900s, presumably because subjects of the sultan with sufficient purchasing power did not eat many olive products.42 It is also worth remembering the preference of Greeks—and Orthodox people in general—for olive oil, as the Orthodox Church forbids the consumption of animal-based fats on numerous fast days. As Marianna Yerasimos has noted, identification with a non-Muslim community probably did not raise the prestige of olive oil among Muslims. Admittedly, while scholars have debated the possible reasons for the preference for butterfat over olives, it bears repeating that in the end, conclusive evidence is lacking. As for the second problem posed in the present chapter, namely the novel favour that olives and olive oil began to enjoy among the Turkish population of the 20th century, we still do not possess much evidence either. This gap is all the more intriguing as cold cooked vegetables seasoned with olive oil (zeytinyağlılar) are a mainstay of current Turkish cuisine. When did these dishes gain favour beside the already well-established dolma filled with meat, documented from the 17th century onward? No information has emerged to date; nor do we know when the current custom of eating olives with cheese and bread for breakfast has come into being. Perhaps these changes happened in the late 1800s, but we cannot be sure. We must therefore conclude with the somewhat speculative statements made at the start of this chapter: in the 12th to 14th centuries, immigrant sheep-breeding nomads and semi-nomads introduced butterfat to Anatolia, or at least promoted its consumption. Perhaps the political domination that these newcomers established over the autochthonous population raised the prestige of butter, a privileged status which continued until the changes of the last century re-established olive oil as a desirable cooking fat. In this context, few historians of food culture have studied Ottoman contacts with 19th- and early 20th-century Italy; yet in just this period, there was a significant immigration of Italians into Istanbul. The role of these newcomers, 42  Fikret Yılmaz, “16. yüzyılda tarımsal yapılarda değişim ve yağ kullanımı”, Tarih ve Toplum 10 (Spring 2010): 23–42; Doğan, “Osmanlı Devletinde Zeytinyağı Üretimi”.

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traditionally consumers of olives, in purveying food and drink should repay investigation. In a different vein, once tractors came into widespread use during the 1950s, farmers bred fewer cattle; and milk, the source of butter, probably became more difficult to find. Moreover, by the 1980s, television and newspapers had begun to highlight cardio-vascular diseases and the role of unsaturated fats in limiting their incidence. During those same years moreover, esteem for the olive tree and the culture associated with it took root among educated men and women in the Aegean region; and people raising olive trees developed an interest in the quality of their product. While all these factors must have contributed toward increasing the demand for olive oil in present-day Turkey, it is ­possible—and even probable—that future studies will point in other directions. We therefore conclude with a line by Bertolt Brecht: “we … see with concern that the curtain has fallen while all [our] questions are still open.”43 Bibliography Published Primary Sources Anonymous author, URL: http://www.karaburunzeytinyagi.com/ [accessed 13 October 2015]. Anonymous author, URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batman_%28unit%29 [accessed 16 December 2015]. Busbequius, Augerius Gislenius, Legationis turcicae epistolae quatuor, ed. Zweder von Martels, trans. Michel Goldsteen (Hilversum: 1994). Evliya Çelebi b Derviş Mehemmed Zılli, Evliya Çelebi Seyahatnâmesi: Topkapı Sarayı Bağdat 304 Yazmasının Transkripsyonu—Dizini [Evliya Çelebi travelogue. Topkapı Sarayı Muzeum, MS. Bagdat 304], vol. 1, eds. Robert Dankoff, Seyit Ali Kahraman and Yücel Dağlı (Istanbul: 2006). Paspatis, Aleksandros, Balıklı Rum Hastanesi Kayıtlarına göre: İstanbul’un Ortodoks Esnafı 1833–1860 [The Orthodox artisans of Istanbul 1833–1860, according to the records of the Orthodox hospital of Balıklı] trans. and ed. Marianna Yerasimos (Istanbul: 2014). Recep, Fuat, Sabri Atay and Hüseyin Kılıç (eds.), İstanbul Kadı Sicilleri İstanbul Mahkemesi, 24 Numaralı Sicil (H. 1138–1151/M. 1726–1738) [The Istanbul judges’ registers: The court of Istanbul, vol. 24] (Istanbul: 2010). Sestini, Domenico, Opuscoli del Signor Abbate Domenico Sestini (Florence: 1785). 43  “Wir stehen selbst enttäuscht und sehn betroffen/ Den Vorhang zu und alle Fragen offen.” The quote is from Der gute Mensch von Sezuan, Epilogue, in Werke. Große kommentierte Berliner und Frankfurter Ausgabe, eds. Werner Hecht et al. (Berlin: 1989), 6, 278.

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Secondary Literature Arıkan, Zeki, “Osmanlı İmparatorluğunda İhracı Yasak Mallar (Memnu Meta)” [Prohibited merchandises exported in the Ottoman Empire (Memnu Meta)] in Professor Dr. Bekir Kütükoğlu’na Armağan [Tribute to Dr. Bekir Kütükoğlu], no editor (Istanbul: 1991), 279–307. Barkan, Ömer Lütfi, “Bazı Büyük Şehirlerde Eşya ve Yiyecek Fiyatlarının Tesbit ve Teftişi Hususlarını Tanzim Eden Kanunlar” [The laws which in some large cities governed the establishment and control of the prices of goods and foodstuffs], Tarih Vesikaları 1 (5) (1942): 326–40; 2 (7) (1942): 15–40; 2 (9) (1942): 168–77. Bilgin, Arif, Osmanlı Saray Mutfağı (1453–1650) [The Ottoman palace kitchen] (Istanbul: 2004). Bilgin, Arif, Osmanlı Taşrasında bir Maliye Kurumu: Bursa hassa harç eminliği [A financial institution in an Ottoman province: the Bursa office of special expenditures] (Istanbul: 2006). Boulanger, Patrick, Marseille marché international de l’huile d’olive: Un produit et des hommes 1725–1825 (Marseille: 1997). Doğan, Faruk, “Osmanlı Devletinde Zeytinyağı Üretimi ve Tüketimi” [The production and consumption of olive oil in the Ottoman state] in Türk Mutfağı [Turkish cuisine], eds. Arif Bilgin and Özge Samancı (Ankara: 2008), 231–242. Emecen, Feridun, “The Şehzade’s Kitchen and its Expenditures: An accouınt book from Şehzade Mehmed’s Palace in Manisa, 1594–1595,” in The Illuminated Table, the Prosperous House: Food and shelter in Ottoman material culture, eds. Suraiya Faroqhi and Christoph Neumann (Istanbul: 2003), 89–126. Faroqhi, Suraiya, “Wealth and Power in the Land of Olives: The economic and political activities of Müridoğlu Hacı Mehmed Ağa, notable of Edremit (died in or before 1823),” in Landholding and Commercial Agriculture in the Middle East, eds. Çağlar Keyder and Faruk Tabak (Albany NY: 1991), 77–96, repr. in Making a Living in the Ottoman Lands, 1480–1820 (Istanbul: 1995), 297–317. Faroqhi, Suraiya, “Selling Sweetmeats: Istanbul in the mid-eighteenth century,” in eadem, Travel and Artisans in the Ottoman Empire: Employment and mobility in the early modern era (London: 2014), 175–85. Inalcık, Halil, “Introduction to Ottoman Metrology,” Turcica 15 (1983): 311–48. Kütükoğlu, Mübahat, “1009 (1600) tarihli Narh Defterine göre İstanbul’da çeşidli eşya ve hizmet fiyatları” [Various prices of goods and services in Istanbul, according to the price list of 1009/1600], Tarih Enstitüsü Dergisi 9 (1978): 1–86. Kütükoğlu, Mübahat, Osmanlılarda Narh Müessesesi ve 1640 Tarihli Narh Defteri) [The institution of administratively fixed prices in the Ottoman world and the price register of 1640] (Istanbul: 1983).

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Sakaoğlu, Necdet, “Sources for our Ancient Culinary Culture,” in The Illuminated Table, the Prosperous House: Food and shelter in Ottoman material culture, eds. Suraiya Faroqhi and Christoph Neumann (Istanbul: 2003), 35–49. Samancı, Özge (ed.), “1835 Yılına Ait bir Narh Defterine göre İstanbul’da Bazı Gıdaların Fiyatları” [The prices of certain foods in Istanbul according to a price register of 1835), Yemek ve Kültür 17 (Summer 2009): 56–60. Trépanier, Nicolas, Foodways and Daily Life in Medieval Anatolia: A new social history (Austin/Texas: 2014). Yerasimos, Marianna, Evliya Çelebi Seyahatnâmesi’nde Yemek Kültürü: Yorumlar ve sistematik dizin [Food culture in Evliya Çelebi’s travelogue: commentaries and systematic index] (Istanbul: 2011). Yılmaz, Fikret, “16. yüzyılda tarımsal yapılarda değişim ve yağ kullanımı” (16th-century change in agricultural structure and the use of [edible] fats), Tarih ve Toplum 10 (Spring 2010): 23–42.

Chapter 2

Simits for the Sultan, Cloves for the Mynah Birds: Records of Food Distribution in the Saray Hedda Reindl-Kiel Many of the Ottoman Sultans were great connoisseurs of art, and when we look at some of the sultans’ portraits1 or read descriptions of their physical appearance, we get the impression that this connoisseurship must also have included the culinary arts. Unlike miniatures, buildings or poetry, however, culinary products are all too transitory and we have to rely on secondary sources to learn about the art of cooking in the Ottoman palace. Unfortunately, none of the head cooks in the Ottoman saray seems to have combined literary ambitions with culinary ones in the manner of, for instance, the ‘chef de cuisine’ of Shah ‛Abbās (1587–1629), the Turco-Iranian Ostād Nūrollāh.2 Some account books for the imperial kitchen allow us a few tiny glimpses of the court’s culinary habits,3 but in general we get only lists of victuals, occasionally with their prices. With food becoming a topic of Western travelogues from the 16th century onwards, such writings, together with embassy reports, form an additional source. Finally, a large number of registers (defter) dealing with the court’s distribution (tevzi‛at/ta‛yinat) of victuals within the Ottoman elite has been preserved. The growing interest in material culture has led to a considerable number of publications on Ottoman cuisine. Nicolas Trépanier recently investigated

1  A good example is Mehmed III (r. 1595–1603) and his portrait in the Fetihname-i Eğri, Istanbul, Topkapı Sarayı Müzesi Kütüphanesi, Hazine 1609, fol. 27a. See Selmin Kangal (ed.), The Sultan’s Portrait: Picturing the house of Osman (Istanbul: 2000), 218, ill. 69. 2  Cf. Bert G. Fragner, “Zur Erforschung der kulinarischen Kultur Irans,” in Die Welt des Islams 23–24 (1984), 326–7 and 342–60 (translation of Nūrollāh’s polou recipes). 3  An exception is a corpus of several fascicles listing 60 menus for the veziers on divan days and for six banquets, cf. Hedda Reindl-Kiel, “The Chickens of Paradise: Official meals in the Ottoman Palace (mid-17th century),” in The Illuminated Table, the Prosperous House: Food and shelter in Ottoman material culture, eds. Suraiya Faroqhi and Christoph K. Neumann (Würzburg: 2003), 59–88.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi 10.1163/9789004367548_004

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the culinary habits of the 14th century.4 Scholarly interest has focused especially on the food consumption of the Ottoman court. Arif Bilgin presented a very detailed study on the organisation of the imperial kitchen (1453–1650), including financial aspects and procurement of the main victuals.5 In an extensive article, he has also traced the development of food consumption patterns at the Palace from the 15th to the 17th centuries. In a further piece of writing, he focused on the Palace’s cuisine during the classical period (a term he applies to the period from the second half of the 15th century to the 17th).6 Gerry Oberling and Grace Martin Smith have outlined the food culture of the Ottoman saray, based mainly on Western sources.7 Finally, registers concerning the distribution of victuals within the Ottoman elite have been examined in great detail by Tülay Artan in a comprehensive study8 which makes the link between court ranks and allocations of food.

Distribution and Redistribution—or Salaries in Kind

The allocations of provisions in the saray were certainly meant as an additional salary in kind. However, the enormous quantities of some of the allocated victuals point to an additional role: they were also intended for redistribution, thus creating bonds with sub-groups.9 For example, a fragment of an account book (dated 4 Safer 1180/12 July 1766), obviously from the kitchen of

4  Nicolas Trépanier, Foodways and Daily Life in Medieval Anatolia: A new social history (Austin, TX: 2014). See also: idem, “Culinary Culture in Fourteenth Century Anatolia,” in Turkish Cuisine, eds. Arif Bilgin and Özge Samancı (Ankara: 2008), 57–67. 5  Arif Bilgin, Osmanlı Saray Mutfağı (1453–1650) (Istanbul: 2004). 6  Idem, “Seçkin Mekânda Seçkin Damaklar: Osmanlı Sarayında Beslenme Alışkanlıkları (15–17 Yüzyıl)” in Yemek Kitabı: Tarih—Halkbilimi—Edebiyat, ed. Sabri Koz (Istanbul 2002), 35–75. Idem, “Ottoman Court Cuisine of the Classical Period”, in Turkish Cuisine, eds. Bilgin and Samancı (Ankara: 2008), 71–91. 7  Gerry Oberling and Grace Martin Smith, The Food Culture of the Ottoman Palace (Istanbul: 2001). 8  Tülay Artan, “Aspects of the Ottoman Elite’s Food Consumption: Looking for ‘staples,’ ‘luxuries,’ and ‘delicacies’ in a changing century,” in Consumption Studies and the History of the Ottoman Empire, 1550–1922, ed. Donald Quataert (Albany, N.Y.: 2000), 107–200. 9  Cf. Artan, “Aspects,” 142–3. See further Hedda Reindl-Kiel, “Breads for the Followers, Silver Vessels for the Lord: The system of distribution and redistribution in the Ottoman Empire (16th–18th c.),” Osmanlı Araştırmaları/The Journal of Ottoman Studies 42 (2013): 93–104.

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a grand vizier (probably Muhsinzade Mehmed Pasha),10 lists among the recipients of allocations the ka’imakam paşa (deputy grand vizier),11 who would certainly have already been receiving his share from the imperial kitchen in the same manner as the grand vizier himself. There is no doubt that the ka’imakam paşa’s portion would have been redistributed, and the same applies to the next layer of apportionment. As far as I can see, no records reflecting this system in the Balkans have come to light yet. But one can presume that practices of the imperial palace radiated across the Ottoman provinces of South-East Europe via the high-ranking officials posted there. This pattern of redistribution is by no means restricted to food, although there the paradigm is particularly discernible and easier to follow than in other fields. Closely related to this procedure of food allocations for redistribution are pre-modern Middle Eastern modes of gift exchange, which have been identified by Karl Polanyi as being common in societies without distinctly developed market economies.12 Polanyi’s ideas were developed from data of the ancient Middle East and remain on a rather general level. Therefore, for Ottoman society (as well as for other pre-modern Middle Eastern societies) we need to establish a new model on the basis of Polanyi’s insights. Alongside an analysis of modes of redistribution, this also requires in particular an investigation of rank within the structures of hierarchy. Moreover, the correlation between allocations, conspicuous honour and conspicuous consumption should be taken into account. A thorough investigation of this pattern starting at the top of the social strata could lead us to a better understanding of the mechanism which held together Ottoman society in pre-modern times.

Who Gets What on Divan Days?

A number of registers related to food distribution in the imperial palace might be a first step in this direction. They contain detailed instructions about the kind of victuals and their quantities to be given to the various members of the imperial household. At the same time, these records offer an insight into the culinary habits of the Ottoman court. Although defters of this type seem to be preserved only from the late 17th century onwards, they must have been 10  Compare İsmail Hâmi Danişmend, Osmanlı Devlet Erkânı (Istanbul: 1971), 62. 11  Topkapı Sarayı Müzesi Arşivi [Archives of the Topkapı Palace Museum, hereafter: TSMA], D. 8882, p. 1. 12  Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation: The political and economic origins of our time (Boston, Ma: 2001), 45–58.

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composed more or less regularly since the Conqueror’s time. This we may infer from a short, undated matbah-ı ‛amire (imperial kitchen) register of a similar kind13 which regulated, on divan days,14 the meals for the heads of service departments in the Palace, for the personnel of the state council (ehl-i divan), and for regular guests. The document can probably be dated to the last quarter of the 15th or the early 16th century, because it ends with the remark that one kile (25.656 kg) flour was calculated at 15 akçe.15 This suggests that the register might have been composed shortly after 1481, the beginning of Bayezid II’s reign, or after 1512, when Selim I came to the throne.16 A striking feature of this defter is the uniformity of meals. The most prominent figure, named first, is the general of the janissaries, the yeniçeri ağası. He is only a tiny bit more than equal to the çavuşes (guards) and receives almost the same food: two dishes (sahan) of meat, two pieces of pare (a kind of sweet pastry), and one “pair” (çift) of fodula (cake bread). The only difference between the meals of the çavuşes and the yeniçeri ağası was that the latter’s pares are described as “large” (büyük), an epithet lacking for the first group. Next to the general of the janissaries only four other ranks received “large” pares: the head gate-keepers (kapucı başı), the masters of the horse (emir-ahur), the clerks responsible for the day-book of current financial transactions (ruznameci) and the official who collated documents (mukabeleci).17 All the others received the same fixed ration. These included Istanbul’s superintendent (şehir emini) and 13  TSMA D. 4628. 14  In the 15th and 16th centuries, the divan-ı hümayun (state council) met, usually four times a week, in the Council Hall in the second court of the Topkapı Sarayı. See Bernard Lewis, “Dīwān-ı Humāyūn” (Imperial state council), entry in Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed., vol. 2 (Leiden: 1965), 337–9; Ahmet Mumcu, “Dîvân-ı Hümâyun”, entry in Türkiye Diyanet Vakfı İslâm Ansiklopedisi (henceforth DİA), vol. 9 (Istanbul: 1994), 430–2. Our document states that divan was held on 192 days a year, D. 4628, fol. 3b. 15  D. 4628, fol. 3b. Keyl and kile denote the same unit in an Ottoman context, but as it is originally a measure of capacity, the values are not uniform. For wheat and flour 1 keyl/ kile is 25.656 kg, but for rice it is 12.828 kg. Walther Hinz, Islamische Masse und Gewichte: Umgerechnet ins metrische System (Leiden: 1955), 41. For further details on Ottoman measurements, see also Halil Inalcık, “Introduction to Ottoman Metrology,” Turcica 15 (1983): 311–48. 16  According to Şevket Pamuk, in his study 500 Years of Prices and Wages in Istanbul and other Cities (Ankara: 2000), 102, the Palace paid 10.6 akçe per kile of flour in 1471, and 10.3 akçe in 1473, compared to 19.4 akçe in 1489. For 1490, figures for saray purchases are given, but we learn that pious foundations (paying in general lower prices than the Palace) purchased their flour for 10.6 akçe. For the period between 1490 and 1528 (25.5 akçe per kile, paid by the saray), no data are available. 17  D. 4628, fols. 1v–2r.

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head of police (subaşı), the head physician (hekim başı), the sons of the Khan of Crimea, dismissed commanders, who had come to kiss the Sultan’s hand (hoping for a new appointment) and, finally, the Prince of Wallachia (Eflak voyvodası). All fodulas were medium-fine (orta hass). For the morning meal, a total of 41 “pairs” and for lunch a total of 24 “pairs” of bread were supplied.18 Ottoman registers usually reflect the existing ranking in a given hierarchy, naming the most prominent member first and the least important last. Our register, however, seems to contain two ranking orders, one expressed in the sequence of offices19 and the other in the amounts of food (e.g. the “large” pares). The text also explains—between the meals for the translator (tercüman) and that for the yeniçeri muhzırı (an officer liaising between the divan and the janissaries)20—that two meat dishes and pare (bread is not mentioned) were to be placed at the entrance to the Palace larder (kilar-i ‛amire önüne iki sahan et, iki pare)21 without stating any office as the recipient. The criteria by which this list was compiled remain, therefore, somewhat enigmatic. Nevertheless, a clear hierarchy is visible, when it comes to the various groups of soldiers, who are named next. The 300 janissaries of the court received rice 18  D. 4628, fol. 2v. 19  The individuals are listed as follows: yeniçeri ağası (general of the janissaries), emir-i ‘alem (standard-bearer), kapucıbaşılar (heads of the palace doorkeepers), emir ahurlar (masters of the horse), çavuşbaşı (head of the corps of guards in the divan), kapucılar kethüdası (steward of the doorkeepers), bölük ağaları (commanders of small janissary units), çakırcıbaşı (chief falconer, keeper of the goshawks), arpa emini (administrator of the supplies of barley), ahur kethüdası (steward of the royal stables), cebecibaşı (commander of the corps of armourers), dış hazinedarbaşı (chief treasurer of the state treasury), defter emini (director of the tax registration), kâğıd emini (official responsible for the dispensation of paper and office supplies to state offices), ruznameciler (bookkeepers of the treasury), mukata‘acılar (officials responsible for the administration of taxfarming), mukabeleci (official collating documents), hazine kâtipleri (the scribes of the imperial treasury), divan kâtipleri (scribes of the imperial council), dividdar (keeper of the royal pen-case), şehir emini (superintendent of the city [of Istanbul]), İstanbul subaşısı (head of the police of Istanbul), müteferrikalar (heterogeneous group of courtiers without fixed roles), çavuşlar (here: the guards in the divan), çadır mehterleri (tent-makers and -pitchers), terzibaşı (chief tailor), sakkabaşı (head of the water carriers in the divan), tercüman (dragoman), yeniçeri muhzırı (liaison officer between the divan and the janissaries), hekimbaşı (chief physician), Tatar Han oğlanları (the sons of the Khan of Crimea), el öpmeğe gelen ma‘zul beğler (dismissed high officials who came to kiss the sultan’s hand), Eflak voyvodası (the Prince of Wallachia). 20  Cf. Mehmet Zeki Pakalın, Osmanlı Tarih Deyimleri ve Terimleri Sözlüğü, vol. 2 (Istanbul: 1971), 572–3. 21  D. 4628, fol. 2r.

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soup (birinc şurbası) and meat as well as one pare per head, but explicitly no bread (etmekleri yokdur). The commanders of the foot soldiers (yayabaşı), the guards (solak), and “others” (gayri), however, ate almost the same as the group led by the general of the janissaries: 100 dishes of meat, 100 pare and 100 fodula, the latter being of low quality (harcî).22 Across the entire group, the daily ration consisted of four and a half kile (57.726 kg) rice,23 and 14 sheep. If rice was only served to the janissaries, the amount per head would have been 192.4 g, which is an enormous quantity.24 A sheep yielded an average of 12–14 kg of actual meat,25 which means that the portion calculated for these groups (janissaries, the commanders of the foot soldiers, the solaks and the “others”) came to almost half a kilogram of meat per person. This is a clear indication that a part of these allocations was intended to be taken away to feed others. The last group mentioned in this defter is the music band (nakara). In addition to one kile (12.828 kg) rice and one sheep for their soup, 30 “pairs” of low-quality fodula were provided,26 which leads to the assumption that the band had 30 men. But then the amount of rice per head (427.6 g) seems to be far too high. The share of meat, however, would roughly correspond to that of the former group. The last section of the register is somewhat incomprehensible. It sums up the amount of flour used in the bread intended for the janissaries, noting that one “pair” of low-quality bread is served per dish,27 while in the previous 22  The commanders of the foot soldiers and the guards received their meal only when they appeared at court. The same food they received was also served to the door-keepers on duty (nöbetçi kapucılar), and 20 dishes of it, as well as ten “pairs” of bread, also went to the door-keepers who served the ehl-i divan (officials of the Imperial Chancery employed in the state council; the first mentioned group). The same was true for ten men from the cavalry troops of the janissaries, who would eat ten dishes of aş (here probably rice soup), ten pare and ten fodula. D. 4628, fol. 3r. 23  1 kile (keyl) rice = 12.828 kg. See Hinz, Islamische Masse, 41. See also note 15 above. 24  Today a portion of rice as a side dish is calculated at ca. 50–70 g, and at 100–120 g as a main dish. 25  I am grateful to Thurstan Robinson, who informed me that on average, the dead weight of a sheep carcass is between 15 and 18 kg. That includes bones but not the head, fleece or innards. Thus, approximately 20 per cent have to be subtracted for the bones. 26   Ve nakara içün birinc şurbasına bir kîle birinc ve bir koyun ve otuz çift harcî foldula verilür (for the music band 12.828 kg rice, one sheep and 30 pairs of low-quality bread are given for their rice soup), D. 4628, fol. 3r. 27   Divan-i ‘aliyede yeniçeri kulları ta’ifesine üçyüz tas ta‘am verilür. Her tasa birer çift harcî fodula olduğı takdirce yevmi üçyüz çift fodula olur. Günde dokuz kîle un iki (!) çift etmek olur. Bir yılda ki yüz doksan iki gün divan oldukda bin sekiz yüz kile un olur. Her kilesi on beşer akçe hesabı üzere yiğirm yedi bin akçe olur [In the Imperial Divan 300 bowls of food are

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s­ ection this is explicitly denied. Does it mean that these soldiers did not normally get any bread with their meal, but they did so on divan days? Another riddle is the calculation, where obviously a writing mistake has crept in: the sentence “from nine kile (approx. 231 kg) flour28 two pairs of bread are made”29 does not make much sense. Furthermore, it is said that 192 divan days are held per year, hence 1,800 kile (46.186 tonnes) flour are consumed. Yet 9 multiplied by 192 would make 1,728 kile. If we assume that 9.375 kile (240.552 kg) must have been used per day, this corresponds to approximately 300 portions of 250 dirhem (801.84 g).30 Hence we may conclude that one single fodula had a weight of 125 dirhem (400.92 g).31 The differentiation between qualities of bread as well as the remark that janissaries should not receive bread makes it clear that bread is one of the main markers of rank; another is definitely the amount of victuals a person is supplied with. We see that in the period around 1500 one single standard menu was considered to be adequate not only for the soldiers present at the meetings of the state council, but also for the rather heterogeneous group named ehl-i divan (officials of the Imperial Chancery employed in the state council). Later, the standard menu must have occasionally lost its uniformity, because in the middle of the 17th century we find, for the ehl-i divan, a menu of two courses varying between six dishes (rice soup, plain rice, wheat soup, a dish made of raisins and wheat, called ta‛am-i bürrî, a dish made of rice or pounded wheat, mallow and lentils, called lapa, and a yoghurt dish, mastabe).32 From February 1660 to February 1664, however, it was again standardised, with dane-i sade (plain rice) as the first course and ta‛am-ı bürrî as the second.33 Variety, which given to the group of janissaries. When one pair of low-quality bread is calculated per each bowl, it equals 300 pairs of bread. Per day, 51.3178 kg flour equals two pairs of bread. When divan is held on 192 days per year, it equals 46,186 tonnes of flour. According to the calculation of 15 silver coins per 25.6589 kg this equals 27,000 silver coins], D. 4628, fol. 3v. 28  In the 16th century, the İstanbul kilesi was 25.6589 kg for wheat and flour. See Cengiz Kallek, entry “Kile” in DIA, vol. 25 (Ankara: 2002), 569. 29  I am very much indebted to Ülkü Altındağ, who confirmed that this sentence is not a mistake in my notes, but appears in the original. 30  1 dirhem equals 3.2073625 g. See İnalcık, “Introduction to Ottoman Metrology,” 340. 31  D. 4628, fol. 3v. 32  For ta‛am-i bürrî, lapa, and mastabe see Priscilla Mary Işın, Osmanlı Mutfak Sözlüğü (İstanbul: 2010), 67, 234 and 250–1. 33  Cf. Reindl-Kiel, “The Chickens of Paradise,” 64–6. Unfortunately, the tables of menus were left out by the publisher by mistake. This was corrected in the Turkish translation of the book: Hedda Reindl-Kiel, “Cennet Taamları: 17.Yüzyıl Ortalarında Osmanlı Sarayında Resmi Ziyafetler,” in Soframız Nur, Hanemiz Mamur: Osmanlı maddi kültüründe yemek ve

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also implies choice, was apparently considered as something reserved for top ranks, like viziers and members of the royal family. We do not know what caused these fluctuations, as we lack information on the person who drafted the menu plan, which eventually had to be approved by the sultan himself.

Eating in the Divan at the End of the 17th Century

For the period up to the end of the 17th century, we have no clue about the way in which rank and food were linked within the family and inner circle of the ruler. The earliest available register to supply this type of details dates from April 1692.34 As this defter is a fragment, lacking the first page or two, it does not give the complete picture. However, a slightly later register, kept in the Ottoman Archives of the Turkish Prime Minister’s Office (D.MSF 32081/3), is complete and gives us an insight into the matter. The first part of this defter was apparently drawn up in October 169235 but refers in part back to the year 1688.36 The last entry is dated 17 Şevval 1107/20 May 1696.37 Hence, the register covers most of the reign of Ahmed II and part of Mustafa II’s. For comparative reasons, we should first have a look at the rations allocated for meals on divan days. Unfortunately, the ehl-i divan are not mentioned as a category, but in the calculations for the viziers they appear twice.38 For these high dignitaries, 28 kıyye39 (35.92 kg) of meat and 11 keyl (= kile; 31.11 kg) of rice barınak, eds. Suraiya Faroqhi and Christoph K. Neumann, trans. Zeynep Yelçe (İstanbul: 2006), 88–93. 34  For this defter see Hedda Reindl-Kiel, “No Pigeons for the Princes: Food distribution and rank in the Ottoman Palace, according to an unknown type of a ta‘yinat defteri (late 17th Century),” in Bonner Islamwissenschaftler stellen sich vor, eds. Stephan Conermann and Marie-Christine Heinze (Schenefeld: 2006), 327–37. Later registers of this kind are in the Başbakanlık Osmanlı Arşivi [Archives of the Ottoman Prime Ministry, henceforth: BOA]: Mal. Müd. 948 (1706–1715), D.MSF 32140/62 (1769), D.MSF 32139/61 (1775), D.MSF 32145/67 (1779). 35  The first date incorporated in the text is 12 Safer 1104/23 October 1692, BOA, D.MSF 32081/3, p. 6. It seems, however, that the register was bound later and some of the pages were mixed up. 36  The earliest of these references is 20 Receb 1099/21 May 1688, D.MSF 32081/3, p. 38. This is half a year after the accession of Süleyman II. 37  D.MSF 32081/3, p. 55. Mustafa II had come to the throne more than a year before this date. 38  BOA, D.MSF 32081/3, p. 48, under the heading be-cihet-i ta‘am-ı vüzera-ı ‘uzam der divan-ı hümayun (“for the meal of the high-ranking viziers in the imperial council of state”). 39  For kiyye, see note 12 in Suraiya Faroqhi’s chapter.

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were noted, but no other foodstuff. Compared with the total amount of rice (13 keyl/166.76 kg) and meat (70 kıyye/20.52 kg) the ehl-i divan got the lion’s share.40 Thus, it would seem that a numerous group must have been fed, mainly with rice and meat. Specifications are given for sugar, chicken, meat and lamb: of the 11.5 kıyye (14.75 kg) of sugar, four were destined for the “meal” (ta‛am) of the viziers, three and a half (4.49 kg) for hoşab, a kind of sweet soup made chiefly from dried fruit, one kıyye (1.2828 kg) was put into the şerbet (sweet fruit drink), and three further kıyye (3.85 kg) were allocated to the Accounting Office (muhasebe) and the Suspended Payments Office (mevkufat). Of a total of 57 chicken, ten were allocated to diets for the sick (perhiz), six were used as filling for börek (filled pastry), 35 were roasted as kebab, and six were again given to the Accounting Office and the Suspended Payments Office.41 Of the eight lambs, three were roasted, three went into the soup (şurba), and one was passed on to the Accounting Office and the Suspended Payments Office respectively. The other victuals listed for the divan meals were clarified butter, onions, starch, eggs, a mixture of spices (bahar), pepper, rose water, almonds, red raisins, black raisins, figs, apricots (zerdalu), chickpeas, bread (fodula, nan-ı hass), currants, apples, chestnuts, sumac, sesame and dates. Additionally, a yellow beeswax candle was supplied. Nine çekirdek (“grains”)42 of musk (misk) could, if required, be used for hoşab, şerbet and palude (starch pudding), while 1.5 miskal (7.2 g) of ambergris (‛anber) flavoured the şerbet.43 As both ingredients, musk and ambergris, were rather costly,44 we can be sure that their consumers were only the viziers. These two aromatics were, however, not the only fragrances which were supplied to the viziers of the divan: under the heading “napkins of the pashas” (peşkir-i paşayan) are listed monthly allocations of ten

40  The viziers received only 2 keyl/25.65 kg, and the muhasebe ma‘ and mevkufat (Accounting Office and the Suspended Payments Office), only 4 kıyye/5.13 kg; the latter amount is not included in the total. As for the meat (laham), 70 kıyye (89.8 kg) was shared between the meal (ta‛am) for the viziers (16 kıyye/20.52 kg), the ehl-i divan, and the Accounting Office and the Suspended Payments Office (6 kıyye/7.7 kg); another 20 kıyye (25.65 kg) were needed for meat stew (yahni) and kebab. D.MSF 32081/3, p. 48. 41  The defter has only muhasebe ma,’ the word mevkufat is left out, D.MSF 32081/3, p. 48. 42  According to İnalcık, “Introduction to Ottoman Metrology,” 325, 24 çekirdek are equivalent to 1 miskal, and 1 miskal equals 1.5 dirhem (4.807 g). Thus, one çekirdek equals approximately 0.2 g (therefore, nine çekirdek amount to approximately 1.8 g). 43  D.MSF 32081/3, pp. 48–9. 44  Cf. Mübahat S. Kütükoğlu, Osmanlılarda Narh Müesesesi ve 1640 Tarihli Narh Defteri (İstanbul: 1983), 101–2. (Pure musk is not listed in the narh defteri).

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dirhem (32.05 g) of aloe wood (şecer-i öd),45 one kıyye (1.2828 kg) of soap, and two kıyye of rose water (gülab), next to two pieces of lining (astar).46 For the janissaries present on divan days, a rice soup or gruel would probably have been cooked, because 10.5 keyl (134.694 kg) rice, 110 kıyye (141.108 kg) meat, ten kıyye (12.828 kg) onions, six kıyye (7.697 kg) chickpeas, 140 dirhem (448.7 g) pepper and 374 “pairs” of fodula were designated for them.47 Thus, the janissaries might have been present on those days with 374 of their men. Again, the quantities were enormous. Calculating on the basis of 374 men, each of them must have got a portion of 360 g rice and 377 g meat! Thus, the approach had not changed very much since the period around 1500. Although the quantities per person had shrunken slightly, they were much too high to be eaten by the individuals concerned. Hence, they were still meant to be given away to feed others.

Rank and Bread—the Pecking Order at the Royal Court

One indicator of a person’s rank was, as we have seen, the kind of bread he or she received. This fact is also confirmed by our register. Although other foodstuffs were highly suited to mark rank due to their exclusiveness or their price, bread was the first choice for this function. This might be because the different qualities of bread as a staple food corresponded better to the subtle differentiations of rank than did a single luxury item. In addition, bread also had a sacred and ritual connotation.48 The full range of bread was only allotted to the ruler himself (Ahmed II). Allocated to him were 11 “pairs” of nan-ı hass, three “pairs” of nan-ı piç (braid), three çöreks (sweet bread), one na‛llı halka (u-shaped rusk),49 no less than 30 simid halka (ring-shaped bread with sesame), four nan-ı pite (flat bread, today’s pide), one nan-ı imam (“imam’s bread”), two nan-ı mirahorî (“bread of the 45  On the use of aloe wood see Hedda Reindl-Kiel, “Der Duft der Macht: Osmanen, islamische Tradition, muslimische Mächte und der Westen im Spiegel diplomatischer Geschenke,” Wiener Zeitschrift zur Kunde des Morgenlandes 95 (2005): 253–6. 46  D.MSF 32081/3, p. 49. The term astar refers to a simple, roughly-spun cotton fabric or tea towel. It was used for filtering liquids (soups etc.), for preparing purées, for covering food, and for sealing pots. See Işin, Osmanlı Mutfak Sözlüğü (İstanbul: 2010), 32. 47  D.MSF 32081/3, p. 49. 48  Cf. Suraiya Faroqhi, Kultur und Alltag im Osmanischen Reich: Vom Mittelalter bis zum Anfang des 20. Jahrhunderts (Munich: 1995), 229–30. Artan, “Aspects,” 130–3. 49  Cf. Burhan Oğuz, Türkiye Halkının Kültür Kökenleri: Teknikleri, müesseseleri, inanç ve âdetleri, vol. 1: Giriş—Beslenme Teknikleri (İstanbul: 1976), 387.

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master of the stables”),50 two nan-ı kirde (extremely flat bread), two poğaca-ı Beç (round, usually salty bread, today made with fat, yoghurt and flour, mostly filled),51 12 nan-ı nohud (chickpea bread),52 and two nan-ı sükkerî (sugar bread). This was only the usual daily ration, in addition to which, at noon he received two “pairs” of nan-ı hass, one çörek, two na‛llı halka, and 15 simid halka. During Ramazan his meal before dawn (sahurluk) would be enriched with a “pair” of nan-ı hass, two na‛llı halka, one poğaca-ı Beç, one sugar bread (nan-ı sükkerî), and five simid halka.53 No valide sultan (mother of the ruling sultan) is mentioned in the first pages of our register, since Ahmed II’s mother, Mu‛azzez Sultan, had already died in 1687 after a fire in the Old Palace,54 before her son came to the throne in 1691. Thus, the hasseki (favourite concubine)55 was the highest-ranking female member of the royal family. Her allocation was that of a valide sultan and specifically, as the defter points out, that of the late mother of Sultan Mehmed IV.56 After the death of Ahmed II and the accession of Mustafa II in 1695, Gülnûş Sultan (who was also Ahmed III’s mother) became Valide Sultan, thus receiving the allocation of the former hasseki, as an observation on the margin of our defter informs us.57 Nobody else in the Palace except her was entitled to simid

50  According to Işın, Osmanlı Mutfak Sözlüğü, 265, this was a very fine bread which looked like a sponge and was specially baked for the sultan. 51  Cf. Işın, Osmanlı Mutfak Sözlüğü, 309. 52  This bread is still made in Anatolia for special days, see Oğuz, Türkiye Halkının Kültür Kökenleri, 1, 376. 53  D.MSF 32081/3, p. 4. 54  M. Çağatay Uluçay, Padişahların Kadınları ve Kızları (Ankara: 1980), 60. 55  Rabi‘a Sultan, the mother of Prince İbrahim and Prince Selim, Ahmed II’s twin sons (born in 1692), and of his daughter Asiye Sultan. See Uluçay, Padişahların Kadınları ve Kızları, 71–2. 56  D.MSF 32081/3, p. 6: mu‘ayyenat-ı devletlü hasseki sultan hazretleri ‘an ta‘yinat-ı merhume valide sultan, valide-i Sultan Mehmed hüdavendigâr-ı sabık ba-hatt-ı hümayun harem-i hümayuna ciğ verilür, el-vaki‘ fi 16 Safer-i sene 1104 (“Supplementary rations of her highness, the most excellent sultana favourite, from the rations of the late queen mother, the mother of the former ruler Sultan Mehmed, are given by imperial decree uncooked to the imperial harem, dated 27 October 1692”). Mehmed IV’s mother, Turhan Sultan, had died in 1683. 57  D.MSF 32081/3, p. 6: becayiş-i devletlü valide sultan, valide-i hazret-i Sultan Mustafa hazretleri, padişah ‘alempenah (“In exchange of the [rations of the] most excellent queen mother, the mother of his majesty Sultan Mustafa, the sultan who is the refuge of the universe”). In another entry (p. 17) the text is the other way round: be-cihet-i harc-ı sofra-i devletlü valide sultan hazretleri becayiş-i hasseki sultan hazretleri (“For the consumption at

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halka, of which she received 12.58 Other types of fancy breads, such as nan-ı imam, nan-ı kirde, and nan-ı sükkerî, were restricted solely to the Sultan, and even the hasseki did not receive them. Her daily ration of breads was 12 nan-ı hass, two nan-ı piç, three çöreks, three na‛llı halka, the 12 simids, three nan-ı pite, three nan-ı mirahorî, three nan-ı nohud, and no less than 220 fodula.59 The distance of rank between the Sultan and his favourite is thus emphasised by greater variety and a greater number. These enormous daily rations of bread again point to the principle of redistribution, even in the case of the ruler and his hasseki. It is clear that 45 simid per day would be too much for a single individual even if nothing else were consumed. The 220 fodula listed for the favourite are even more significant in emphasising this aspect, for this allocation stands in sharp contrast to the allocation of the Princes Mustafa (born 1664, who became Mustafa II in 1695) and Ahmed (born 1673, who became Ahmed III in 1703). Together, the princes received a daily ration of eight nan-ı hass, two nan-ı piç, (as a later addition) two na‛llı halka, and ten “pairs” of somun (bread loaves).60 Only the latter would have been intended for redistribution, as, with one exception,61 they do not appear in allocations to other persons or groups in the Palace. Yet, their limited number did not allow these princes to feed a larger group of followers, who could have become potentially dangerous rivals to the ruler. The twin sons of Ahmed II, İbrahim and Selim (born 7 October the table of her highness, the most excellent queen mother, in exchange of her highness, the sultana favourite”). 58  D.MSF 32081/3, p. 6. 59  D.MSF 32081/3, p. 6. 60  A remark on the upper margin says that half of the allocation was given to Prince Ahmed and the other half (i.e. the ration of Prince Mustafa) was now to be shared by the daye kadın (child’s nurse) and the odalık kadın (a concubine, perhaps Âlîcenab Kadın. See Uluçay, Padişahların Kadınları ve Kızları, 73–75). D.MSF 32081/3, p. 10. After Mustafa II’s accession to the throne (6 February 1695), the ration for Prince Ahmed alone was changed from four to six nan-ı hass, next to one na‘llı halka and one nan-ı piç, Ahmed now received the full amount of ten fodula. The entry is dated 3 Şa‘ban 1106/3 August 1695. D.MSF 32081/3, p. 8. For the halkas of Prince Mustafa and Prince Ahmed nine kıyye (11.55 kg) of clarified butter (revgan-ı sade) per week were allocated to the Palace’s bakery (furun-ı hass). Ibid., 33. 61  The daye kadın received a daily share of two nan-ı hass, one na‘llı halka, one nan-ı piç and ten fodula (these she “inherited” from the allowance of Prince Mustafa) and, additionally (in the harem), two nan-ı hass, one somun and one halka. D.MSF 32081/3, p. 8. As the first entry is dated 3 Şa‘ban 1106/3 August 1695, and the second 26 Receb 1106/26 July 1695, the recipient was apparently the nurse of Mustafa II, who came to the throne in February of that year.

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1692),62 who were infants when the register was composed, received only two “pairs” of nan-ı hass each per day, a stipulation which was cancelled (3 Şa‛ban 1106/19 March 1695)63 after the accession of Mustafa II. Only two units of the Palace had a larger range of bread, the imperial harem with na‛llı halka, nan-ı hass, nan-ı piç, çörek and nan-ı pita, and the hass oda (privy chamber) with nan-ı hass, nan-ı piç, çörek, poğaca-ı Beç and nan-ı pita.64 This broader range of bread certainly reflects the unit’s proximity to the ruler. While the heads of palace units such as the black head eunuch (darüssa‛ade ağası)65 or the head treasurer (ser-hazine ağası) were supplied with nan-ı hass,66 the lower ranks, such as the janissaries67 and the pages (gılmanan)68 had to be content only with fodula. The same is true for the maids (horende) of the hasseki.69 In this context, it is interesting to see that these women were supplied with prestigious victuals such as sugar and chicken, but not with the more fancy breads. One of these luxury breads, çörek, was baked for the two religious festivals (‛iyd-i şerif), the festival ending the Ramazan, and the festival of Sacrifice. For each festivity 30 kıyye (38.484 kg) of clarified butter, three kıyye (3.85 kg) of almonds, 50 eggs, 28 keyl (718,449 kg) of best quality flour, three kıyye (3.85 kg) of sesame, two kıyye (2,566 kg) of black cumin and 150 dirhem (481,1 g) of mastic were delivered to the bakery of the Palace (hass fırun).70 In small quantities çörek was sometimes allotted to individuals who did not belong to the upper echelons of the saray. For example, the halberdiers (teberdaran-i zülüfli) received two çöreks, next to their allocation of 120 “pairs” of fodula, 1.5 keyl (19.242 kg) of rice, 3.5 kıyye (4.490 kg) of clarified butter, 65 kıyye (83.382 kg) of meat, five kıyye (6.414 kg) of vinegar, three kıyye (3.85 kg) of sesame oil (revgan-ı şir), ten kıyye (12.828 kg) of onions and five kıyye (6.414 kg) of salt.71 These two pastries must have been intended for one or two individuals, as two çöreks only make no sense for the entire group.

62  Anthony Dolphin Alderson, The Structure of the Ottoman Dynasty (repr. Westport, Connecticut: 1982), 172 (Table 34). 63  D.MSF 32081/3, p. 10. 64  D.MSF 32081/3, p. 15. 65  The darüssa‛ade ağası additionally received six “pairs” of fodula. D.MSF 32081/3, p. 30. 66  D.MSF 32081/3, p. 15 and 16. 67  D.MSF 32081/3, p. 49 (374 “pairs”). 68  D.MSF 32081/3, p. 26, 27, 30. 69  D.MSF 32081/3, p. 19 (15 “pairs” of fodula). 70  D.MSF 32081/3, p. 46. 71  D.MSF 32081/3, p. 30.

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It is clear that, even in generally homogeneous groups, there are always individuals who are a little more equal than the others. Looking at the 17 “pairs” of nan-ı hass for the privy chamber, we can conclude that they were meant for 17 (or 34) people; yet, of the nan-ı piç only three “pairs” are given, of the poğaca-ı Beç two, and only one çörek and one nan-ı pita, hence most members of this unit did not enjoy the full diversity of bread. The concubines and potential concubines of the ruler (ferraşin)72 did not get çöreks, although all kinds of luxury victuals, including chickens, pigeons and musk were listed for them. Their nan-ı hass was meant, as a note explains, for papara73 and çılbur (poached eggs). Further, one and a half “pair” of nan-ı pita to accompany the paça (sheep’s trotters) is mentioned for this group.74 Details such as this shed some light on the period’s culinary habits and changes over time.

Coffee, Tea, Sugar and Spices

Next to the extensive use of coffee, tea is mentioned in this defter—to our knowledge—for the first time. The Sultan’s kahveci başı (preparer of coffee) was supplied each month with 30 kıyye (38.484 kg) of sugar, 60 kıyye (76.968 kg) of coffee (costing 5,000 akçe) and 300 dirhem (962.2 g) of tea. The latter is registered as zam (addition) from 8 Zilhicce 1099/4 October 1688 onwards, hence it is very likely that it was an innovation or a reintroduction to the Palace.75 At the same time several spices, also recorded as zam, were delivered to the kahveci başı: 150 dirhem (481.1 g) of star anise (badyan), 75 dirhem (240.6 g) of

72  Literally: “sweepers.” In the imperial harem, however, the expression denoted the concubines-in-waiting. See Hedda Reindl-Kiel, “Kadının Adı Yok à la Ottomane: Ein darüssa‘ade defteri aus der Prinzenzeit Selims II,” in Arts, Women and Scholars: Studies in Ottoman society and culture. Festschrift Hans Georg Majer, eds. Sabine Prätor and Christoph K. Neumann, vol. 1 (Istanbul: 2002), 128–9. 73  Today papara is made of bread, cheese (or minced meat) and broth. A mid-17thcentury register, however, has the addition “[with] sugar” for papara. Cf. Reindl-Kiel, “The Chickens of Paradise,” 76. 74  D.MSF 32081/3, pp. 18–9. 75  Tea was already known in Istanbul, as we learn from Evliya Çelebi. See Orhan Şaik Gökyay (ed.), Evliya Çelebi Seyahatnamesi. 1: Kitap: İstanbul. (İstanbul: 1996), 240. See also Bilgin, Osmanlı Saray Mutfağı, 211. A register of Silahdar Mustafa Pasha (executed in 1642), the favourite of Murad IV, mentions tea for the year 1639; see TSMA, D. 2014, fol. 4v. (Evliya’s travelogue was written in ten “books,” the first of them being dedicated to Istanbul).

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cloves, 75 çekirdek (15 g) of musk and 75 dirhem (240.6 g) of cinnamon.76 How these aromatics were used is unclear, though. Tea was only intended for the Sultan, not being noted for any other individual.

The Olive Economy and Olive Oil Production77

Another entry in the our late 17th-century defter (D.MSF 32081/3) is for the weekly amount of olive oil (6 kıyye/7.697 kg) for the black chief eunuch, and reads: “kifayet mikdarı sallata içün, sirke dahi verilür” (a sufficient amount of it for the salad, vinegar is also given).78 This points to two innovations in the saray, olive oil and salad. The Turkish name of the latter was a loan word which matches the novelty of the dish itself.79 Unfortunately, the register does not give details, but the term and the addition of olive oil and vinegar suggest a salad of fresh vegetables, maybe lettuce, as we know it today. Olive oil had been known for a long time, but the Imperial Palace consumed it only in little quantities.80 In earlier periods, olive oil had been used for lighting and, to a smaller extent, for medical and technical purposes.81 Without doubt, a certain amount of it was exported (both legally and illegally) to the West. The question arises: when and how did olive oil enter Ottoman kitchens and how can we explain its eventual triumph? We must not overlook the fact that most documents reflecting culinary habits in pre-modern times mirror only the preferences of a very small percentage of the total population, namely the Ottoman Muslim elite, court circles, and pious foundations (vakfs) with their largely urbanite clientele. Non-Muslims and the lower classes are left out of consideration. In case shifting patterns of food consumption played a role in this process, they definitely did not origin in the upper strata of society. Suraiya Faroqhi’s chapter in the present volume traces the beginnings of olive oil consumption among the non-elite urbanite milieu, mainly in the Ottoman capital. 76  D.MSF 32081/3, p. 14. 77  The section on olive oil production has been written by Machiel Kiel. 78  D.MSF 32081/3, p. 16. 79  The Ottoman Turkish loan word (sallata, with the alternative spelling sallûta), was borrowed from the Italian and ultimately derived from the Latin for salt (sal). 80  We find it in kitchen registers from the 15th century onwards. Cf. Ömer Lütfü Barkan, “İstanbul Saraylarına ait Muhasebe Defterleri,” Türk Tarih Kurumu Belgeler 9 (13) (1979): 215, 234, 250, 272. Bilgin, “Seçkin Mekânda Seçkin Damaklar,” 55, contends that olive oil in the Palace was used mainly as lamp oil. 81  Faruk Doğan, “The Production and Consumption of Olive Oil During the Ottoman Empire,” in Turkish Cuisine, eds. Bilgin and Samancı (Ankara: 2015), 232.

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In large parts of the empire, especially in the regions on the shores of the Mediterranean, we can trace a fundamental change in the agricultural production towards an olive-dominated economy in the 17th century. This seems at first glance to suggest a change from the use of clarified butter in cooking to the use of olive oil. In their traditional eating habits, stemming from the Central Asian steppes, the Turks preferably used the fat of the fat-tailed sheep (revgan-ı dünbe, kuyruk yağı) for cooking and later changed to clarified butter, the favoured fat for cooking in most of the Islamic Middle East. Neither the kitchen records of the royal palace nor those of great pious foundations bear evidence of a considerable consumption of olive oil for the 16th and 17th centuries.82 This stands in sharp contrast to the documentation on the agrarian production in many coastal areas of the Mediterranean. The kitchen registers of the Palace from the 15th, 16th and early 17th centuries still mention fat from fat-tailed sheep, and sometimes also tallow.83 A list of ingredients for fish soup and fish kavurma (fried fish) from 1649 suggests that at that time olive oil might have been used in the Palace kitchen to give an additional flavour to a dish, since next to 9 kg of clarified butter only 3.8 kg olive oil were processed.84 To understand how major the change in consumption habits connected with olive oil must have been we should have a short look at the island of Lesbos/Mitylini (Midilli for the Ottomans). At the end of the 19th century, 64 per cent of all the taxes on agricultural products raised there rested on olive oil, only 19 per cent on cereals and 13 per cent on sheep.85 In the 16th century, however, the economy was based on wheat and wine, with figs and other fruits as subsidiary products.86 A case in point is one of the larger villages of the island, the centrally-located Aya Paraskevi, which, in the 19th century had an economy completely dominated by olive oil production, which is still the case today. Yet, in 1548, 53 per cent of the village’s production consisted of wheat, and olive oil accounted for only two per cent. A different pattern is shown by the village of Moria (known for its magnificent Roman aqueduct). In 1548, it 82  Compare Suraiya Faroqhi, Towns and Townsmen of Ottoman Anatolia: Trade, crafts and food production in an urban setting, 1520–1650 (Cambridge: 1984), 213; eadem, “Seventeenth Century Agricultural Crisis and the Art of Flute Playing: The worldly affairs of the Mevlevi dervishes (1595–1652),” Turcica 20 (1988): 55. 83  Barkan, “İstanbul Saraylarına ait Muhasebe Defterleri,” 11, 73, 92, 110, 157, 209, 234, 279. 84  Reindl-Kiel, “The Chickens of Paradise,” 65. 85  Vital Cuinet, La Turquie d’Asie: Géographie administrative, statistique, descriptive et raisonnée de chaque province de l’Asie-Mineure (Paris: 1892–1900), 449. 86  BOA, Tapu Defteri 264 from 1548, and Tapu Defteri 598 from 1581.

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was a typical wine-and-wheat village, but between 1548 and 1671 the amount of olive oil produced rose eightfold. In 1548 the villages of the kaza of Lesbos (Tr. Midilli) together had 99 corn mills and 10 oil mills. In 1671 the number of corn mills had sunk to 40, but the oil mills went up from 10 to 116, more than tenfold. Another drastic change in the local economy was witnessed by the island of Thasos (Tr. Taşöz). In 1519 the islanders made their living from sheep (50 per cent) and wine (28 per cent); honey and indigo plant (çivit) stood at 19 per cent. Surprisingly, olive oil accounted for only one and a half per cent of the island’s taxes. The 1550 register87 does not show any dramatic changes, although olive oil had doubled. However, a new census and taxation register of 1601 for the sancak (sub-province) of Gallipoli (Gelibolu)88 shows an increase of revenues from olive oil from 3 per cent to 22 per cent for Thasos. This trend was greatly intensified in the period 1601–1670/1, the situation for the latter date being recorded in a register made immediately after the end of the Cretan War.89 By now the triumph of olive oil was complete. On its own, it constituted 60 per cent of the entire production of the island. The total dominance of olive oil over the economy of Thasos can also be seen in the number of olive trees compared with the other fruit-bearing trees, which are recorded village by village. Of the 53,593 fruit-bearing trees counted on the island, no less than 48,776 were olive trees, or 91 per cent of the total. Thasos was evidently producing for the market and now bought its grain on the mainland, with revenues from oil production. It is very interesting to compare these data with the results of Fikret Yılmaz’s research on the protocols of the kadı court of Edremit, just opposite Lesbos. Yılmaz found that between 1536 and 1575, in the 444 probate inventories (tereke) of deceased inhabitants in Edremit, only 32 had possessed olive groves (zeytinlik). Between 1575 and 1593, however, no less than 112 of the 289 people in the tereke register had olive plantations,90 a drastic increase indeed, which parallels the contemporaneous data for Lesbos (Midilli). Changes in economy, settlement patterns and landscape as outlined above took place in many parts of the Ottoman lands where nature allowed olives to grow. Nowadays, the vast plain around the old town of Salona (today’s Amphissa) on the Greek mainland has the appearance of a soft green sea of olive trees. Yet, in the old days, there were no olives there at all. The classical historian Tacitus describes the plain of Amphissa as desolate and bare. The expansion of olives can be followed beginning with 1466, as recorded in Ottoman 87  BOA, Tapu Defteri 434. 88  BOA, Tapu Defteri 702. 89  Tapu ve Kadastro Genel Müdürlüğü, Ankara, no. 121. 90  Fikret Yılmaz, XVI. Yüzyılda Edremit Kazası (İzmir: 1995), 222–7.

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registers. Similar developments took place in the plains of Attica around Athens. Here again the Ottoman mufassal tahrir (detailed survey) registers are an important source for an understanding of these changes. As are travellers’ observations. The Dutch traveller Cornelis de Bruyn, who visited the Levant in 1678–79, noted in his travelogue that olive oil was extremely white, sweet and had a very pleasant taste. It was used as a kind of relish (‘that which they make use of as a Sauce to a great Part of their Meats, without giving them the least Disgust’)91 and eaten on bread with a pinch of salt. Mixed with a little lemon or vinegar and a bit of pepper and salt, it served as a sauce for certain types of fish. Over time, de Bruyn continues, one became so used to it that one could easily go without butter.92 This description suggests, however, light sesame oil rather than the product obtained from olives. This is corroborated by de Bruyn’s preconception concerning olives, which becomes visible in his account of the Greek wives of Dutch merchants, who preferred “half-rotten olives” to the best Dutch butter and cheese.93 Thus, de Bruyn’s story might confirm Fikret Yılmaz’s view that the most important type of cooking oil was derived from sesame seeds.94 If this assumption is accurate, the first stage must have been a transition from solid fat (such as sheep tail-fat or clarified butter) to liquid oil. This must have prepared the ground for the ultimate shift to olive oil, a process which must have started in the course of the 17th century. When Merzifonlu Kara Mustafa Pasha conducted his campaign against Vienna in 1683, he stored large amounts of provisions (obviously meant for the return march) in Belgrade: rice (13.67 tonnes), clarified butter (13.7 tonnes), olive oil (1.1 tonnes), coffee (almost 2 tonnes), soap (2.5 tonnes), pepper (143.7 kg), lentils (almost 4 tonnes), and stock sugar (193.7 kg).95 Sesame oil is not mentioned, thus olive oil must have already started to replace it. The royal palace seems to have been rather reluctant to adopt the novelty of olive oil consumption. In this context, we have to keep in mind that the Palace in general had a propensity towards conservative attitudes. For example, while 91  “een zaak waarmede zy hunne spyzen voor een groot gedeelde goed maaken, zonder dat er eenige viesheit mee gemengd is.” Cornelis de Bruyn, Reizen van Cornelis de Bruin door de vermaardste deelen van Klein Asia […], ed. R[enaat] J.G.A.A. Gaspar (first published 1698, digital edition 2014), 134–5. English-language translation from de Bruyn, Voyage to the Levant, trans. Anon, London 1702, 93–94. 92  Ibid. 93  de Bruyn, Reizen, 135. 94  Fikret Yılmaz, “16. yüzyılda tarımsal yapılarda değişim,” Tarih ve Toplum [History and society] 10 (Bahar [Spring] 2010): 31–4. 95  BOA, D.BŞM-MHF, Dosya 4, Gömlek 42 (dated 23 January 1684).

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turkey was already on the tables of Istanbul’s middle classes by the 1640s,96 it first appears in the saray’s kitchen registers in the early 18th century.97 We do find novelties like salad or green tomatoes in the Palace register considered in the present study, but only small amounts of olive oil. Maybe we can explain this phenomenon as the result of a combination of conservatism and exclusivism. When the star of olive oil began to rise, it was certainly too novel to be accepted in the Palace kitchen, while later it might have been too popular, and therefore not sufficiently exclusive, to enter the saray. In this context, it is interesting to note that, until the first decades of the 20th century, upper class families in Kilis hardly used olive oil for cooking because it was not “distinguished” (kibar) enough.98 Our late 17th-century defter reflects this attitude, which was only going to change very slowly: by 1841–42, the yearly amount of olive oil bought by the Palace in Ayvalık and on the island of Cunda was more than 70 tons (55,000 kıyye).99 While the Sultan received daily from the matbah-ı hass (imperial kitchen) 12 kıyye (15.394 kg) of clarified butter and one kıyye (1.2828 kg) of butter (revgan-ı tere), but no olive oil,100 the weekly allocations to the harem consisted of 49 kıyye (62.857 kg) of clarified butter and only five kıyye (6.414 kg) of olive oil.101 The hasseki received daily allocations of one kıyye (1.2828 kg) of butter102 and 10 kıyye (12.828 kg) of revgan-ı sade (clarified butter),103 as well as weekly allocations of 25 kıyye (32.07 kg) of clarified butter and five kıyye (6.414 kg) of olive oil. The ratio of clarified butter vs. olive oil was not very different for other individuals of the royal household. The kethüda kadın (female steward of the ruler’s harem), for example, had a monthly share of 80 kıyye (102.624 kg) of clarified butter and only 7.5 kıyye (9.621 kg) of

96  Cf. Orhan Şaik Gökyay, “Sohbetname,” Tarih ve Toplum 2 (14) (Şubat [February] 1985): 60. 97  In 1700, it appears in a ledger listing the menus of official meals in the Council of State on divan days and at large state banquets. Narodna Biblioteka Sv. Sv. Kiril i Metodii, Sofia, Orientalska arkhivna kolektsiia 485, fols. 39b, 46a, 66b, 94b, 102a. BOA; D.MSF 32083/5 (1743). 98  I am very grateful to my friend and former colleague in Berlin, Belma Emircan, for sharing this information with me. 99  70.554 kg. BOA, Cevdet Saray 6639. 100  D.MSF 32081/3, p. 17. 101  D.MSF 32081/3, p. 5. 102  D.MSF 32081/3, p. 6. 103  D.MSF 32081/3, p. 17 (from the matbah-i hass).

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olive oil.104 If the latter was not destined for lighting, we may conclude that it was mainly intended for salad.105

The Prestige of Vegetables and the Exclusivity of Pigeons

The register of 1692 does not, however, give any information about the kind of salad consumed. In general, the amount of vegetables is left rather vague, due to seasonal changes. Although different kinds of fresh vegetables, such as cowpeas, spinach, squash (kabak-ı Mısır), turnip, celery, romaine lettuce (marul), cucumber, garlic, aubergine, vine leaves, borage (lisan-ı sevir), okra, Jew’s mallow (müluhiye), beets, carrots and herbs, such as parsley, dill, mint and tarragon, are mentioned for the Sultan, mostly listed with quantities, the register explicitly states that this is valid only during the respective season.106 In the allocations to princes and other members of the imperial household, fresh vegetables are lumped together under the term sebzevat (vegetables). An exception is the list of the hass oda (privy chamber), where fresh squash (with 45 kıyye/ 57.726 kg), spinach, vine leaves (6 kıyye/ 7.697 kg), borage (6 kıyye/ 7.697 kg) and 50 celeries are named individually.107 The uncertainty arising from seasonal changes makes it rather probable that, in general, only the readily available vegetables are named. For the hasseki, for example, okra, green tomatoes (kavata) and Jew’s mallow are listed in one entry,108 while tomatoes are not listed for the Sultan. The kavata tomatoes109 would seem to be a novelty, as they are not listed in the register fragment from April 1682.110 It would appear that vegetables were not regarded as prestigious unless presented in bulk rather than as single items. The meat distribution included a range of only three meat varieties: “meat,” which in this context means mutton,111 chicken and pigeon. Chicken was restricted to the upper ranks (with exceptional allowances made for the sick), whereas pigeon (always in portions of ten birds) was allotted only to the Sultan,112 104  D.MSF 32081/3, p. 7. 105  For the late adoption of olive oil in the cuisine of Istanbul’s elites, see comparatively Suraiya Faroqhi’s chapter in the present volume. 106  D.MSF 32081/3, p. 5, 17. 107  D.MSF 32081/3, p. 18. 108  D.MSF 32081/3, p. 6. 109  Cf. Artan, “Aspects,” 112–4. Bilgin, “Seçkin Mekânda Seçkin Damaklar,” 72–3. 110  BOA, Mal. Müd. 18000. 111  Artan, “Aspects,” 134–5. 112  D.MSF 32081/3, p. 6 and 17.

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the favourite concubine (hasseki),113 the (potential) concubines (ferraşin),114 and visiting princesses.115 The highest-ranking female not belonging to the imperial family was the female steward of the harem (kethüda kadın). She had a share of one sheep and ten chickens per day.116 Her role was similar to that of the head eunuch, the darüssa‛ade ağası, who had additional responsibilities outside the Palace. He received a kitchen allocation of 114 kıyye (146.239 kg) of meat and 46 chickens.117 His enormous portion defines him as someone who had to feed a larger group of people. However, if we look at the allocations of snow for cooling drinks, the kethüda kadın and darüssa‛ade ağası were almost of equal rank: at first glance, both received the same amount, i.e. four denk (two horse-loads) of ice. But the head eunuch received an extra denk, specifically for cooling his coffee. The favourite concubine (hasseki), too, had one extra denk of snow for her coffee on top of her normal allocation of 12 denk.118 This shows that, not only were drinks like şerbets or hoşab cooled with snow, but an early version of iced coffee was consumed in the Palace as well.

Grappling for Additions

One striking feature in our register (as in all defters of this kind) is the frequency of additions (zam) to already existing allocations, reflecting the desire of courtiers to upgrade their rank and to be able to feed a larger group of retainers. In the case of the ladies of the royal harem, such a group did not necessarily have to consist of worldly dependents. The beneficiaries could also be religious circles, such as dervish convents or similar institutions. These additions could be innovations, like the zam for the Sultan’s tea, but more frequently, they were supplemental portions stemming from the share of a deceased member of the court. The most prominent example in our register is that of the hasseki119 who 113  D.MSF 32081/3, p. 6. 114  D.MSF 32081/3, p. 19. 115  D.MSF 32081/3, p. 25. 116  D.MSF 32081/3, p. 7. 117  D.MSF 32081/3, p. 24. 118  D.MSF 32081/3, p. 51. Unfortunately, the document does not give any clue as to whether this quantity was intended to last for a week or a month. 119  Additionally daily a yellow wax candle, originally meant for princes, was given to her larder: şem‘-i ‘asel-i zerd, ‘aded 1, ‘an harc-ı efendiler; bu dahi hasseki sultan kilarına verilür. [Yellow wax candle, 1 item, from the expenses of the princes; also, this is given for the larder of the sultana favourite], D.MSF 32081/3, p. 6.

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‘inherited’ the allocation of the valide sultan. The princesses Ümmügülsüm and Fatma120 (who no longer lived in the Palace) profited in their monthly coffee allocations from the death of the poetess ‛Afife Kadın,121 one of the wives of their late father, Mehmed IV.122 Another similar entry concerns the re-assignment of fodula bread to the Old Palace and reads: “15, zam ‛an mahlul Ahmed Ağa ve Kalender Ağa” [15, addition from the vacancy [of] Ahmed Ağa and Kalender Ağa]. These marginal notices indicate that the allocations in these defters were indeed fixed salaries in kind, so that when the original beneficiary died his share could be redistributed.

The Unhealthy Diet of the Royal Birds

One ‘group’ in our register did not get any regular additional portions (zam): the parrots (tutiyan) and the mynah birds (mürg-i meyna), most probably kept in the harem. The weekly ration of the parrots consisted of one kıyye (1.2828 kg) of sugar, eight kıyye (10.262 kg) of razakî (raisins), one kıyye of roasted chickpeas (leblebi), and their monthly ration was one kıyye of almonds. The mynah birds received five kıyye (6.414 kg) of sugar, eight kıyye (10.262 kg) of clarified butter and ten kıyye (12.828 kg) of roasted chickpeas per month.123 From a specification for provisions given to the iç kilar (the larders of the harem and the private apartments), we read that the mynah birds’ monthly diet also contained 50 dirhem (160.4 g) of cloves (karanfil),124 which, at least around the year 1640, was one of the most costly spices, being more expensive than saffron.125 Hence, these birds would definitely have been highly cherished pets, for which only the best was good enough, even if the diet did not particularly strengthen their health. In addition, the cloves, which do not appear in the normal ta‛yinat of the birds, indicate that a given assignment for an individual recipient was understood as the minimum to be received, while sometimes other provisions could be allocated in addition, even when not officially listed.

120  Ümmügülsüm (died in 1720) and Fatma were daughters of Mehmed IV. Cf. Alderson, The Structure of the Ottoman Dynasty, Table 38. Uluçay, Padişahların Kadınları ve Kızları, 68–9. 121  Uluçay, Padişahların Kadınları ve Kızları, 67–8. 122  D.MSF 32081/3, p. 7. 123  D.MSF 32081/3, p. 32. 124  D.MSF 32081/3, p. 12. 125  Kütükoğlu, Osmanlılarda Narh Müesesesi, 98. TSMA, D. 91961, p. 3.

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Conclusions In the closed world of the saray with its strict hierarchy, supplementary allocations could certainly mean promotion in rank, at least temporarily. Generally, they suggested greater proximity to the ruler, who was—not unlike monarchs in West-European ancien régimes126—the key to court society. In a culture where formal divisions in society are largely absent, where religious equality and social hierarchies are permanently in conflict,127 conspicuous consumption must always play an important role. Many artefacts on display today in the Topkapı Sarayı Museum are relics of this attitude. However, compared to West European court practices, the Ottoman approach to the allocation of food and privileges also took into account the bodily needs of others, including the needs of those in the immediate recipient’s circle. The Ottoman Palace was generally perceived as the prime model for households in the whole empire, which it was for the most part. But, as we have seen from the registers investigated here, the saray’s mode of distribution enabled its beneficiaries to redistribute a part of the ‘blessings’ they had received. As I have shown elsewhere,128 the sultan’s allocations of high quantities of victuals to viziers and other high officials formed the basis of the largesse theses dignitaries could afford to show to their clients. At first glance, this mode of redistribution was aimed solely at reinforcing the power of the official’s household by displaying the benevolence of its head. The redistribution of a received resource served to strengthen bonds between the giver and his followers and dependents.129 A closer look reveals, in addition, that, at the same time, the benefactor could communicate a message: a smaller or larger allocation of victuals or meals indicated the limits of the recipient’s power and was a visible emblem of his or her place in the social hierarchy.

126  Cf. Norbert Elias, Die höfische Gesellschaft: Untersuchungen zur Soziologie des Königtums und der höfischen Aristokratie (Darmstadt-Neuwied: 1969). 127  Louise Marlow has investigated this complex nexus at a theoretical level, emphasizing the Sassanian influence in Hierarchy and Egalitarianism in Islamic Thought (Cambridge: 1997). 128  Reindl-Kiel, “Breads for the Followers, Silver Vessels for the Lord,” 93–104. 129  Amy Singer has suggested that such a mechanism was at work in the large allocations made by the public kitchen of Haseki Sultan to individual notables in 19th-century Jerusalem. See Amy Singer, “The Privileged Poor in Ottoman Jerusalem,” in Pauvreté et richesse dans le monde musulman méditerranéen/Poverty and Wealth in the Muslim Mediterranean World, ed. Jean-Paul Pascual (Paris: 2003), 257–69.

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The whole practice was, of course, embedded within the ideal of the pious, just and munificent Islamic ruler. Consequently, the Palace, as the Sultan’s institutional site of power, was seen to feed not only his immediate household but also, symbolically, all the subjects in his realm. The saray was, therefore, more than just a model. It was a cohesive force that actively shaped Ottoman society. Bibliography Archival Sources Sofia, Narodna Biblioteka Sv. Sv. Kiril i Metodii [SS. Cyril and Methodius National Library]: Orientalska arkhivna kolektsiia [Collection of the Middle Eastern Archive], D. 485. Istanbul, Topkapı Sarayı Müzesi Arşivi [Archives of the Topkapı Palace Museum]. D. 8882 D. 4628 D. 2014 Istanbul, Başbakanlık Osmanlı Arşivi [Archives of the Ottoman Prime Ministry]: Cevdet Saray 6639. D.MSF 32140/62 D.MSF 32139/61 D.MSF 32145/67 D.MSF 32081/3 D.MSF 32083/5 D.BŞM-MHF, Dosya [file] 4, Gömlek [folder] 42 Mal. Müd. 948 Mal. Müd. 18000 Tapu Defteri 264 Tapu Defteri 598 Tapu Defteri 434 Tapu Defteri 702 Ankara, Tapu ve Kadastro Genel Müdürlüğü [General Directorate of Title Deeds and Cadastre]: No. 121. Published Primary Sources Cornelis de Bruyn, Reizen van Cornelis de Bruin door de vermaardste deelen van Klein Asia, de eylanden Scio, Rhodus, Cyprus, Metelino, Stanchio, &c., mitsgaders de voornaamste steden van Aegypten, Syrien en Palestina, ed. R[enaat] J.G.A.A. Gaspar [first published Delft: 1698], 2014, URL: http://www.dbnl.org/tekst/bruy004reiz03_01/ [accessed 25 July 2016].

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Secondary Literature Alderson, Anthony Dolphin, The Structure of the Ottoman Dynasty (repr. Westport, Connecticut: 1982). Arıkan, Zeki, “Midilli-İstanbul Arasında Zeytinyaği Ticareti / Olive-oil Trade Between İstanbul and Midilli,” Ankara Üniversitesi Dil-Tarih ve Coğrafya Fakültesi Tarih Araştırmaları Dergisi [Journal of Historical Research of the Faculty of Languages, History and Geography of the University of Ankara] 25 (40) (2006): 1–28. Artan, Tülay, “Aspects of the Ottoman Elite’s Food Consumption: Looking for ‘staples,’ ‘luxuries,’ and ‘delicacies’ in a changing century,” in Consumption Studies and the History of the Ottoman Empire, 1550–1922 ed. Donald Quataert (Albany, N.Y.: 2000), 107–200. Barkan, Ömer Lütfü, “İstanbul Saraylarına ait Muhasebe Defterleri” [Account books of the palaces of Istanbul], Türk Tarih Kurumu Belgeler [Documents of the Turkish Historical Society] 9 (13) (1979): 1–380. Bilgin, Arif, Osmanlı Saray Mutfağı (1453–1650) [The Ottoman Palace cuisine] (Istanbul: 2004). Bilgin, Arif, “Ottoman Court Cuisine of the Classical Period”, in Turkish Cuisine, eds. Arif Bilgin and Özge Samancı (Ankara: 2008), 71–91. Bilgin, Arif, “Seçkin Mekânda Seçkin Damaklar: Osmanlı Sarayında Beslenme Alışkanlıkları (15–17 Yüzyıl),” [Elite palates in an elite place: the diet habits in the Ottoman palace (15th–17th centuries)] in Yemek Kitabı: Tarih—Halkbilimi— Edebiyat [The book of food: history—folklore—literature], ed. Sabri Koz (Istanbul: 2002), 35–75. Cuinet, Vital, La Turquie d’Asie: Géographie administrative, statistique, descriptive et raisonnée de chaque province de l’Asie-Mineure (Paris: 1892–1900). Danişmend, İsmail Hâmi, Osmanlı Devlet Erkânı [The Ottoman pillars of the state], (Istanbul: 1971). Doğan, Faruk, “The Production and Consumption of Olive Oil During the Ottoman Empire,” in Turkish Cuisine, eds. Arif Bilgin and Özge Samancı (Ankara: 2015), 248–61. Elias, Norbert, Die höfische Gesellschaft: Untersuchungen zur Soziologie des Königtums und der höfischen Aristokratie (Darmstadt-Neuwied: 1969). Faroqhi, Suraiya, Kultur und Alltag im Osmanischen Reich: Vom Mittelalter bis zum Anfang des 20. Jahrhunderts (Munich: 1995). Faroqhi, Suraiya, “Seventeenth Century Agricultural Crisis and the Art of Flute Playing: The worldly affairs of the Mevlevi dervishes (1595–1652),” Turcica 20 (1988): 43–70. Faroqhi, Suraiya, Towns and Townsmen of Ottoman Anatolia: Trade, crafts and food production in an urban setting, 1520–1650 (Cambridge: 1984). Fragner, Bert G., “Zur Erforschung der kulinarischen Kultur Irans,” in Die Welt des Islams 23–24 (1984), 320–60.

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Gökyay, Orhan Şaik (ed.), Evliya Çelebi Seyahatnamesi. 1. Kitap: İstanbul. Topkapı Sarayı Bağdat 304 Yazmasının Transkripsiyonu-Dizini [The Book of Travels by Evliya Çelebi: 1st book: Istanbul. Transcript and index of the manuscript Bağdat 304 of the Topkapı Palace] (İstanbul: 1996). Gökyay, Orhan Şaik, “Sohbetname” [Book of talk] Tarih ve Toplum [History and Society] 2 (14) (Şubat [February]: 1985): 128–44. Hinz, Walter, Islamische Masse und Gewichte: Umgerechnet ins metrische system (Leiden: 1970). Işın, Priscilla Mary, Osmanlı Mutfak Sözlüğü [Dictionary of Ottoman cuisine] (İstanbul: 2010). İnalcık, Halil, “Introduction to Ottoman Metrology,” Turcica 15 (1983): 311–48. Kallek, Cengiz, “Kile,” entry in Türkiye Diyanet Vakfı İslâm Ansiklopedisi [The Foundation of Religious Affairs of Turkey’s Encyclopaedia of Islam], vol. 25 (Ankara: 2002), 569. Kangal, Selmin (ed.), The Sultan’s Portrait: Picturing the house of Osman (Istanbul: 2000). Kütükoğlu, Mübahat S., Osmanlılarda Narh Müesesesi ve 1640 Tarihli Narh Defteri [The institution of state-fixed prices and the register of state-fixed prices of 1640] (İstanbul: 1983). Lewis, Bernard, “Dīwān-ı Humāyūn,” entry in Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed., vol. 2 (Leiden: 1965), 337–9. Marlow, Louise, Hierarchy and Egalitarianism in Islamic Thought (Cambridge: 1997). Mumcu, Ahmet, “Dîvân-ı Hümâyun” [Imperial state council], entry in Türkiye Diyanet Vakfı İslâm Ansiklopedisi [The Foundation of Religious Affairs of Turkey’s Encyclopaedia of Islam] vol. 9 (Istanbul: 1994), 430–2. Oberling, Gerry and Grace Martin Smith, The Food Culture of the Ottoman Palace (Istanbul: 2001). Oğuz, Burhan, Türkiye Halkının Kültür Kökenleri: Teknikleri, müesseseleri, inanç ve âdetleri [The cultural roots of the people of Turkey: techniques, institutions, beliefs and customs], vol. 1: Giriş—Beslenme Teknikleri [Introduction, food techniques] (İstanbul: 1976). Pamuk, Şevket, 500 Years of Prices and Wages in Istanbul and Other Cities (Ankara: 2000). Polanyi, Karl, The Great Transformation: The political and economic origins of our time (Boston, Ma: 2001). Reindl-Kiel, Hedda, “Kadının Adı Yok à la Ottomane: Ein darüssa‘ade defteri aus der Prinzenzeit Selims II,” in Arts, Women and Scholars: Studies in Ottoman society and culture. Festschrift Hans Georg Majer. eds. Sabine Prätor and Christoph K. Neumann, vol. 1 (Istanbul: 2002), 125–37. Reindl-Kiel, Hedda, “The Chickens of Paradise: Official meals in the Ottoman Palace (mid-17th century),” in The Illuminated Table, the Prosperous House: Food and

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shelter in Ottoman material culture, eds. Suraiya Faroqhi and Christoph K. Neumann (Würzburg: 2003), 59–88. Reindl-Kiel, Hedda, “Der Duft der Macht: Osmanen, islamische Tradition, muslimische Mächte und der Westen im Spiegel diplomatischer Geschenke,” Wiener Zeitschrift zur Kunde des Morgenlandes 95 (2005): 195–258. Reindl-Kiel, Hedda, “Cennet Taamları: 17.Yüzyıl Ortalarında Osmanlı Sarayında Resmi Ziyafetler,” in Soframız Nur, Hanemiz Mamur: Osmanlı maddi kültüründe yemek ve barınak, eds. Suraiya Faroqhi and Christoph K. Neumann, trans. Zeynep Yelçe (İstanbul: 2006), 55–109. Reindl-Kiel, Hedda, “No Pigeons for the Princes: Food distribution and rank in the Ottoman Palace, according to an unknown type of a ta‘yinat defteri (late 17th Century),” in Bonner Islamwissenschaftler stellen sich vor, eds. Stephan Conermann and Marie-Christine Heinze (Schenefeld: 2006), 327–337. Reindl-Kiel, Hedda, “Breads for the Followers, Silver Vessels for the Lord: The system of distribution and redistribution in the Ottoman Empire (16th–18th c.),” Osmanlı Araştırmaları/The Journal of Ottoman Studies 42 (2013): 93–104. Singer, Amy, “The Privileged Poor in Ottoman Jerusalem”, in Pauvreté et richesse dans le monde musulman méditerranéen/Poverty and Wealth in the Muslim Mediterranean World, ed. Jean-Paul Pascual (Paris: 2003), 257–69. Trépanier, Nicolas, “Culinary Culture in Fourteenth Century Anatolia,” in Turkish Cuisine, eds. Arif Bilgin and Özge Samancı (Ankara: 2008), 57–67. Trépanier, Nicolas, Foodways and Daily Life in Medieval Anatolia: A new social history (Austin/Texas: 2014). Uluçay, M. Çağatay, Padişahların Kadınları ve Kızları [The wives and daughters of the sultans] (Ankara: 1980). Yılmaz, Fikret, XVI. Yüzyılda Edremit Kazası [The district of Edremit in the 16th century] (İzmir: 1995). Yılmaz, Fikret, “16. yüzyılda tarımsal yapılarda değişim: akdeniz mutfağı ve yağ kullanımı,” [Transformations in the agricultural structures of the 16th century: the Mediterranean cuisine and the use of olive oil], Tarih ve Toplum [History and society] 10 (Bahar [Spring] 2010): 23–42.

Chapter 3

The Cuisine of Istanbul between East and West during the 19th Century Özge Samancı The culinary culture of Istanbul in the 19th century showcases the elegant and refined tastes of the Ottoman elites as they evolved in the kitchens of the Ottoman palace and the elite households of Istanbul from the 15th to the end of the 19th century. The imperial cuisine reflected culinary heritages from the past going back as far as the first millennium BC in Central Asia and bears the mixed imprint of the culinary traditions of nomadic Turkic peoples, of the mediaeval Arabic-Persian cuisine, and of the Seljuk and Byzantine cuisines. After the conquest of Istanbul in 1453, the city became the capital of the Ottoman Empire, the centre of administration, commerce and culture. At the same time, the Ottoman palace cuisine became one of the important symbols of the imperial city. As imperial capital, Istanbul had the privilege of sourcing the best and most varied ingredients from its environs, as well as from far-flung regions.1 For centuries, Istanbul was a house for all religions where Muslims, Christians and Jewish mingled and co-habited, an interaction which resulted in the formation of a hybrid and rich cuisine. The present chapter aims to offer a detailed picture of Istanbul’s central cuisine in the 19th century. This picture may offer further insights into the dialectic of centre and periphery—more specifically for the purposes of the present volume, the East-European periphery.2

Primary Sources

From the 15th to the end of the 19th century, the Ottoman imperial cuisine both in the palace and in Istanbul itself changed, as Ottoman cooking manuscripts, cookbooks and archival documents indicate. Archival documents listing the 1  For studies on the Ottoman palace cuisine before the 19th century, see Arif Bilgin, Osmanlı Saray Mutfağı (Istanbul: 2004); Stéphane Yerasimos, À la table du Grand Turc (Paris: 2001); Marianna Yerasimos, 500 Years of Ottoman Cuisine (Istanbul: 2005). 2  For further details on this topic, see Özge Samancı, La cuisine d’Istanbul au 19e siècle (RennesTours: 2015).

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi 10.1163/9789004367548_005

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kitchen expenses of the Ottoman palace are the chief primary sources that can be used in Ottoman food history studies. These documents, known as the Matbah-ı amire defterleri (imperial kitchen registers) and various subcategories, survive in the Archives of the Ottoman Prime Ministry in Istanbul [Başbakanlık Osmanlı Arşivi, hereafter cited as BOA]. Previous studies on the Ottoman palace cuisine are based on these types of archival documentation.3 The study of these documents reveals the variety of food ingredients as well as the types of tableware and kitchenware used in the different areas of the Ottoman palace kitchens in the 19th century. Some of the documents also contain information on the names of dishes cooked in the imperial kitchens. Cookbooks constitute the second type of primary sources in Ottoman food studies apart from imperial kitchen records. Between 1844 and 1900 a series of Ottoman cookbooks published in Istanbul document the colourful richness of the Ottoman cuisine. They are an important source for the understanding of the historic fusions which created the tastes of Istanbul’s elites. The first cookbook, entitled Melceü’t-Tabbahin [The Refuge of Cooks], was published in 1844.4 Turgut Kut, a specialist in Ottoman cuisine, has shown that, after its initial publication in 1844, The Refuge of Cooks was re-printed nine times in: 1849, 1856, 1859, 1867, twice in 1873, and in 1888–1889, and became a popular, much-cited source.5 The author, Mehmed Kamil, a professor at the Ottoman medical school in Istanbul, wrote in the introduction of the book that he decided to write it in an attempt to revive old recipes that were forgotten or practised incorrectly by the cooks of Istanbul. He complained about the current state of the Ottoman cuisine and about the fact that the cooks did not know how to prepare food and wasted ingredients. He observed that he drew on older cookbooks and on verbal communications from people experienced in such matters.6 The main sources used by Mehmed Kamil were Ottoman manuscripts of recipe collections from the 18th century.7 The book includes 3  Tülay Artan, “Aspects of the Ottoman Elite’s Food Consumption: Looking for ‘staples,’ luxuries’ and ‘delicacies’ in a changing century,” in Consumption Studies and the History of the Ottoman Empire 1550–1922, ed. Donald Quataert (New York: 2000), 107–201; Bilgin, Osmanlı Saray Mutfağı; Samancı, La cuisine d’Istanbul. 4  İlk Basılı Türkçe Yemek Kitabı, Melceü’t-Tabbahin (Aşçıların Sığınağı), ed. Cüneyt Kut (İstanbul: 1997). 5  Turgut Kut, Açıklamalı Yemek Kitapları Bibliyografyası (Eski Harfli Yazma ve Basma Eserler) (Ankara: 1985); Turgut Kut, “A Bibliography of Turkish Cookery Books Up to 1927,” Petits Propos Culinaires 36 (1990): 29. 6  Mehmet Kamil, Melceü’t-Tabbahin (Istanbul: 1844), 21. 7  Nejat Sefercioğlu, Türk Yemekleri (XVIII. Yüzyıla Ait bir Yemek Risalesi) (Ankara: 1985); Ağdiye Risalesi, ed. Mine Esiner Özen (İstanbul: 2015).

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a table of contents at the beginning, followed by 273 traditional Ottoman recipes. The Refuge of Cooks was important in many respects. It was the first example of a cookbook published in Ottoman society and it became a reference for other cookbooks published in Istanbul such as Yeni Yemek Kitabı (The New Cookbook) of 1880, Ev Kadını [The Housewife] of 1882, and Aşcı Başı [The Chef] of 1900. An Ottoman gentleman by the name of Türabi Efendi translated The Refuge of Cooks into English and published it in London in 1864.8 Yeni Yemek Kitabı [The New Cookbook]9 is an anonymous book published in 1880 in Istanbul. The new recipes included in this book reflect the influence of European styles of cooking on the cuisine of Istanbul’s elites during the last decades of the 19th century. The title of the book, its content and the reasons offered by the author as to why he wrote it all indicate the new trends that appeared in the cuisine choices of Istanbul’s elite households between 1850 and 1880. He explains: “The cookbooks that were previously written could no longer guide us as there had been too many changes and developments in the cuisine of Istanbul.”10 The New Cook Book contains 164 recipes, both familiar and new.11 Another Ottoman cookbook published in 1882 illustrates the adoption and adaptation of European culinary habits by Ottoman society. The book was written by an Ottoman woman named Ayşe Fahriye and was entitled Ev Kadını [The Housewife].12 The author remarks in the introduction that she wrote the book in order to familiarize Ottoman ladies with the art of cooking, kitchen organization and service style at the table. She mentions that the kitchen needed to be supervised by the lady of the house rather than by cooks and servants, who tended to run up vast expenses. In an attempt to introduce every aspect of food preparation, the author describes some basic principles of cooking, organization of the kitchen and storeroom, necessary tableware and implements, service styles at the table, different sorts of meals, table etiquette, use of basic larder items, along with over 800 recipes. European styles of service, etiquette and dishes were displayed in the book along with their Ottoman counterparts. The book also presents recent concepts and terminology introduced into the Ottoman culinary culture. In addition to the recipes described in The Refuge of 8  Turgut Kut, “A Bibliography of Turkish Cookery Books,” 32; Türabi Efendi, Mecmua-i Et’ime-i Osmaniye (London: 1864). 9  Yeni Yemek Kitabı (Istanbul: 1882). 10  Ibid., 2. 11  Özge Samancı, “19. Yüzyıl İstanbul Mutfağında Yeni Lezzetler,” Yemek ve Kültür 6 (2006): 86–98. 12  Ayşe Fahriye, Ev Kadını (Istanbul: 1882).

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Cooks, The Housewife includes many new recipes, most of which were French imports.13 Another important cookbook that reflects trends in 19th-century Ottoman cuisine is entitled Aşçı Başı [The Chef] and was published in 1900 by Mahmut Tosun. The author explains that he first understood the importance of cooking during his military service, when he decided to write the book. He searched through old cookbooks and magazines and included 304 recipes in his own collection, The Chef.14

Kitchens in Imperial Palaces and in Urban Households

The Ottoman palace kitchens are different from the kitchens in the large mansions or simple houses in Istanbul in terms of both their spatial layout and the structure of the staff. We can compare the palace kitchens to enormous food factories that supply food for more than one thousand people every day. The kitchens of Beşiktaş Palace (or the former Çırağan Palace), Dolmabahçe Palace, which later replaced the Beşiktaş Palace, and finally Yıldız Palace, the homes of the Ottoman ruling dynasty at various points in the 19th century, resemble Topkapı Palace with regard to kitchen structure and organization. The kitchens of the Beşiktaş (Çırağan) Palace, where Sultan Mahmud II resided from 1809 to 1839 and Sultan Abdülmecid (1839–1861) until 1853, consisted of multiple sections. In addition to the main kitchens, there was also a separate kitchen called the kuşhane-yi hümayun or matbah-ı has, where the food for the Sultan was prepared, while other special units catered for the Harem and the palace orchestra (muzıka-yı hümayun). Furthermore, a bakery, a halva kitchen and pantries were also located in the palace. The palace kitchens had separate internal units called hearth (ocak) and each ocak served different sections of palace residents, as their names suggest: şehzade ocağı (the princes’ kitchen), hazinedar ağa ocağı (the kitchen of the second black eunuch-treasurer), kethüda kadın ocağı (the kitchen of the housekeeper), ustalar ocağı (the kitchen of the woman superintendent of servants).15 The kitchens of the Dolmabahçe Palace, which was completed in 1856, also consisted of many sections. The kitchens that served the Harem and the palace staff (matbah-ı amire) were located in the area of the palace connected to the Harem through

13  Ibid., 192–9. 14  Mahmud Nedim Bin Tosun, Aşçı Başı (Istanbul: 1900). 15  Başbakanlık Osmanlı Arşivi [The Archives of the Ottoman Prime Ministry, Istanbul; hereafter BOA], DBŞM, no.11 700 (1831–1833). Samancı, La cuisine d’Istanbul, 107–11.

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the Aş Kapısı (Food Gate), and was adjacent to the Beşiktaş area of Istanbul.16 The food destined for the palace residents was cooked in this building, which was a classical-style functional complex with a courtyard. From this area, platters of food were carried by servants called tablakar to the different rooms and apartments. The kitchens of the Yıldız Palace, which were used as the imperial palace during the reign of Sultan Abdülhamid II (1876–1908), were located behind the mabeyn-i hümayun (the Sultan’s private apartments) and the Harem buildings, and between the storehouse and the armoury. Moreover, the palace also had its own chicken coop, dove coop, vineyards, fruit orchards and a dairy farm. Hundreds of dishes were cooked every day in the Yıldız Palace, which served as residence to almost 12,000 people. In addition to the Sultan’s kitchen (matbah-ı hassü’l-hass) and the Harem kitchen, there were separate kitchens which catered for different groups of residents: e.g. the şehzadeler mutfağı (the princes’ kitchen), silahşoran ocağı (the guards’ kitchen), dağıstan ocağı, hakan-ı merhum harem-i hümayun ocağı (the kitchen of Sultan Abdülaziz’s harem), a kitchen for the imperial band, the boatmen’s kitchen, and the kitchen for the stables staff. In addition, kitchens were also divided according to their areas of specialization, for example: the main kitchen, the ‘new system’ kitchen (tertib-i cedid ocağı),17 the savoury pastry kitchen (börek ocağı), the dessert kitchen (tatlı ocağı), and the diet food kitchen (perhiz ocağı).18 The kitchens in the mansions of Istanbul’s elites were smaller versions of the palace kitchens. They were located in a separate building across from the main residential building. The cook, the pantry chef and the steward managed the rest of the kitchen staff, including those responsible for preparing the pastries, dietary foods, pilaf, kebabs, vegetables, washerwomen, and the oven supervisors. The tray carrier and the male servants were responsible for carrying and serving the food. There was a smaller kitchen inside the Harem section of the mansion. In ordinary Istanbul mansions, which were generally surrounded by a garden, the kitchen was situated on the ground floor. In such houses, the person responsible for the preparation of food was the lady of the house or her daughter-in-law.19

16  Deniz Esemenli, Osmanlı Sarayı ve Dolmabahçe (Istanbul: 2002), 124, 216–17. 17  We do not have precise information on the functions of the ‘new system’ kitchen, but we can presume that it was used for the preparation of European-style (alafranga) dishes. For further details, see Samancı, La cuisine d’Istanbul, 27–8. 18  BOA, Y.PRK. HH, no.12/13. 19  Samancı, La cuisine d’Istanbul, 124–5.

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Types of Ingredients and Foodstuffs

It is through the imperial kitchen registers that we learn about the type of foodstuffs and ingredients used in the Ottoman palace kitchens in the 19th century. The amount and type of kitchen provisions were recorded in these account books generally on a monthly basis. By looking at the information in these documents, we can see what kind of food was cooked in the palace kitchens, which vegetables and fruits were consumed in which season, what kind of fat was used for cooking, and whether red meat, poultry or fish was used most.20 The most important criterion in the provisioning of the Ottoman palace was the quality of the food purchases. Some of the foodstuffs used in the palace kitchens such as rice, spices and fruits were sent from distant provinces. Finding a high-quality food item on a continuous basis was possible in Istanbul since it was the capital city and one of the key commercial centres of the empire. In addition, fruits and vegetables were in supply from the gardens and orchards of the Ottoman palaces, while butter, milk and yoghurt were sourced from the city’s own dairy farms.21 The Ottoman cookbooks of the period show that the ingredients used in the Istanbul palaces and in elite households in the 19th century were very similar. The key items were: mutton and lamb, poultry and game, fish, cereals, milk and dairy products, dry pulses, animal fat and vegetable oils, sugar and honey, spices, fresh and dry fruits and vegetables. Wheat was the most commonly used grain in Istanbul in the 19th century. Then, as today, wheat flour was used for baking bread. It was also the main ingredient of the savoury and sweet pastries that constituted a significant part of the Ottoman cuisine. The main flour types used were named after the place of origin: dakik-i Asitane (Istanbul flour), dakik-i Beykoz (Beykoz flour)22 and dakik-i Rus (Russian flour). Furthermore, there were categories of flour based on quality, for example: the best-quality (dakik-i hass) and the average-quality (dakik-i hass orta) floor. Different types of bread were baked in the Ottoman palace according to the quality and origin of the flour. As Hedda Reindl-Kiel explains in the present volume, the different types of bread were distributed to the saray residents according to rank. Bread was generally baked by the palace 20  Archival documents selected from different catalogues such as Cevdet Saray (the Cevdet Palace), Yıldız Perakende (Fonds Yıldiz Palace), Hazine-i Hassa Matbah-ı Amire (Accounts of the Sultan’s kitchens) have been used to identify the variety of food items supplied to the Ottoman imperial kitchens in the 19th century. 21  Samancı, La cuisine d’Istanbul, 31–4. 22  Beykoz is a district in Istanbul.

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bakeries, but it could sometimes be purchased from outside sellers. The best type of bread, called nan-ı hassü’l-hass, was made from white, refined flour. The other types of bread mentioned in the archival documents were a type of bread for daily consumption (nan-ı aziz), an average-quality bread made with refined flour (nan-ı hass orta), an average-quality bread (nan-ı adi) made with unspecified flour, a flat white bread (fodula), a long, high-quality white bread (francala), filo bread (yufka), and whole-wheat loaves (somun). In addition, a special type of flour was used for kadayıf (dakik-i kadayıf), a variety of sweet pastry. Very little bulgur (dried and crushed wheat) was used in the palace kitchen.23 Rice (erz) was another grain used as much as wheat in the Ottoman palace in the 19th century. Rice, mainly imported from Egypt for use at the palace, was mainly used to make pilaf (dane), which was a staple dish in the Ottoman cuisine. Another difference from pre-nineteenth-century periods was the use of Viennese barley (arpa-yı beç), a grain regularly used in the Ottoman palace kitchens. Starch and semolina were ingredients usually used for making desserts. Güllaç, which consisted of thin sheets of dough made with starch, was among the ingredients supplied to the kitchens during Ramadan and was used in the same way then as it is today. Vermicelli, another product made of wheat, were available in different varieties, such as high-quality vermicelli, yellow vermicelli, white vermicelli, Istanbul vermicelli, and noodles. Pasta (makaronya) was a novelty in the 19th-century Ottoman cuisine. Types of dried pulses used during this period were lentils, chickpeas, dry broad beans and haricot beans. Haricot beans, which are natives of America, began to be used in Istanbul’s cuisine during the 19th century.24 Milk, yoghurt, clotted cream (kaymak) and cheese were the dairy products consumed alone as well as in cooking in the 19th century. Milk, yoghurt and dairy products were supplied to the Ottoman palace cuisines from the Istanbul markets (especially butter and yoghurt from Üsküdar and Eyüp). Yıldız Palace had its own dairy farm. Milk from Dutch and Egyptian cows was processed there to produce yoghurt, butter and cheese, which was then distributed to the sultan, the sultan’s mother and the other residents of the palace in accordance to rank.25 The types of cheese consumed were feta cheese (peynir-i salamura), and yellow cheeses such as kaşar and kaşkaval, Albanian cheese as well as cheese matured in sheepskin (peynir-i tulum) were also available. Yoghurt was served as a side dish or used as a sauce in some dishes. Clotted cream, served 23  Samancı, La cuisine d’Istanbul, 58–61. 24  Ibid., 62–4. 25  BOA. YPRK. HH. No. 4/48, 5/43, 6/1, 7/32.

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with desserts, was a highly valued food item and was consumed mostly by the Ottoman elite. Clarified butter (revgan-ı sade) was the preferred type of fat used in 19thcentury Ottoman recipes. Most of the meat and vegetable stews, stuffed vegetables, savoury pastries, pilaf, desserts and even fried dishes were cooked in clarified butter. The fat obtained from the tail of mutton and suet was occasionally added in small quantities while preparing clarified butter. According to the Ottoman cookbooks, olive oil was only occasionally used for frying and for seasoning salads. Olive oil was consumed especially by the Greek and Armenian residents of Istanbul during Lent, which might explain why Muslims would steer clear of it.26 Lamb and mutton were the preferred meats in Istanbul’s cuisine in the 19th century. Mutton was always preferred and used more frequently in cooking than veal and beef throughout the history of Ottoman cuisine. Lamb was a delicacy. Two ages of lamb were consumed: the new-born variety, known as kuzu, and yearling lamb, known as toklu. Every year, from the beginning of spring to the end of autumn lamb was in constant supply at the Ottoman Palace, where it was distributed in greater or lesser quantities according to the rank of the recipient.27 In addition to mutton, boiled sheep’s head, offal such as trotters, liver, tripe, and the large intestine were often used. Veal was not consumed in the Ottoman palace kitchen at all, and beef was used only for making pastırma (pastrami) and a garlic-flavoured sausage called sucuk. Veal was used only for the preparation of European-style foods such as fillets, beef fillets, veal leg cuts, and rib roasts, which were served to foreign guests from the 1880s onwards.28 Chicken and poussins were among the provisions continuously provided to the palace kitchens. Turkey (tavuk-ı hindi), introduced to the Ottoman palace kitchen in the 18th century from America, became a prestigious food item by the 19th. Whenever turkey was available, it was cooked for the sultan and the 26  Anna Matthaiou, “La longue durée de l’alimentation: Permanences rurales et différenciations urbaines en Grèce sous la domination ottomane,” in Alimentazione e nutrizione Secc. XIII–XVIII. Atti della Ventottesima Settimana Di Studi, Prato, 22–27 April 1996, ed. Simonetta Cavaciocchi (Florence: 1997), 313–23. For the competition between olive oil and animal fats in Istanbul see Suraiya Faroqhi’s and Hedda Reindl-Kiel’s contributions to the present volume. 27  Özge Samancı, “Culinary Consumption Patterns of the Ottoman Elite during the First Half of the Nineteenth Century,” in The Illuminated Table, the Prosperous House: Food and shelter in Ottoman material culture, eds. Suraiya Faroqhi and Christoph K. Neumann (Würzburg: 2003), 161–84; BOA, CS, no. 8341. 28  BOA, HH.MTA. no.142/96, no. 113/7.

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residents of the Harem as a priority.29 Compared to previous centuries, the consumption of pigeon at the palace had declined by the 19th. Ducks, geese and quails were types of fowl supplied only rarely to the palace kitchens. Eggs were a popular food item used in preparing omelettes and a type of crêpes (kaygana). According to the accounts of travellers and the cookbooks of the time, fish and seafood were popular food items in the Istanbul cuisine of the 19th century. Salted bonito (lakerda), caviar, fish roe, sardines, salted and dried mackerel (çiroz) as well as other kinds of fish from the Marmara Sea were listed among the food items supplied to the Ottoman imperial kitchens. The imperial kitchen registers also show that various fish (semek-i mütenevvia) were bought for the palace until the end of the 19th century: sardines, sturgeon, large bonito, and bream were among purchases made for the sultan’s kitchen. The amounts and varieties of fish supplies increased after the 1870s. Records from the reign of Sultan Abdülhamid II (1876–1908) show purchases of turbot, large bonito, bluefish, grey mullet, rockfish, sea bass, halibut, red mullet, whiting, mackerel, red snapper, and bream.30 Shellfish such as mussels and oysters were generally not consumed in the palace. However, seafood such as lobster was purchased for feasts honouring foreign guests.31 Nineteenth-century cookbooks indicate that a wide range of fish was used in recipes prepared in Istanbul outside palace circles. These recipes, which include seafood such as mussels, clams, oysters, shrimps, and lobsters, suggest that they were habitually on Istanbul menus. Sweet dishes always played an important role in the culture of Ottoman cuisine. Only the top echelons of Ottoman society could afford the luxury of sugar, which was still very expensive. Two types of sugar were bought for the palace kitchens: granulated sugar (şeker-i gubar) and loaf sugar (şeker-i minar). Common people used honey, grape molasses (pekmez) and dried fruits in the preparation of desserts. Sugar, honey and the other sweeteners were used not only for cooking sweet desserts but also in the preparation of sherbets, syrups, and compotes.32 Spices were used moderately in the Ottoman cuisine of the 19th century compared to the 15th and 16th centuries. The analysis of archival documents and recipes shows that exotic spices like saffron, musk and coriander seeds were not as common in 19th-century texts as they had been in previous centuries. The preferred spices in the 19th century were cinnamon and 29  Samancı, La cuisine d’Istanbul, 45. 30  BOA, CS no. 476, HH.MTA. 234/142, HH.MTA. 234/15. 31  BOA, CS, no. 3335, no. 3374. 32  Samancı, La cuisine d’Istanbul, 68–71.

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black pepper. Contrary to today’s Turkish cuisine, cinnamon was mostly used in cooking savoury main dishes. It was even added to lamb, fish and chicken dishes. Cardamom, cloves, mastic, red pepper, allspice, cumin, sumac, nutmeg and saffron are other examples of spices used in cooking. Cayenne pepper, vanilla and allspice were of American origin and as such, were novelties in the 19th century, as their names do not appear in records from previous periods. Three types of salt were used in the palace cuisine: fine salt imported from Wallachia, rock salt and lake salt. Rosewater and orange blossom water were specially used in cooking sweet dishes and sherbets. Pokeweed and red dye extracted from the cochineal insect (kırmız) were used to impart colour to certain dishes, especially desserts and syrups. A fish-based jelly (dutkal-ı balık) also appears in this context. Suitably purified, it was possibly used in making a fruit jelly called elmasiye. Lemon, vinegar and verjuice (juice from semi-ripe wine grapes) were also used in cooking sweet and sour dishes.33 Fresh and dry fruits were used largely in the Ottoman Palace cuisine. Almonds, pistachios, pine nuts, hazelnuts, walnuts, chestnuts, raisins, sultanas, dried apricots, dried plums, dried figs, dried pears and dried sour cherries were mentioned in the imperial kitchen account registers. Nuts and dried fruits such as pine nuts, almonds or pistachios were also used as spices to add flavour to dishes such as pilaffs, desserts and stuffed vegetables in cooking. Dried grapes, dried apricots, dried plums, figs, pears and sour cherries were used in the preparation of both sweet and savoury dishes, desserts and fruits drinks.34 Fresh and dried fruits were used especially for making compotes and sherbets. Imperial kitchen records indicate that different types of the same fruit were purchased for the palace kitchen. Lemons, sweet lemons, oranges, bitter oranges, tangerines, citrons, apples, Albanian apples, Amasya apples, muscatel apples, sweet pomegranates, different kinds of pears and plums, walnuts, dates, Razaki grapes, red currants, seedless grapes, black grapes, sour cherries, wild apricots, peaches, cherries, honey melons, Manisa melons, strawberries, green almonds, fresh hazelnuts, Damascus apricots, Persian apricots, watermelons, cornelian cherries, and figs were among the mostly consumed fruits in the Ottoman palace kitchens. Among these, oranges began to be known in Istanbul and the Ottoman Palace in the 18th century. Tangerines entered the Ottoman cuisine at the end of the 19th century. The names of tropical fruits such as bananas and pineapples were not mentioned in imperial kitchen records of the 19th century. However, toward the end of the century, these two

33  Ibid., 72–4. 34  Ibid., 78–81.

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fruits were mentioned in Ottoman cookbooks, indicating that they had already become a familiar part of elite cuisine in Istanbul. Like fruits, vegetables were also consumed in significant amounts in Ottoman cuisine. Vegetables, salad leaves and fruits were purchased in Istanbul markets and from palace gardens situated in the Feriye, Ortaköy and Aynalıkavak districts along the Bosphorus and the Golden Horn. The vegetables predominantly cooked in the palace kitchens included aubergine, zucchini, artichoke, cucumber, okra, broad beans, green beans, string beans, purslane, green and red pepper, green and red tomatoes in the summer and cabbage, carrot, celery, spinach and leek toward the winter. Other fall and winter vegetables often consumed were radish, cauliflower, turnip, Jerusalem artichokes and pumpkins. In addition, summer vegetables such as aubergine, green beans, zucchini and tomatoes were also used in the winter in the Ottoman palace kitchens because they were specially brought for the palace from the distant provinces in the south of the Empire.35 Dry onions and garlic were purchased in large amounts. Parsley, dill and fresh mint were the fresh herbs used in various dishes throughout the year. Vine leaves were used in fresh, dried and salted form and the leaves of hazelnuts, quince and tomatoes were available in the pantry. Wild herbs such as mallow, chicory, sorrel and mallow were also used in cooking. Okra, a vegetable that came from Africa, entered the Ottoman cuisine in the 17th century and was frequently used, both fresh and dried, in the 19th century. Dry okra was brought to the Ottoman Palace from Edirne (Adrianople) and Amasya, a city in northern Turkey. According to the imperial kitchen registers, green tomatoes called kavata had been used in the Ottoman Palace since 1690s.36 To these were added red tomatoes were included throughout the 19th century. Even in 1840s, tomatoes and tomato paste were not often used in Istanbul cuisine. For example, the Ottoman cookbook Melceü’t-Tabbahin (1844), contains only seven or eight recipes that include tomatoes. It would seem that tomatoes and tomato paste, which are indispensable ingredients in modern Turkish cuisine, were not very popular back then. Corn, known and used in the Balkans since the 18th century,37 entered the Ottoman palace cuisine only in the 19th. The potato was another vegetable of American origin that was introduced later to the 35  Özge Samancı, “Vegetable Patrimony of the Ottoman Culinary Culture,” in Proceedings of the Fourth International Congress of Ethnobotany (ICEB, 2005), eds. Z.F. Ertug and Ege Yayinlan (Istanbul: 2006), 565–70. 36  Artan, “Aspects of the Ottoman Elite’s Food Consumption,” 112. 37  Traian Stoianovich, “Le maïs dans les Balkans,” Annales. Économies, sociétés, civilisations 21 (5) (1966): 1026–40.

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palace kitchens. Mushrooms, which can be included in the category of vegetables, were noticeably absent from the Ottoman palace kitchen. However, starting from the 1850s, pickled mushrooms were mentioned in the imperial kitchen registers, especially in lists of purchases made for imperial banquets. Canned mushrooms, peas, asparagus and Jerusalem artichokes started being imported to Istanbul during the second half of the 19th century.38 Beverages Traditionally, the consumption of alcohol was limited in Ottoman society, because, in theory, Islamic law forbade it. Drinking alcohol during lunch or dinner was not common practice, therefore water and fruit juice became the main drinks generally in Ottoman culinary culture. The residents of Istanbul were exceptionally selective about the taste of the water they drank. They were able to recognize the origin of different waters by taste. Snow and ice were still expensive items in the 19th century. Palace residents and notables had the privilege of using ice and snow in their beverages to keep them cool.39 The three main types of fruit juices consumed were compote (hoşaf), sherbet (şerbet) and cordials (şurup). In order to prepare a fruit compote, the fruit was boiled with sugar then mixed with pieces of fruit previously set aside, before serving. Compotes accompanied pilaffs and were served at the end of the meal. Sherbets and beverages made of fruit syrups were served as cold beverages during the day and also accompanied meals. Sherbets were made by kneading fruit with sugar then mixing with water. Cordials were confections of fruit and sugar, boiled to a thick consistency, pushed through a sieve and served diluted with water. Plums, apricots, sour cherries, dried pears, blackberries, currants, oranges, pistachios, pomegranates, figs, almonds, lemons, quince and strawberries are examples of fruits and nuts used in making fruit juices. Syrups and jams were also made from petals of edible flowers such as roses, violets, jasmine and lilies.40 38  Samancı, La cuisine d’Istanbul, 88–89; “Articles Spéciaux: conserves alimentaires,” Revue commerciale du Levant. Bulletin mensuel de la chambre de commerce française de Constantinople, 137 (1898): 173–82. 39  BOA.CS. no. 5832. Özge Samancı, “Kar, Şerbet ve Dondurma,” Yemek ve Kültür 9 (2007): 146–52. See also Hedda Reindl-Kiel’s reference in her chapter to the lesser-known use of ice and snow to cool down coffee. 40  Ignace Mouradgea d’Ohsson, Tableau général de l’Empire Othoman dédié au roi de Suède (Paris: 1788), vol. 3, 48; F[rançois] C.H.L. Pouqueville, Voyage en Morée, à Constantinople et en Albanie […] (Paris: 1805), vol. 1, 391.

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Although the consumption of alcohol was forbidden in Ottoman society by Islamic religion, accounts of travellers and memoirs written in the 19th century show that Istanbul’s inhabitants, both Muslim and non-Muslim, drank wine and raki in the city’s taverns.41 These alcoholic beverages were served with meze such as salads, nuts, fruits and seafood. The most popular hot beverage consumed at the time was coffee. Coffee had been known and consumed in Ottoman society since the 16th century. Tea was not a common beverage in 19th-century Istanbul until the 20th century, when it outpaced coffee. The reason for this shift and for the comparatively greater consumption of tea in today’s Turkey may be the production of tea in great quantities in the North Sea region as well as its cheap price. Another hot beverage that was common in 19th century’s Istanbul was sahlep. Sahlep, a powder made of the roots of orchids, was used primarily in the preparation of a hot beverage of milk and sugar which was served in big cups with cinnamon sprinkled on top.42

Cooking Techniques: Variety of Dishes

In the absence of recipes originating directly from the Ottoman palace kitchens, cookbooks constitute the major sources for the culinary techniques and the variety of dishes of 19th-century Istanbul. Archival documents listing the number and the variety of dishes served to the different residents of the Ottoman palace starting from the last decades of the century, European travel narratives, and Ottoman memoirs are among the primary sources which can yield much information on the Ottoman world of taste. Food trays were sent to the different sections of the palace, twice a day, in the morning and in the evening. The surviving lists of the foods on these platters indicate that the basic categories of dishes cooked in the palace included soup (çorba), pilaf, savoury pastry (börek), meat dishes (et taamı), vegetable dishes (sebze taamı), dessert (tatlı), fruit compote (hoşaf) and sometimes chicken dishes and offal.43 In her memoirs, Leyla Saz,44 who spent most of her life in the Çırağan Palace, wrote 41  For the consumption of alcohol in the Ottoman Empire see François Georgeon’s study “Ottomans and Drinkers: The consumption of alcohol in İstanbul in the nineteenth century,” in Outside In: On the margins of the modern Middle East, ed. Eugene L. Rogan (London: 2002), 7–30. 42  Özge Samancı and Sharon Croxford, Flavours of Istanbul: A selection from original 19th century Ottoman recipes (Istanbul: 2007), 26–7. 43  BOA, HH, MTA no.113/69, no. 107/72, no. 107/2, no. 165/17, no. 107/63. 44  Leyla Saz (also known as Leyla Hanimefendi) (1850–1936), Turkish composer, poet and writer. She was the daughter and wife of high-ranking Ottoman officials and spent her

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that of the meals served daily in the palace, one always consisted of a dish prepared with mutton or lamb, and sometimes with chicken. But there were also savoury pastries, many vegetable dishes cooked with chopped meat and rice, as well as compote made with fresh fruits. Fruits and jams were available in the Harem at all times.45 The five aforementioned Ottoman cookbooks, used as key sources in our study, also list these types of dishes: soups (çorba), kebabs-stews-grills (kebab-yahni-külbastı) prepared with mutton, lamb, poultry and fish, meatballs (köfte), vegetable stews flavoured with meat (such as bastı, türlü), vegetables stuffed with minced meat or with spiced rice (dolma), vegetables in olive oil (zeytinyağlı), pickles (turşu), salads (salata), egg dishes (yumurtalı yemekler), pilafs (pilav), savoury pastries (börek), sweet pastries (such as baklava, kadayıf), helva, milk puddings, fruit desserts, jams (reçel), compotes (hoşaf), sherbets (şerbet) and cordials (şurup).46 Soups were always prepared with chicken or meat broth and sometimes with pieces of lamb. The basic ingredients used in preparing soups were dried pulses and grains such as rice, chickpeas, and lentils. As mentioned previously, mutton and lamb were the preferred varieties of meat used in dishes in the 19th century. The various kinds of meat (mutton, lamb, poultry, including fish) were prepared using one of four main cooking techniques: roasting (kebab), griddling (külbastı), stewing (yahni) and frying (kızartma). Kebab can best be described as a method of cooking by dry heating. Spit roasting above a hot fire was one of the common ways of making kebab. Mutton, lamb, chicken, liver or fish were marinated with onion juice and occasionally with tomato juice or milk before being roasted on skewers. Salt, pepper and cinnamon were the main spices used in seasoning the meat. Another method of cooking meat and especially fish was deep-frying, a method called “tava.” Köfte was another specialty of the Ottoman cuisine prepared with minced meat. These meatballs were prepared with minced mutton meat, grated onion and spices. The köfte were roasted, griddled, fried or braised. Egg dishes were also important in the 19th-century Istanbul cuisine: a special pan was used to fry eggs. Fish and mussel stews cooked in olive oil were named pilaki. Pilakis prepared with veal, trotters, mussels, fish, or oysters were delicacies in the cuisine of the Christian communities of Istanbul. Like the stuffed vegetables cooked in olive oil (yalancı dolma) and seafood dishes, pilaki was among the special childhood in Dolmabahçe Palace. Her memoirs were first published in Turkish as Harem ve Saray Adatı Kadimesi in 1920–21. 45  Leyla Saz, The Imperial Harem of the Sultans, trans. Thomas Landon (Istanbul: 1995), 106. 46   See Mehmed Kamil, Melce’üt-Tabbahin; Yeni Yemek Kitab; Ayşe Fahriye, Ev Kadını; M. Tosun. Aşçı Başı; Türabi Efendi, Mecmua-i Et’ime-i Osmaniye.

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dishes Christians prepared in Istanbul especially during their fasting periods (Lent).47 These dishes constituted an important part of Istanbul’s cuisine which emerged from the culinary habits of the co-habiting Muslim, Christian and Jewish communities of Istanbul in the 19th century. Savoury pastries and sweet pastries were essential dishes in the Ottoman cuisine during the 19th century. Dough made with flour, water and salt formed the basis of the thin sheets of yufka used in the preparation of savoury pastries. The 19th-century recipe collections show that Istanbul’s cuisine had a rich repertoire of börek made from simple dough, dough with butter or from flaky pastry. The basic method of preparing börek was to lay sheets of pastry in a tray, spread a filling made from cheese, minced meat or chicken in the middle and then piling up sheets of dough on top of the filling. Böreks were cooked in the oven or on the stove. Rice pilaf was one of the dishes served at the tables of the elites during every meal in Ottoman society. Pilaf was mostly eaten at the end of the course and was accompanied by fruit compote. The pilaf made of cracked wheat (bulgur) was regarded as inferior and therefore not belonging within the elite’s culinary culture. Pilafs were also prepared with pieces of lamb, chicken, bluefish (lüfer), mussels, or with vegetables such eggplant and tomatoes. A type of pasta called “makaronya” was a new food item introduced into Istanbul’s cuisine around the 1850s. The Ottoman recipes of the 19th century include a large range of vegetable dishes. Vegetables were braised in clarified butter with pieces of mutton, onions and with the addition of a little water. Stuffing vegetables, leaves and even some fruits with minced meat, and braising them was another frequent method of cooking vegetables. Vegetables such as zucchinis, gourd, okra, eggplants or fresh beans were stewed with pieces of mutton and onions in butter. Verjuice or lemon juice was used to give such dishes a sour flavour. Cinnamon, fresh mint, garlic and sometimes sugar were other condiments used in braising vegetables. Recipes after the 1880s also include tomato juice as a condiment used in braising vegetables. Stuffed vegetables called dolma were prepared in two ways, with minced meat and with spiced rice. Eggplants, zucchinis, cucumbers, turnips, vine leaves and green tomatoes would be stuffed with a mixture of chopped meat, rice, salt, pepper and onion. Vine leaves, hazelnut leaves, quince leaves, spinach or mallows were wrapped around a small amount of minced meat. Stuffed melon and pumpkin were two varieties of savoury-style dolma with a sweet flavour. Another kind of stuffed dish was prepared with rice mixed with onion, salt, cinnamon, pepper, pine nut, raisin, allspice and 47  Samancı, La cuisine d’Istanbul, 262–3; Matthaiou, “La longue durée,” 320.

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fresh herbs. These dolmas were called ‘fake dolmas’ because they did not include any meat. Olive oil was used in braising these ‘counterfeit’ stuffed vegetables in a small amount of water with sour plums or sour cherries.48 Salads, pickles, spiced meats and seafood are just some of the appetizers described in the Ottoman cookbooks of the 19th century. According to the period’s cookbooks, salads were prepared with just one or two different herbs or vegetables. Lettuce, tomato, cauliflower, cucumber and chicory were used to prepare simple salads. The major salad dressing cited was made of olive oil, lemon juice or vinegar and salt. Aromatic herbs such as parsley, fresh mint and dill were used in salads. Another salad dressing used was tarator, a purée made of nuts, olive oil, lemon juice, salt, garlic and bread crumbs. Tarator was served with salads or as a side for grilled fish or fried mussels. Salads made of seafood and fish such as shrimps, lobster, salted sardines and mackerel are also described in 19th century recipes. Nearly every kind of vegetable as well as fruits such as watermelon and unripe grapes were preserved in brine and sometimes in vinegar. Fish such as bonito were also preserved in brine.49 The large number of dessert and fruit juice recipes described in the period’s cookbooks is impressive. Desserts had—and still have—a very special place in the Ottoman culinary culture. They were served during celebrations of circumcisions, weddings and religious feasts as a symbol of shared joy. Desserts such as helva were also served during funerals, where they offered comfort to the grieving. The various kinds of desserts described in the cookbooks of the time can be grouped as follows: sweet pastries soaked in sugar syrup (baklava, kadayıf), helva, puddings, fruit jellies (elmasiye), fruit desserts, cookies, jams and candies. Fruit juices made of dried or fresh fruits such as compotes, sherbets and syrups are also included as varieties of desserts.50

New Tastes and New Table Manners

The eating habits of Ottoman society remained largely unchanged until the 19th century. The meal was eaten around a low table (sofra-sini). People sat cross-legged on cushions and ate from the same plate. Spoons and fingers were the only eating utensils used. Knives and forks were unknown. Meals were not served in a special dining room, but people of all classes chose to eat 48  See Mehmed Kamil, Melce’üt-Tabbahin; Yeni Yemek Kitabı; Ayşe Fahriye, Ev Kadını; M. Tosun, Aşçı Başı; Türabi Efendi, Mecmua-ı Etime-i Osmaniye. 49  Samancı, La cuisine d’Istanbul, 221–4. 50  Ibid., 211–6.

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wherever they wished and a table was brought to them. During the 19th century, European lifestyles as well as culinary habits became sources of inspiration for those among the Ottoman elites who supported reform. During the second half of the century, a new style of eating called alafranga (alla franca: in the French, i.e. European style) became fashionable within Ottoman elite circles. European-style table manners, having meals on a high dining table, sitting on a chair and using individual knives, forks, spoons, glasses as well as European porcelain tableware were increasingly in use among Ottoman elites. Parallel to the novelties adopted into the Ottoman culinary etiquette, European cuisine, especially French, started to influence the cuisine of Istanbul’s elite during the second half of the century.51 Starting with the late 1830s, the Ottoman palace adopted the European style of banqueting for receiving its distinguished guests. During Sultan Abdülmecid’s reign (1839–1861) these banquets also started to reflect European tastes, in contrast to the typical meals served routinely to the residents of the Ottoman Palace. Dishes served during these official banquets included Frenchinspired dishes. For example, during the visit of a Russian prince to Istanbul in 1845, a banquet was organized at Beylerbeyi palace. Ambassadors who resided in the capital were sent invitations written in two languages, French and Turkish. Ottoman pashas were also present at the reception. The banquet was prepared in the European style, with a table laid out with gold and silver tableware. The style of food served to the guests was French, although some local dishes such as pilaf were also served. Wine was served.52 On 22 July 1856, a banquet was arranged by the Ottomans with the purpose of celebrating both the victory over Russia in the Crimean War and the completion of the new Dolmabahçe Palace. The banquet was prepared for one hundred and thirty guests at Dolmabahçe Palace, which had been constructed on the orders of Sultan. The menu of the banquet displayed a mixture of Ottoman and French cuisine: local dishes such as savoury pastry (börek), pilaf, shredded pastry soaked in syrup (kadayıf) and baklava were interspersed with French dishes such as potage Sévigné, paupiette à la reine, and croustade de foie gras à la Lucullus. Other dishes were new creations such as croustade d’ananas en sultane, suprême de faisan à la circassienne, bar à la validé.53 During the reign of Sultan Abdülaziz (r. 1861–1876) the habit of entertaining foreign high dignitaries with Western-style banquets continued in the Ottoman Palace. Examples 51  Samancı, “Culinary Consumption Patterns,” 161–85. 52  Hakan Karateke, Padişahım Çok Yaşa Osmanlı Devletinin Son Yüzyılında Merasimler (Istanbul: 2000), 158–9. 53  Philip Mansel, Constantinople City of the World’s Desire, 1453–1924 (London: 1995), 273–4.

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include sumptuous banquets prepared for the French Empress Eugénie, the Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph and the Prussian and Dutch princes who visited the capital of the Ottoman Empire in 1869. Dinners and feasts that reflected a synthesis of the Ottoman and French cuisines were prepared for important foreign guests up until the last days of the Ottoman Empire. Palace menus dating from the beginning of the twentieth century tell us that the dishes served during such feasts mostly consisted of French dishes with the exception of pilaf and börek. Various consommés, savoury pastries called bouchée, fish with champagne or caviar sauce, truffle mushrooms, game with goose liver (foie gras), jellied game meat, veal fillets served with a garnish, asparagus with sauce hollandaise, cakes and pies were some of the European-style dishes and desserts served during such events. In the 19th century the culinary language used by the Ottoman court changed, as the Ottoman rulers now preferred to use French, the international language of gastronomy, when communicating with the outside world.54 The French influence, which was gradually introduced to the Ottoman palace and related circles through official dinners and feasts, soon trickled down to the kitchens of Istanbul’s elites, leading to the adoption of new tastes outside the imperial cuisine. These new dishes were also promoted in Europeanstyle restaurants, cafés and patisseries which opened in the districts of Pera and Galata in Istanbul after the 1850s. The mid-nineteenth century marked a watershed in the adoption of French culinary styles. Only two foreign dishes called stewed beef with pasta and stewed beef with potatoes were listed in The Refuge of Cooks, published in 1844, whereas cookbooks published after 1880, including The New Cookbook and The Housewife, included more foreign dishes such as new types of vegetable soup, Hungarian soup, pea soup, oyster soup, prawn soup, broths, different types of meat and chicken jelly, paté, pasta, and various meat dishes such as roast beef, grilled cutlet, beef steak, and ragout as well as garnishes and canned food. The recipes listed as sauces (salça) included egg sauce, sauce with olive oil, lobster sauce, mussel sauce, oyster sauce, clam sauce, spiced sauce and tomato sauce. Mushrooms, tomatoes, potato, glazed onions, bread, spinach, sorrel, peas, asparagus, chicory, and French peas were some of the garnishes mentioned in the cookbooks. Different types of paté, which were essentially paste made of game, poultry and fish, were also among the French dishes which entered the Ottoman cuisine in this period. Crèmes 54  Özge Samancı, “Pilaf and bouchées: The modernization of official banquets at the Ottoman palace in the 19th century,” in Royal Taste: Food, power and status at the European courts after 1789, ed. Daniëlle de Vooght (Farnham, UK: 2011), 111–43.

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(krema), cakes (pasta), biscuits (bisküvi or gevrek), and a new type of ice cream (kalıp dondurmaları) were some of the European desserts mentioned in these cookbooks. Vanilla cake, savarin, almond pastry (badem böreği), French style pastry (alafranga börek) and pies (turta) were among the European varieties listed. Biscuits with pineapple, chestnut, rice, lemon, citron, cream, pistachio, sugar, hazelnut, and chocolate flavour were listed as “crackers” (gevrek). Almond cream, plain cream, lemon-flavoured cream, vanilla-flavoured cream, and pudinka, in other words pudding, were some of the crèmes (krema) increasingly used.55 Conclusions The culinary culture of 19th century Istanbul had many aspects in common with the Ottoman cuisine of the classical period, but also displayed differences. Ingredients used in the kitchen varied throughout the century, and by the end of it we can see that new techniques began to be used in the kitchen. Moreover, etiquette, seating arrangements and table layouts began to change. New vegetables and fruits such as tomatoes, peppers, maize and potatoes which entered cuisines world-wide after Columbus’ discovery of the New World in the 15th century played a major role in the introduction of new ingredients and trends in Istanbul’s cuisine throughout the 19th century. New table manners and new culinary techniques inspired from European culinary cultures are the major novelties embraced by Ottoman elites during the 19th century. The new table manners and European-inspired dishes called alafranga continued to coexist with traditional table manners and culinary techniques called alaturka in a fusion which endured until the last days of the Ottoman Empire. Bibliography Archival Sources Istanbul, Başbakanlık Osmanlı Arşivi [The Archives of the Ottoman Prime Ministry] (cited as BOA): DBŞM (Başbakanlık Osmanlı Arşivi Başmuhasebe), no. 11 700. BOA, Y.PRK. HH (Başbakanlık Osmanlı Arşivi Yıldız Perakende Hazine-i Hassa), no.12/13, no. 4/48, 5/43, 6/1, 7/32. 55  Samancı, La cuisine d’Istanbul, 249–60.

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BOA, HH.MTA (Başbakanlık Osmanlı Arşivi Hazine-i Hassa Matbah-ı Amire), no.142/96, no. 113/7. no.234/142, no. 234/15. no.113/69, no. 107/72, no. 107/2, no. 165/17, no. 107/63. BOA, CS (Başbakanlık Osmanlı Arşivi Cevdet Saray), no.476, no. 3335, no. 3374. no. 5832. Published Primary Sources “Articles Spéciaux: Conserves Alimentaires,” Revue commerciale du Levant. Bulletin mensuel de la chambre de commerce française de Constantinople 137 (1898): 173–82. Ağdiye Risalesi [Manuscript of Agdiye], ed. Mine Esiner Özen (Istanbul: 2015). Ayşe, Fahriye, Ev Kadını [The Housewife] (Istanbul: 1882). D’Ohsson, Ignace Mouradgea, Tableau général de l’Empire Othoman dédié au roi de Suède, (Paris: 1788). İlk Basılı Türkçe Yemek Kitabı, Melceü’t-Tabbahin (Aşçıların Sığınağı) [The refuge of cooks], ed. Cüneyt Kut (İstanbul: 1997). Kamil, Mehmet, Melceü’t-Tabbahin [The refuge of cooks] (Istanbul: 1844). Mahmud Nedim Bin Tosun, Aşçı Başı [The Chef] (Istanbul: 1900). Pouqueville, F[rançois] C.H.L., Voyage en Morée, à Constantinople et en Albanie et dans plusieurs autres parties de l’Empire Othoman pendant les années 1789,1799, 1800 et 1801 (Paris: 1805), vol. 1. Sefercioğlu, Nejat, Türk Yemekleri (XVIII. Yüzyıla Ait bir Yemek Risalesi) [A cooking manuscript of the 18th century] (Ankara: 1985). Türabi Efendi, Mecmua-i Et’ime-i Osmaniye [A manual of Turkish cookery] (London: 1864). Yeni Yemek Kitabı [New cookbook] (Istanbul: 1882). Secondary Literature Artan, Tülay, “Aspects of the Ottoman Elite’s Food Consumption: Looking for ‘staples,’ ‘luxuries’ and ‘delicacies’ in a changing century,” in Consumption Studies and the History of the Ottoman Empire 1550–1922, ed. Donald Quataert (New York: 2000), 107–201. Bilgin, Arif, Osmanlı Saray Mutfağı [The Ottoman Palace cuisine] (İstanbul: 2004). Esemenli, Deniz, Osmanlı Sarayı ve Dolmabahçe [The Ottoman Palace of Dolmabahçe] (Istanbul: 2002). Georgeon, François, “Ottomans and Drinkers: The consumption of alcohol in İstanbul in the nineteenth century,” in Outside In: On the margins of the modern Middle East, ed. Eugene L. Rogan (London: 2002), 7–30.

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Karateke, Hakan, Padişahım Çok Yaşa Osmanlı Devletinin Son Yüzyılında Merasimler [Long live the Sultan: Ottoman court ceremonies during the last century of the Empire] (Istanbul: 2000). Kut, Günay, “Turkish Culinary Culture,” in Timeless Tastes, Turkish Culinary Culture, eds. Ersu Pekin and Ayşe Sümer (İstanbul: 1996), 38–71. Kut, Turgut, “A Bibliography of Turkish Cookery Books Up to 1927,” Petits Propos Culinaires 36 (1990): 29. Mansel, Philip, Constantinople City of the World’s Desire, 1453–1924 (London: 1995). Matthaiou, Anna, “La longue durée de l’alimentation: Permanences rurales et différenciations urbaines en Grèce sous la domination ottomane,” in Alimentazione e nutri­zione Secc. XIII–XVIII. Atti Della Ventottesima Settimana di Studi, Prato, 22–27 April 1996, ed. Simonetta Cavaciocchi (Florence: 1997), 313–23. Matthaiou, Anna, Aspects de l’alimentation en Grèce sous la domination ottomane: Des réglementations au discours normatif (Frankfurt: 1997). Samancı, Özge, “Culinary Consumption Patterns of the Ottoman Elite During the First Half of the Nineteenth Century,” in The Illuminated Table, the Prosperous House: Food and shelter in Ottoman material culture, eds. Suraiya Faroqhi and Christoph K. Neumann (Würzburg: 2003), 161–84. Samancı, Özge, “Vegetable Patrimony of the Ottoman Culinary Culture,” in Proceedings of the Fourth International Congress of Ethnobotany (ICEB, 2005), eds. Z.F. Ertug and Ege Yayinlan (Istanbul: 2006), 565–70. Samancı, Özge, “Kar, Şerbet ve Dondurma” [Snow, sherbet and ice-cream], Yemek ve Kültür 9 (2007): 146–52. Samancı, Özge, “Pilaf and bouchées: The modernization of official banquets at the Ottoman palace in the 19th century,” in Royal Taste: Food, power and status at the European courts after 1789, ed. Daniëlle de Vooght (Farnham, UK: 2011), 111–43. Samancı, Özge, “Les techniques culinaires dans la cuisine d’Istanbul au XIXe siècle,” in Du feu originel aux nouvelles cuissons: Pratiques, techniques, rôles sociaux, ed. JeanPierre Williot [L’Europe alimentaire / European Food Issues / Europa alimentaria / L’Europa alimentare] (Peter Lang: 2015). Samancı, Özge, La cuisine d’Istanbul au 19e siècle (Tours-Rennes: 2015). Samancı, Özge, “Food Studies in Ottoman-Turkish Historiography,” in Writing Food History: A global perspective, eds. Kyri W. Claflin and Peter Scholliers (Berg: 2012), 107–20. Samancı, Özge, “19th Century Istanbul Culinary Culture,” in Turkish Cuisine, eds. Arif Bilgin and Özge Samancı (Ankara: 2008), 199–219. Samancı, Özge, “From Alaturka to Alafranga: Kitchenware and tableware in the Ottoman Palace in the 19th century,” in Turkish Cuisine, eds. Arif Bilgin and Özge Samancı (Ankara: 2008), 283–306.

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Samancı, Özge, “Osmanlı Kültüründe Değişen Sofra Adabı: Alaturka-Alafranga İkilemi” [Changing table manners in Ottoman culture: the duality of alafranga and alaturka], Toplumsal Tarih 231 (2013): 22–8. Samancı, Özge and Sharon Croxford, Flavours of Istanbul: A selection from original 19th century Ottoman recipes (Istanbul: 2007). Saz, Leyla, The Imperial Harem of the Sultans, trans. Thomas Landon (Istanbul: 1995). Stoianovich, Traian, “Le maïs dans les Balkans,” Annales. Économies, sociétés, civilisations 21 (5) (1966): 1026–40. Yerasimos, Marianna, 500 Years of Ottoman Cuisine (Istanbul: 2005). Yerasimos, Stéphane, À la table du Grand Turc (Paris: 2001).

Chapter 4

Turkish Flavours in the Transylvanian Cuisine (17th–19th Centuries) Margareta Aslan Introduction This study aims to present some of the foods, spices and dishes of OttomanTurkish origin which had the greatest and most enduring impact on the culinary culture of Transylvania, starting with the earliest contacts in the 15th and 16th centuries. The emphasis will be on the 17th century, when the Ottoman influence peaked, once Transylvania ceased to be a tribute-paying province of the Ottoman Empire. Our exploration centred on three key questions: a: what was the nature of the Ottoman impact on the Transylvanian cuisine? b: how were cooking techniques combined? and c: what were the main outcomes of this mix? The study draws on cookery books and other types of documents, placing them in a comparative perspective which links gastronomy, etymology and an exploration of cultural shifts. The focus is on the main findings relating to major foodstuffs and staples such as: bread, bakery goods and patisserie; herbs and spices; sugar and honey; çorba (sour broth, borscht) and soup; meat; rice and pilau; dairy products; vegetables, salads and pickles; sherbet, sweets and jams; coffee, wine, boza (low-alcoholic drink made of fermented millet), and tobacco. The use of spices and comparative cooking techniques in the Ottoman and Transylvanian cuisines provided the strongest bases for analogies. The Ottoman Empire maintained its position as a great power for longer than five centuries, a period during which it exercised a significant socio-cultural influence on its dominions, its tribute-paying vassals, as well as on more distant royal courts. In the Balkans, centuries of Ottoman control left a recognizable imprint on local gastronomic cultures.1 Within the general context of 1  The source base for the present study comprises a number of cookery books: the anonymous cookbook edited by Radvánszky Béla, most probably the valuable collection of recipes by the cook-turned-diplomat Gyulafy Lestár; see Radvánszky Béla (ed.), Szakács könyvek (Budapest: 1893); the cookery book of Tótfalusi Kis Miklós (1650–1702), a scholar and master printer from Cluj, which was found to be a reissue in several variants of the book by Füskuti Ifjabb

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi 10.1163/9789004367548_006

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political developments and of Ottoman-Romanian interactions from the 17th to the 19th century, the Ottoman impact on food and gastronomy can be measured by the number of Ottoman terms in the regional culinary vocabularies. Furthermore, the nature of the Ottoman influence on cuisine can be analysed on the basis of cookery books. The fate of Transylvania was linked to that of the Magyar kingdom until the battle of Mohács of 1526. The Ottoman attack did not take the nobles by surprise and one can presume that the calculating Transylvanian Voivode (ruler) János Zápolya (r. 1511–1526) was well-prepared for this moment. The defeat of the Magyar King Louis II of the Jagiełło dynasty opened the way to power for Zápolya, who was also the kingdom’s most prominent land-owner. His pledge of allegiance to the sultan earned him the title of King of Hungary, which he held until his death in 1540. Consequently, the ethnic Magyars of the Eyalet of Buda started migrating to the Principality. There, as servants to Habsburg princes, they cohabited with the locals in a multi-ethnic setting made up of Magyars, Magyarized Romanians, Székelys, Saxons. But the reverse migration and political exile into Ottoman-held areas is equally important. The late 16th century saw the start of a series of group migrations from Transylvania to Ottoman-controlled areas. Such were the groups of political refugees led by Gábor Bethlen (r. 1613–1629), Imre Tököly (r. 1690–1691), and Ferenc Rákóczy II (r. 1704–1711), rulers who pursued anti-Habsburg policies. Such bilateral contacts fostered models of multiculturalism which favoured the circulation of culinary expertise. Shifts in key commercial routes, the diminishing role of the Ottoman Empire in world trade and the concomitant growing importance of its role as freight forwarder between East and West2 are further elements which favoured the increased Ottoman influence in the regions that concern us here. Growing commercial traffic to and from the Porte encouraged the fusion of cultures, the sphere of gastronomy included. The linguist Emil Suciu produced an impressive analysis of the Ottoman imprint on the Romanian vocabulary. Landerer Mihály [(see Tótfalusi Kis Miklós, Szakáts mesterségnek könyvetskéje: Mellyben külömb-külömb féle válogatott tzifra, jó, egésséges, hasznos, tiszta és szapora étkeknek megkészítése (Kolozsvár: 1798)]; the cookbook of the Transylvanian Princess Bornemisza Anna (1630–1688), Bornemisza Anna szakács könyve 1680–tól (Bucharest: 1983); the cookbook of the Cantacuzino family edited by Ioana Constantinescu and Matei Cazacu and published in O lume într-o carte de bucate: Manuscris din epoca brâncovenească (Bucharest: 1997); the collection of recipes published by Marianna Yerasimos in 500 Yıllık Osmanlı Mutfağı (Istanbul: 2005). 2  Mustafa Ali Mehmed, Istoria turcilor (Bucharest: 1976), 214.

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Once they entered the Romanian lexicon and adapted to the morphological structure of that language, a series of terms of Turkish origin remained in the language through contamination or due to popular etymologies. Of the 2,760 words borrowed from Turkish over a few centuries, 2,273 were used frequently and 886 later disappeared. A further 131 historical terms designating obsolete realities are on their way out. Of the six words considered by Emil Suciu to be part of the core vocabulary of today’s Romanian, three are directly linked to food [(cafea =coffee), chef (leisure, joy, entertainment), murdar (dirty)],3 while of the six words which entered the language in the first half of the 15th century, three denote food-related objects [cazan (boiler), cântar (scales), tavǎ (tray)].4 Under Ottoman occupation, the languages of the Balkan peoples who had direct contact with the Turkish population underwent significant changes especially in the lexicons of household items and gastronomy. And even though the status of the Romanian lands as tribute-paying areas was different from that of other countries in the region,5 their vocabulary still acquired a significant portion of Ottoman loan words. The majority of these came into use during the 18th century under the Phanariot regimes and belong to the semantic sphere of culinary culture, for example dishes such as çorba, yahni, güveç, musakka, çulama, köfte, sarma or dolma, and cutlery such as fağfur, takım, tepsi, ibric etc.6 Similar processes affected the areas west of Transylvania as Buda became an Ottoman pashalik: the influx of Turkish population brought new habits which also affected food and eating.7 This led to the contamination of Magyar words in Transylvania, which is noticeable in the region’s cookbooks.8 The Transylvanian Count Géza Kuun (1838–1905) took a particular interest in the etymology and semantics of Magyar and Székely words. Kuun and the Magyar

3  Murdar, an adjective meaning “dirty, soiled” in today’s Romanian, was used in Ottoman Turkish to denote very specifically food which was contaminated or spoilt. See Nicoară Beldiceanu, “L’influence ottomane sur la vie urbaine des Balkans et des Principautés Roumaines,” in La culture urbaine des Balkans (XV e–XIXe siècles).3: La ville dans les Balkans depuis la fin du Moyen Age jusqu’au début du XXe siècle: Recueil d’études, ed. Nikola Tasić (Belgrade-Paris: 1991), 23–30. 4  Emil Suciu, Influența turcă asupra limbii române, vol. 1 (Bucharest: 2010), 109–10, 614–5. 5  They were not fully integrated into the Ottoman Empire as pashaliks proper. 6  See Beldiceanu, “L’influence ottomane,” 23–30. 7   Dobrovits Mihály, “Étkezés a török-kori magyarországon” (Publicationes Universitatis Miskolciensis. Sectio Philosophica) (Miskolc: 2005), 49–55. 8  Burhan Oğuz, Türkiye halkının kültür kökenleri, vol. 1 (Istanbul: 1976), 316.

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Ottomanist Thúry József (1861–1906)9 revealed the Turkic origin of many Magyar words by performing comparative analyses with their equivalents in languages such as Chuvash, Chagatai, Yakut, Turkish and Mongolian.10 After the Habsburgs gained control over Transylvania in 1688, throughout the 18th century the province opened up to Western influences and trends. German and French influences in cuisine were added to the local and Ottoman traditions. Magyar cooks, who had traditionally been given priority in employment, were now being sidelined in favour of foreigners. Many of them—some from Transylvania—ended up as slaves or servants at the Porte,11 in the service of Ottoman high officials. Accounts from the period under consideration mention the odd name or position as cook in official retinues of Magyar locals or of those employed at the Porte. There are stories, for example, involving a shepherd and a cook named Marco, who converted to Islam,12 or about the crisis which ensued when the Transylvanian cook of the nobleman Balássy ran away.13 In what follows, we aim to present some of the foods, spices and dishes of Ottoman-Turkish origin which had the greatest and most enduring impact on the culinary culture of Transylvania, starting with the earliest contacts of the 15th and 16th centuries. The emphasis will be on the 17th century, when the Ottoman influence peaked, once Transylvania ceased to be a tribute-paying province of the Ottoman Empire.

Bread, Pastry and Bakery Products

The Ottoman cuisine had a wide range of breads and baked goods. The best variety was considered to be has somunu, the bread served at the imperial

9  Arhivele Naționale ale României [the National Archives of Romania], Cluj county archives, Cluj-Napoca, fonds Gyulay-Kuun family, file 675; the Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest, fonds Szilády Hagyaték, MS 4455. 10  The edited correspondence between the two Orientalist scholars from 1878 to 1905 is forthcoming in the volume Din corespondența marilor orientaliști Géza Kuun și Thúry József: Documente. 11  Hans Dernschwam, Istanbul ve Anadolu`ya Seyahat Günlüğü, trans. Yaşar Önen (Ankara: 1992), 85–96. 12  Ibid., 67–8; see Mikes Kelemen, Törökországi levelek, ed. Veress Dániel (Bucharest: 1988), 19. See also Borsos Tamás, Vásárhelytöl a Fényes Portáig, ed. Kocziány László (Bucharest: 1972), 68. 13  See Borsos, Vásárhelytöl a Fényes Portáig, 68.

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palace.14 Other varieties of bread are also listed in the documents available to us: sabanca somunu, memecik, made in the northern city of Amasya’;15 çakıl made in Bursa;16 an oblong, baguette-style bread;17 rolls from Galata;18 unsalted white bread, milk bread;19 small, flat, focaccia-style breads;20 as well as cheaper, basic breads. Other bakery goods included: breads filled with vegetables, herbs or meat; yufka (thin layer of pastry); lavaș (thin layer of dough); pide (leavened dough, thicker than the lavaş); gözleme (filled yufka, a type of pancake); katlar (a small bread made of superimposed layers of yufka); bazlama bread; poğaça;21 çörek;22 açma (a large thin bread); kulur (maize bread), an alms-bread of the simit type, today also called kulaç (made of a special leavened dough);23 lokma (syrupy doughnuts);24 beigli, etc. The erişte, the small orzo pasta, also came from the culinary culture of the steppe.25 Most of these types of bread, dough and pastry entered the Hungarian and Transylvanian cuisine in the early modern period. The Ottoman yufka sheets—layers of filo pastry which could be cut into tagliatelle—entered the Transylvanian cuisine in the shape of the “Hungarian meat loaf” prepared and served at the court of the Magyar King Matthias I Corvinus.26 This dish would appear to be very similar to the meat-based börek, which was specific to the Turkic peoples and consisted of eighteen pastry sheets brushed with bacon fat and filled with roast and spicy meat.27 Lozenge-shaped 14  See Evliya Çelebi, Seyahatname, vol. 1 (Istanbul: 1996), 342. 15  Ibid., vol. 2, 683. 16  Ibid., vol. 2, 415. 17  Metin And, 16 Yüzyılda Istanbul (Istanbul: 2011), 156. 18  Dernschwam, Istanbul ve Anadolu`ya, 73. 19  Ibid., 73. 20  And, 16.Yüzyılda Istanbul, 161. 21  Similar terms exist in Serbian, Bulgarian, Hungarian and are related to the Italian focaccia. The name, ultimately derived from the Latin panis focacius, ‘travelled’ to the Ottoman Empire and the Balkans via the intermediate Byzantine term pogatsa. [Editors’ note]. 22  Oğuz, Türkiye halkının, vol. 1, 352–4.. 23  Ibid., 385. 24  Ibid., 711. 25  Ibid., 390. 26  Matthias (Hung. Mátyás) Corvinus (Rom. Matei Corvin) (1458–90) was the son of the Romanian-born Transylvanian nobleman Iancu de Hunedoara (Hung. János Hunyadi), who was voivode (ruler) of Transylvania between 1441 and 1456 and regent of Hungary in 1446–52. 27  Füreder Balázs Gábor, A “Hosszú reneszánsz konyhakultúra:” Magyar nyelvű szakácskonyveinek bemutatása és összehasonlitó elemzése, unpublished doctoral thesis (Debrecen

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pastry cookies called szeges laska28 are mentioned in Transylvanian documents before 1600, and the preparation of the laska mentioned by Tótfalusi in his cookbook of 1798 (see note 1 above) is very similar to that of the Ottoman yufka and of the șehriye pilau of tagliatelle: “Sift an amount of good, white flour, make a dough with two or three eggs (if you do not have eggs use water), mix well and then roll out with a rolling pin, then fold up, cut and place on a sieve to dry.” This pastry was then filled with the already-prepared meat, which had been mixed with the spices most used in Transylvania (pepper, ginger, turmeric) and cooked. The laska could also be prepared as a pilau, by tossing them in butter or cooking them in gravy.29 Dumplings, pies and pancakes were also valued additions to the cuisines of the Romanian areas.30 The pies were prepared in the Ottoman style, with eggs, flour, salt and cream (milk in the Ottoman31 and Transylvanian cuisines) and filled with sweetmeats, aubergines, nuts, etc. The main difference was in the sweetener used for the syrup: the Romanians used sugar and rosewater, the Ottomans used honey, while the Hungarians did not use a sweetener at all. The Ottoman influence is also discernible in the brioches or doughnuts called in Magyar csörege (csöröge) after the Turkish çorek. Another Transylvanian preparation based on eggs was called disilber,32 a term akin to the Ottoman dilber (an attractive woman), and was made by breaking the egg straight into the boiling water. A type of small bread called in Hungarian cipó was frequently on the tables of Transylvanian Magyars, who preferred eating it hot with various fillings or in porridge. Recipes based on porridge of oats, millet or pearl barley were also common both in Transylvania and across the Carpathians, in the Romanian Principalities. Millet was used to make a type of polenta (Rom. mǎmǎliga), or bake bread and pies, to be consumed with cheese, milk or fish.33 Flour, breadcrumbs and millet were the chief foodstuffs ordered for the Ottoman army stationed in Upper Hungary during the campaign of 1682, when the Transylvanian army fought alongside the Ottomans against the Habsburgs. The Ottoman University: 2009), 25–6; idem, Reneszánsz gasztronómia magyarországon. Egy XIV: Századi magyar recept bemutatása, 5. 28  Radvánszky, Szakács könyvek, 91. 29  Tótfalusi, Szakáts mesterségnek, 8–16. 30  Constantinescu and Cazacu (eds.) O lume, 145. 31  In Turkey, the 15th-century dish prepared in this way was called kaygana, see M. Yerasimos, 500 Yıllık, 211. 32  Tótfalusi, Szakáts mesterségnek, 36. 33  Valeria Costăchel et al., Viața feudală în Țara Românească și Moldova în secolele XIV–XVII (Bucharest: 1957), 25–31; on foreign visitors’ views of mǎmǎliga, see the contributions by Andrew Dalby and Angela Jianu in this volume.

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commander requested the following provisions from the Transylvanian ruler, Prince Mihály Apafi (r.1662–1690): 4,000 Istanbul kile34 of flour, 10,000 okka35 of breadcrumbs,36 10,000 Istanbul kile of millet,37 20,000 Istanbul kile of barley. Oats were not available at the time. Once corn entered the Ottoman cuisine at the end of the 17th century, the populations of the Black Sea regions adopted it easily and cornmeal became a staple food.

Herbs and Spices

Sourced from India and the Far East, spices and aromatic herbs were loaded on ships in the port of Alexandria and sent over to Venice, Lyon, and Istanbul. Because of the frequent attacks by pirates in the Mediterranean, it was considered safer for these goods, once they arrived safely in Istanbul, to be then conveyed by local and foreign traders towards the Balkans and Central Europe, a method which very quickly enriched this socio-professional group.38 Spices were normally transited to Transylvania and Moldavia via Wallachia. Starting in the latter half of the 16th century, owing to shifts in the political and legal interactions with the Porte, the imports of spices into Moldavia increased massively.39 Expensive spices and fruit were available in large amounts on the market. Of the choicest spices used at the Ottoman Porte—musk, amber, black pepper, the fulful Ḥalabī or Aleppo pepper—only the latter was used in the Romanian cuisine. The range of spices and herbs widely used in the Romanian lands included turmeric, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, sage and basil. In the Ottoman cuisine, turmeric was dissolved in vinegar or rosewater, while the Romanians used to simply sprinkle it over their dishes. While eating with one’s fingers was risky because of the yellow colourant in turmeric, this style of tucking into one’s food was preferred by the Ottomans, Transylvanians and Magyars alike. The Turks called this eating technique beş parmak (five fingers) or hamse mübarek (five is holy), while the Magyars were convinced that the taste of food would have been altered by the use of the “Viennese knife.”40

34  25,7 kg. 35  1,285 kg. 36  Costăchel et al., Viața feudală, 363. 37  Ibid., 371. For further references to Ottoman units of weight and their fluctuating values, see the contributions of Suraiya Faroqhi and Hedda Reindl-Kiel in this volume. 38  M. Yerasimos, 500 Yıllık, 51. 39  Tahsin Gemil, Românii și otomanii în secolele XIV–XVI (Constanța: 2008), 302. 40  See Dernschwam, Istanbul ve Anadolu`ya, 178.

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During the 15th and 16th centuries, the peculiar flavour of Ottoman dishes was obtained from the use of a classic trio of spices: coriander, cumin and cinnamon.41 In other recipes, these were supplemented by cloves, cardamom and anise. The Ottomans favoured sweet-ish or hot-and-sour flavours, which were achieved through a mix of pepper and garlic or cinnamon and cloves, which both attenuated the sweetness or the spicy, hot taste of dishes. This use of spices42 highlights the key difference between the Ottoman and the Far Eastern cuisines. Ottoman dishes were far less rich and spicy than was customary further East: the sweet-and-sour flavour retained its prominence from the period of Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror43 and up to the end of the empire.44 In the account he wrote of his travels to the Porte in 1553–5, Hans Dernschwam45 noted differences and similarities in the culinary sphere between Turks and Magyars. As a business partner to the Transylvanian nobleman Peter Haller (1500–1569)46—in businesses patronized by the Fugger family47 as well as in the spice trade—he had become a Transylvanian resident. He purchased spices imported from the Porte from Haller in Transylvania and exported them to Western Europe.48 Dernschwam often mentions the Magyars’ taste for simple and spicy foods, a trend confirmed in the book 41  M. Yerasimos, 500 Yıllık, 53. 42  Ibid., 68–9. 43  Mehmed II (the Conqueror) ruled briefly first from 1444 to1446 and for a second time in 1451–1481. 44  Andrei Clot, Civilizația arabă în vremea celor 1001 de nopți (Bucharest: 1989), 218. 45  Hans Dernschwam (1494–1568), Tagebuch einer Reise nach Konstantinopel und Kleinasien (1553–55). 46  Petru Haller was a descendant of the noble family Haller von Hallerstein from Nuremberg. Petru continued the mercantile business run by his father Ruprecht (~1450–1513) in Buda and settled in the Principality of Transylvania. He occupied important official positions in the city of Sibiu (Hermannstadt) and became Count (comite) of Transylvania from 1557 to 1569. Having inherited a significant wealth from his mother Anna (of the houses of Siebenlinde-Münich and Münzer), he invested in a successful business in the spice trade. As a money-lender to the House of Habsburg he received the right to administer some of the Transylvanian mines. 47  The Fugger family were a German mercantile family from Augsburg who became one of the leading names in banking in the 16th century. Like Peter Haller (see above), as moneylenders to the Habsburgs, they also became involved in managing Transylvanian mines and appointed Hans Dernschwam to compile a report on the Transylvanian mining industry. 48  Gustav Gündisch, “Über die Vermögensbildung des Hermannstädter Bürgermeisters und Sachsengrafen Peter Haller (1490?-1569),” in idem, Aus Geschichte und Kultur der Siebenbürger Sachsen (Vienna: 1987), 170.

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edited by Radvánsky (with recipes from the 17th and 18th centuries) where the preference for the hot-and-sour flavour of the three dominant spices in Tótfalusi’s book (1792) would appear to be in decline. The use of the four basic spices—turmeric, pepper, ginger, nutmeg, and less frequently cinnamon and cloves—endured in the Transylvanian cuisine long after the period of King Matthias Corvinus, at whose court dishes were very spicy.49 This composition differs from the cuisine of Moldavia and Wallachia, where the sweet-sour flavour was preferred, based on the constant use of nutmeg, cloves, cinnamon, pepper and, more rarely, turmeric. “The cuisine of Transylvania”, noted Binder Pál, “was perhaps far too reliant on Eastern spices from the Ottoman Empire for its flavours”.50 The import of these spices was often mediated by the Transylvanian diplomats and traders active at the Ottoman Porte. Thus, for instance, in circa 1670, the Diac (court clerk) David was entrusted with purchasing the following items at the Porte: sherbet (of which a half was to be lemon sherbet) for 16 thaler, fánkfust csészék51 smaller than in the previous year, for 25 thaler, balsamic oil of opium52 as much as he could obtain, and surpio53 (scorpio?) oil.54 A list of orders carried by the Transylvanian envoys to the Porte in 1591–1592 included produce from all over the world easy to find in Turkish bazaars: cane sugar, rice, olive oil, pepper, Turkish turmeric, ginger, nutmeg, oranges, pomegranates, chestnuts, cinnamon, raisins, sultanas, and cloves.55 In 1667, the Transylvanian envoy at the Porte, Laszlo Balo, was required to buy sherbet and nutmeg oil.56 Horseradish and marjoram occupied a prominent place in Transylvanians’ culinary preferences, both among the ethnic Magyars and the ethnic Germans. Paprika—called by its Turkish name boya (dye, colour)—was introduced to Transylvania by Ottoman traders, and capsicum started being cultivated in 49  In 1416, at a banquet offered by the King of France Henri V to the King of Hungary, the menu included richly-seasoned Hungarian dishes which the guests were unable to eat. See Lukács Iosif, Clujul Renascentist: Aspecte privind viața cotidiană în Cluj în secolul al XVI-lea și al XVII-lea. Alimentația și gastronomia, unpublished doctoral thesis (BabesBolyai University, Cluj-Napoca: 2012), 101–2. 50  Binder Pál (ed.), Utazások a Török Birodalomban (Bucharest: 1983), 13. 51  A type of small, round, stemless cup. 52  Poppy seed oil (Lat. Oleum papaceris seminis). 53  An oil obtained from soaking and grinding scorpions with additions of almond oil and aromatic herbs. Oleum scorpionum in Latin, it had medicinal uses. 54  Sucursala Judeţeană a Arhivelor Naţionale (SJAN) Cluj [The National Archives, Cluj county archives], doc. 72. 55  Binder, Utazások, 21–8. 56  Ibid., 14.

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Hungary in the early 17th century. In the mid-17th century, Evliya Çelebi wrote about the pastrami from Kütahya, spiced with capsicum seeds, i.e. chilli.57 At around the same time, under the Transylvanian Prince Gábor Bethlen, who spent almost three decades in exile at the Porte, a new function was created at court: the borsoló, a kind of “master of spices.”58 Thyme was an aromatic herb from the Mediterranean regions brought by the Romans to Europe. In the Ottoman Empire it was used as a medical remedy rather than in cooking. When the British disembarked at Gallipoli, there was plenty of wild thyme to be used for medicinal purposes. Although the herb was known in Transylvania from the 16th century onwards, it was barely used in cooking, in contrast to its frequent culinary use in the Romanian areas across the Carpathians.

Sugar and Honey

Sugar, a highly expensive item, is generally thought to have been used for its medicinal properties rather than as a food, which might explain its limited availability on the Ottoman market. But the real cause would appear to be a class-based preference for foodstuffs of animal origin in Turkish society. The Ottomans took a long time replacing butter and fat from sheep’s tails with vegetable oil59 and honey or pekmez60 with sugar. Until around 1930, people in Anatolia preferred using honey, pekmez and sultanas.61 Honey was ubiquitous. Dernschwam noted the Turks’ predilection for sweets and the presence of honey in many dishes. Even today, the affluent prefer “healthy food” of animal rather than vegetable origin. The Porte received large amounts of honey—and other foodstuffs—as part of the contractual obligations of tribute-paying nations. The second most used sweetener after honey was pekmez made from grapes. It was an old tradition, found also among the Uyghur people of Turkestan who were producers of pekmez and wine (bor).62 Another variety of sweetener was nareng, produced from pomegranates and prunes. Dried fruit such as raisins and dates were also use as sweeteners. Transylvania used honey 57  Çelebi, Seyahatname, vol. 2, 714. 58  Benda Borbála, Étkezesi szokások a magyar főúri udvarokban a kora újkorban (Szombathely: 2014), 240. 59  For this, see also Suraiya Faroqhi’s contribution to the present volume. 60  Tr. pekmez = fruit syrup, similar to molasses. 61  M. Yerasimos, 500 Yıllık, 54. 62  Clot, Civilizația arabă, 220.

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predominantly, while in Wallachia and Moldavia the consumption of sugar was comparatively higher. Compared to the costly sugar, honey was a handy product, affordable to most Transylvanians. Noble courts produced their own honey or purchased it at accessible prices. A slight increase in the consumption of sugar was noted for the latter half of the 18th century, as documented in the recipe collections of Tótfalusi Kis Miklós edited by către Füskuti Ifjabb Landerer Mihály after 1790.

Çorba and Soup

The Ottoman çorba (pronounced “chorba”) has an ancient origin, lost in the steppes of Central Asia. As they settled in Anatolia, the Turks retained the tradition, while enriching the recipe according to the cultures they encountered. Marianna Yerasimos has offered a classification of çorbas according to the ingredients used: pasta, seeds, pulses, meat, dairy, chicken, vegetables. The first three categories were, alongside rice dishes, the basic dishes of the Turks in Central Asia, especially when prepared with wheat- and bulgur-based pasta: erişte (orzo) and şehriye (vermicelli).63 Dernschwam’s observations confirm the Turks’ predilection for çorba. He noted the rice çorba in particular, made with lamb stock, coloured with turmeric and sweetened with honey or sugar.64 When chicken was used, the meat was boiled, cut into smaller pieces and added to the rice çorba,65 perhaps with a further addition of bulgur. Çorba prepared with butter (or fat) and rice was typically served to the janissary troops, Dernschwam noted,66 while çorba with bulgur was central to the diet of artisan apprentices.67 In the 16th-century Ottoman cuisine chicken stock and rice were the base for most soups, to which could be added most vegetables. In Transylvania the term “soup” came from the German Suppe and the dish itself was likened by Derschwam to the Ottoman çorba. The term çorba itself entered the Romanian culinary vocabulary with the Turkish and other merchants who carried imports from the Porte. There was resistance to the adoption of this type of dish into the Romanian regional traditions, partly because left-over “broth” was seen as useless: in 18th-century Banat the left-over stock 63  M. Yerasimos, 500 Yıllık, 60. 64  Dernschwam, Istanbul ve Anadolu`ya, 59–60. 65  Ibid., 59. 66  Dernschwam, Istanbul ve Anadolu`ya, 90. 67  Ibid., 96.

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was thrown away.68 Further, albeit anecdotal, evidence of this resistance is provided by the 17th-century story of an Ottoman serasker (military commander) who, taken ill with dysentery in Moldova, was treated by his Turkish doctor with cold water (to bring down the temperature) and “herbs,” a reference to the traditional Turkish remedies in case of illness: icy water and çorba made with rice and meat stock. However, the hierarch Jeremias Kakavelas69 advised the serasker to abandon the prescribed ‘diet’ and the ice-cold water and remember that the doctor “is treating a man, not a beast.”70 It is, therefore, quite possible that juices left over from cooking were given to domestic animals as food. Most soups and other dishes in Transylvania and the Romanian lands were served on a slice of bread or with small cubes of bread, which soaked up the sauces and prevented spillage. In the territories of the former Ottoman Empire, serving liquid foods on a bed of bread or pide (pitta) endured, as suggested by the very popular present-day İskender dish. In Transylvania most soups were “Hungarian reduced soups,” although pork soups could have water added as they simmered. Other types of soup were curd cheese soups (possibly the ancestor of today’s soup with lettuce and whey) and zuppon71 (possibly the German/Saxon soup referred to by the German chronicler Dernschwam as tarhana when visiting the Porte in 1553).72 Made of finely chopped greens, bread crumbs, two or three eggs, and seasoned with pepper, ginger and nutmeg, the zuppon was a thick soup recommended to those weakened by illness. Similarly, tarhana is a very thick soup made of a dough ground into a powder and mixed with greens, yoghurt, water and butter, still used today as a stimulant in various ailments. The early modern documents which cite Ottoman dishes do not normally give the amounts of the ingredients used in the recipes, but, judging from the traditional soups of the Central Asian steppes still on the menus today, these were creamy soups, which suggest that the time for clear, thin soups came later. The ‘reduced’ Transylvanian soups were thickened with a mixture of egg and bread and soured with vinegar, while in Turkey the egg was mixed with flour and the acidity came from either vinegar or lemon juice. In early modern 68  Rudolf Graff, “Imaginea românului din Banat în viziunea unor cărturari și funcționari austrieci,” in Identitate şi alteritate: Studii de imagologie, vol. 2, eds. Nicolae Bocșan et al. (Cluj-Napoca: 1998), 109–22. 69  Jeremias Kakavélas (1643–1698), Greek-born scholar, professor of philosophy and logic, tutor to the future Prince of Moldavia Dimitrie (Demetrius) Cantemir. 70  Dimitrie Cantemir, Viața lui Constantin Cantemir zis cel Bătrân, Domnul Moldovei, ed. Radu Albala (Bucharest: 1960), 142. 71  Tótfalusi, Szakáts mesterségnek, 43. 72  Ortaylı, Osmanlı düşünce, 53.

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times, the Ottomans seasoned their soups with turmeric, coriander, pepper and cumin. Starting with the 18th century, they used copious amounts of parsley, cinnamon and mint.73 In his account, Dernschwam shows that soups could be eaten at breakfast; he singles out the bogda czorba,74 a soup made of bran, with pieces of lamb and served with bread.75 Fish çorba is also mentioned in 17thcentury Ottoman documents. One can conclude that there was an impressive range of çorbas in the Ottoman and Ottoman-influenced cuisines. Yerasimos has identified more than fifty recipes for Ottoman çorba. Twenty-two recipes of leves76 soups have been so far identified for Transylvania, as shown in the following table.77 A List of soups from Renaissance Transylvania Tótfalusi Miklósa 1798

Bornemisza Annab 1680

Radvánszky Béla (ed.) 1893

Pork soup Wine soup Water soup Curd cheese soup Garden pea soup Zuppon Lentil soup

Pike soup Almond soup Raisin soup with butter Hungarian reduced soup Wine soup Tripe soup with garden peas Chicken liver soup with garden peas Chicken breast soup Sweet wine soup Pepper and parsley soup Hard cheese soup Soup made of fried eggs and butter Cheese and soured cream soup

Beef soup (Hung. vetrecze soup, with beef cooked in animal fat) Soup made of pig’s head with bread

a Tótfalusi, Szakáts mesterségnek, 34, 40, 42, 46. b Bornemisza, Szakács könyve, 54, 57, 59, 65, 61, 66.

73  M. Yerasimos, 500 Yıllık, 64. The Hungarians, too, used large amounts of parsley in their cooking. 74  Tr. buğday çorba. 75  Dernschwam, Istanbul ve Anadolu`ya, 170. 76   Leves was the Hungarian generic term for soup. 77  Similar studies for the rest of the Romanian areas are yet to be undertaken.

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Meat Some of the meats used in Romanian cooking were never used in the Ottoman kitchen: pork was not allowed; horse meat, used among the Transylvanian Saxons, and rabbit, which the Magyars used, were never prepared or served among the Ottomans. Venison was rarely served, although Evliya Çelebi mentions pastrami prepared from deer.78 Hans Dernschwam, too, tells us that the Ottomans had no knowledge of the preparation and seasoning of meat from rabbit, hare, deer and other types of venison, but had a lot of expertise with chicken. Once cooked, the meat was served on a tray, sprinkled with chopped parsley and cinnamon. Roast meat was often filled with onions. Red meat and chicken were cooked in earthenware in large, vaulted ovens, with one or two apertures which helped the hot air travel upwards.79 The Ottoman Porte was a great consumer of meat. From the Romanian lands, the Turks bought sheep rather than cattle, as they preferred lamb to beef.80 The depletion caused by the Ottoman requirements for sheep and cattle encouraged to some extent the domestic growth of pork consumption in the Romanian lands, although pork remained largely the meat of the poor. The Transylvanian nobles and Romanian boyars continued to prefer lamb, beef, poultry and fish. Lists of exports to the Porte show that the number of sheep was considerably larger than the cattle exports. Moldavia and Wallachia became large suppliers of foodstuffs starting with the latter half of the 16th century, so much so that by the 18th century the two provinces came to be known as the Porte’s kiler—the Porte’s “pantry.”81 The sheep exported to Istanbul by the two Romanian lands do not seem to have exceeded 15–20 per cent of the great capital city’s demand for mutton and lamb.82 Mutton (more precisely ram meat rather than the meat from a younger sheep) was mentioned in a few Transylvanian recipes as berbécs hús, which is the regional, Székely term for it. The use of ram meat itself was an influence from the Romanian lands across the Carpathians which came to Transylvania via the culinary practices of ethnic Romanians who had been 78  Çelebi, Seyahatname, vol. 1, 373. 79  And, 16.Yüzyılda, 159. 80  Nicolae Iorga, Istoria românilor prin călători (Bucharest: 1981), 264. 81  For the concept of ‘imperial granary,’ see also the study by Violeta Barbu in the present volume. 82  Mihai Maxim, O istorie a relațiilor româno-otomane, cu documente noi din arhivele turcești (Brăila: 2012), 27. For these exports, see also Gheorghe Lazăr’s contribution in the present volume.

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Magyarized or had contracted mixed marriages and lived among the Magyar elites. Some of these recipes have been analysed by Marianna Yerasimos. They include a 15th-century dish called mutancene,83 which had been served mostly at the ziyafets (banquets) of Sultan Mehmet the Conqueror, or, for example, at a banquet celebrating the circumcision of his sons in 1539. This was a moderately sweet-sour dish made with mutton, honey, vinegar, raisins and sultanas, prunes, apricots, almonds, onion, pepper and salt. It was made by first frying the onions in butter and tossing in the meat, honey, pepper and salt. To attenuate the sweetness, the fruit and vinegar were added at the last minute, leaving the whole to simmer for another ten minutes. In the Romanian cookbooks, the meat had to be braised or boiled, cooked with Morello cherries or raisins, and thickened with almond paste84 and in Transylvania the dish was sweetened with sugar. In the recipes analysed by Yerasimos, from among the chicken dishes, one stands out because of its sweet-sour taste and composition. Mahmudiyye is a chicken dish with fruit and tagliatelle and dates back to the 15th century. Its special taste was due to the use of fat hens from the countryside or, if this was not possible, specially ‘fattened’ hens sold in shops, to which was added a little butter.85 Recipes from the Romanian lands include an Ottoman-inspired dish of chicken filled with rice, raisins, and cinnamon.86 Although rarely consumed at the Ottoman Porte, a recipe for rabbit stew with coriander, cumin and raisins called tavșan yahnisi87 is documented for the 15th century and features in the cookbook Tarihli Risale of 1764.88 This recipe spread to the Romanian lands and is still in use today under the name “iahnie.”89 If one looks comparatively at this stew and the corresponding Transylvanian dishes, one finds that out of the twenty recipes in Anna Bornemisza’s collection of 1680, five are cooked using the meat juices and blood, and one using pine kernels, thus marking the difference between non-Muslim and Muslim helâl cooking methods. The so-called fekete lév designates in Hungarian a dark gravy based on blood, and is one in a range of ‘colour-coded’ sauces used to 83  M. Yerasimos, 500 Yıllık, 94. 84  Constantinescu and Cazacu (eds.), O lume, passim. 85  M. Yerasimos, 500 Yıllık, 93. 86  Constantinescu and Cazacu (eds.), O lume, 144. 87  M. Yerasimos, 500 Yıllık, 100. 88  This collection was edited and published by M. Nejat Sefercioglu in Türk Yemekleri, XVIII Yüzyıla Ait Bir Yemek Risalesi (Ankara: 1985). See M. Yerasimos, 500 Yıllık, 233–5. 89  The Ottoman yahni derived from the identical Arabic word and designated slow-cooked, juicy stews.

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diversify dishes: yellow sauces (turmeric), grey sauces, etc. The dark sauce was coloured with coffee, which was known in common parlance as “black juice.” Black sauces are no longer in use today, but the Magyars still have a saying regarding the “coffee juice”. When the Ottomans wanted to arrest the Transylvanian Prince Imre Tököly, the Pasha of Oradea (Hung. Nagyvárad, Ger. Grosswardein) invited him to dinner. Although sensing the danger, the prince honoured the invitation, but wished to take his leave immediately after dining. The pasha, however, told him: “Do not rush, my Son, the dark juice is still to come.”90 Ever since, the Magyar collective imaginary has retained the regional jargon for designating the human fear of extinction: “I have not drunk of the dark juice yet,” or “The dark juice is still to come.” Only four recipes for yahni have been identified in the cuisine of the Romanian lands: none uses blood in the cooking. Wine is used to give colour and taste, rose vinegar for acidity and bread or almonds for thickening. Another chicken dish, called tavuk kavurması, was a type of 15th-century roast much loved by Sultan Mehmet the Conqueror. The sweet-sour flavour was in line with classical Ottoman cooking, but the special touch was the method used for cooking the meat: it was first boiled, then dusted with flour and egg, breadcrumbed and roasted in butter. This shows that the technique for the ‘golden coating’ of food, called pané in Romanian (from the French) and rántott in Hungarian, was already known in the Ottoman cuisine by the mid-15th century. The Transylvanian cuisine had pané bread, pané pears, pané rice, pané lamb’s head, pané onions, German pané, pané lobster. In the Romanian lands, one of the most appreciated of pané dishes among the boyar elite was pané of bison’s head.91 In Bornemisza Anna’s collection a recipe named “as the Turk likes it” was a roast fillet of beef or chicken prepared in the following manner: “Sprinkle salt on the meat then roast it. Wash the rice well and boil it in water until soft. Wash the meat, place it in a pot and cover with beef or chicken juices. If you do not have these juices, boil it in melted butter, but so that it remains in one piece. When you serve it, turn it over onto a “platter”, sprinkle with olive oil and a little sugar; in this way it will be tastier.”92 In the Ottoman period, kebab was slow-cooked or casseroled in its own juices.93 The Transylvanians cooked beef fillet in an almost identical manner: 90  See Jókai Mór, A magyar nemzet története regényes rajzokban (Szentendre: 2006), 336–7. For the penetration of coffee and its ritual in the Romanian Principalities, see Olivia Senciuc’s chapter in this volume. 91  Radvánszky, Szakács könyvek, passim. 92  Bornemisza, Szakács könyve, 82. For a similar recipe of veal fillet prepared “in the Turkish manner,” but with the addition of gooseberry juice, see Radvánszky, Szakács könyvek, 45. 93  M. Yerasimos, 500 Yıllık, 106–108.

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slow-cooked in animal fat or lard, with onions or garlic, a little vinegar, pepper, turmeric and ginger. Very rarely, some cooks added pine kernels or sálya94 before slicing the meat and serving it.95 Gulyás is possibly the best-known of Hungarian traditional dishes, and, in its up-market variant, is made of lean beef fillet. A popular etymology derives the name gulyás from the Turkish kul aşı, meaning the servant’s food. The dish is, in fact, similar to the age-old meat stew similar to the Turkish yahni and may have been a dish often served to the janissary troops in the Ottoman period. I found out that it is also very similar to a Transylvanian dish called vetrecze. Cooked on an open fire (called vatră in Romanian), it probably originated in the Central Asian steppe among the old Turkic and Magyar peoples. It was simple fare which united families and communities around the ocak, the hearth, and the sofra, the portable mat spread out for meals. In the 19th century, flavoured with paprika, rather than, as originally, with pepper, it became the Hungarian ‘national’ dish as an anti-Habsburg protest by romantic nationalists who extolled its Magyar peasant origins. The disputed etymologies and origins make goulash a trans-cultural dish which sums up the gastronomic ‘fluidity’ of Transylvania.96 Originally a Persian dish made of minced left-over meat, the köfte entered the Romanian cuisine via an Ottoman channel. As early as the 16th century recipes mentioned the köfte, which was either fried or cooked in a sauce with an accompaniment of lentils. On a menu for a sultanic ceremonial banquet of 1539, the “köfteler with has çörek” were listed after the yahni and kebabs. Perhaps the best-known variety was the aya köftesi, a rice çorba97 with meat balls, which were usually made of minced meat, sometimes mixed not with bread, but with rice or bulgur wheat. Like the köfte, the Turkish sausage called sucuk was made of finely-chopped and spiced meat. In the Romanian lands, sausage recipes varied significantly, but they were often made of a mix of spicy meat and offal. The latter ingredient was never used in the Ottoman cuisine. In Hungary, a tax was levied on offal, which was normally sold cheaply to the poorer sections of the population, a practice documented, for example, in the towns of Mardin and Amid.98 A Romanian variety of sausage called caltaboș—a word of uncertain origin—was made of offal, rice and spices. 94  A species of aromatic herb. 95  Radvánszky, Szakács könyvek, 15. 96  Rachel Laudan, derives the name of the dish from the identical Hungarian word meaning herdsman. “The Humble Beginnings of Goulash,” Smithsonian Journeys Travel Quarterly, special issue on “The Danube,” April 2016, s.p. 97  For çorba see above. 98  The towns Mardin and Diyarbakır are in the south-east of today’s Turkey; see Oğuz, Türkiye halkının, vol. 1, 543.

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A dish made of cabbage filled with minced meat, called in Turkish sarma, entered the Romanian cuisine—where, like the köfte, it remains a very popular dish today—via the Ottoman channel. In 16th-century Transylvania a variety of sarma was made with vine leaves.99 Made of seasoned minced veal wrapped in tender vine leaves, layers of sarma intermingled with lardons were covered with water and slow-cooked in a large pot. Marianna Yerasimos does not list this recipe, but in 1555, Hans Dernschwam commented thus on the preparation of this dish: “[the Turks p]lace the minced meat in the vine leaf and wrap it in the same manner as the sweet apple pie. Under the vine leaves, they place sour green plums and set it to boil”. He also comments on what would appear to be “cabbage à la Cluj”100 or some other cabbage dish from Transylvania: “[t]he Turks do not prepare dishes with cabbage and beef like the Magyars. They only make pickled [cabbage].”101 The supplies of animal fat for the Porte were carried on ships from the Black Sea Crimean port of Keffe.102 Cattle, sheep, revgane-i sade (pure animal fat) butter and grain from Dobrudja were major imports which fed the imperial capital. The fat used for cooking in the Ottoman Empire was butter and animal fat, especially from sheep, a usage transmitted by the Turks of the steppes to other cultures.103 The Ottomans used animal fat in soups, dishes, patisserie and cakes. The Jews of the empire prepared their own regional speciality, a white butter from sheep’s milk, and used the fat from cows’ tails or goose fat to fry fish and meat.104 They also used sesame oil, which the Ottomans chiefly used for lighting. The Transylvanians used oils of sunflower, olive, and nutmeg alongside animal fat in cooking.

Pilau Rice

Rice was not widely used in the Roman and Byzantine empires. Brought by the Mongols from China to the Middle East in the 13th–15th centuries, it was first 99  Radvánszky, Szakács könyvek, 46. 100  Cluj (Hung. Kolozsvár, Ger. Klausenburg), city in Transylvania. The dish, still made today, is prepared with chopped cabbage, rice and meat. 101  Dernschwam, Istanbul ve Anadolu`ya, 171. 102  And, 16.Yüzyılda, 156. Keffe, or Caffa, today the town Feodosia in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, Ukraine. 103  Ibrahim Kafesoğlu, Türk Milli Kültürü (Istanbul: 1984), 305–6. 104  Dernschwam, Istanbul ve Anadolu`ya, 150. Metin And mentions the use of a very special fat obtained from new-born lambs’ tails: And, 16.Yüzyılda, 155.

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used by the Safavids who used it to make pilau as we know it today. The Arabic and Turkic cultures developed divergent traditions for the preparation of rice. From the 15th century onwards the Ottomans developed and diversified its uses. A staple at the day’s main meals, and a key accompaniment to meat, rice came to be flavoured with spices and enriched with other ingredients, such as turmeric, to create nourishing, but not unduly rich dishes.105 Yerasimos identified seventy-one recipes for pilau in the Ottoman cuisine, but the actual number must have been considerably higher. The preparation of pilau rice acquired its own glossary: “letting the rice rest” meant simmering it in the seasoned, quietly boiling water; “braising” was a combination method which saw the rice partly fried, then boiled and allowed to “rest;” “boiling” meant cooking the rice in salted water and then simmering it; another method consisted of the rice being fried, boiled and drained before being cooked in meat juices and allowed to “rest”. The Transylvanians used two main methods for cooking rice: one was the Persian method by draining (see the laska meat dishes discussed above) and the other was by boiling, ensuring that in some dishes, such as the pilau with beef, the rice kernels do not become mushy.106 There were varieties of pilau dishes which were not based on rice such as, for example: porridge made with dates, apple porridge, fish or goose porridge,107 and the more familiar types of porridge made of oats or millet.

Dairy Products

The Ottoman Turks made and consumed a great variety of cheeses and other dairy products. In early periods, one much prized delicacy was clotted mare’s milk (kımız), normally reserved for important ceremonies called şölen, organized annually by the Turkic kaghans according to an ancient ritual.108 Creamy millet, cheese and yoghurt were staple foods for the Turkic peoples of the Central Asian steppe. Yoghurt with cherries or apricots was known to the Chinese and was widespread among the Huns.109 A wide range of cheeses, cream cheese, kaymak (clotted cream) graced the table of the saray. The Romanian areas also had an abundance of dairy products, among which

105  M. Yerasimos, 500 Yıllık, 113; And, 16.Yüzyılda, 157. 106  Radvánszky, Szakács könyvek, 18. 107  Bornemisza, Szakács könyve, 58, 65, 66, 68. 108  Ali, Istoria turcilor, 40–3. 109  Kafesoğlu, Türk Milli Kültürü, 305–6.

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brânza de burduf (a crumbly cheese packed in a barrel of conifer bark), which resembles the Turkish tulum peyniri.110

Vegetables, Salads and Pickles

According to Nicolae Iorga, the cultivation of corn was introduced to the Romanian lands by Șerban Cantacuzino.111 There were a few regional names for this cereal: in Wallachia it was known as porumbel, in Moldavia as păpușoi, in Transylvania as cucuruz, and in Crișana as tenk.112 In Transylvania, a “peculiar” way of preparing maize to make the so-called kakas (popcorn) was by roasting maize until it bursts […] it is very easy to prepare. It is a delicacy for the peasants of the region, but in order to adopt this method you would need to live in this country for longer than I did. […] they have no taste to speak of and are very hard.113 The Ottomans had their vegetables raw, or pickled, rather than cooked. Aubergines, for example, were baked in the Romanian cuisine, while the Ottomans did not use this method of preparing this vegetable. The Ottoman recipe collection tarihli risale (1764) comprises seven recipes for pickles:114 aubergines and cucumbers (15th century), beetroot (16th century), garlic and baked pimiento (18th century), chillies and filled peppers. The pickling solution for the filled peppers and chillies, for instance, was prepared with parsley, mint and sugar in brine and vinegar. The Transylvanians were great consumers of pickles, as documented by the numerous recipes for pickled cabbage, uses 110  Costăchel et al., Viaţa feudalǎ, 267. 111  Prince of Wallachia (r. 1679–88). Iorga also believed, starting from the misleading name grano turco, that maize was introduced into Italy from the Ottoman Balkans, a theory superseded today: Iorga, Istoria românilor prin călători, 207. More recently, Arturo Warman has argued that maize entered the Ottoman world, including Istanbul, from the Balkans, where it had been ‘imported’ in the 17th century from the Venetian republic. See Arturo Warman, Corn and Capitalism: How a botanical bastard grew to global dominance, trans. Nancy L. Westrate (University of North Carolina Press: 2003), 107–8. 112  Costăchel et al., Viaţa feudalǎ, 207. 113  Auguste de Gérando, Transilvania și locuitorii sǎi, vol. 1, trans. Laurenţiu Malomfălean and Marius Mitrache (Cluj-Napoca: 2014), 335; Auguste de Gérando (1819–1849) was a French historian married to the Hungarian noblewoman Emma Teleki. La Transylvanie et ses habitants was first published in Paris in 1845. 114  M. Yerasimos, 500 Yıllık, 36–9, 110–300; see also And, 16.Yüzyılda, 156.

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in dishes such as cabbage “à la Cluj,” sarma, and stewed cabbage with cream. It goes without saying that pickling vegetables extended their shelf life throughout the year.115

Sherbets, Sweets and Jams

The impact of the Ottoman cuisine on the desserts and fruit preserves of Transylvania and the Romanian lands was significant. The Transylvanian princes often ordered sherbet, for instance, which was a popular dessert in the Ottoman world and was served on special trays with some ritual sophistication. The snow used for preparing sherbet was carried by mules all the way from mountainous peaks to the saray.116 A mix of fruit juices and floral essences (roses, violets, gardenias, pansies, linden, chamomile, musk, ambergris and aloe),117 it was a sweet which most people could afford in its simplest forms, although the rich could pick the more expensive ingredients.118 The East, and the Ottoman world in particular, were areas where the preparation of sweets and desserts developed into an art form. Puff pastry, sugar, honey, milk, almonds, syrups, rosewater, musk, cinnamon and sesame oil were the main ingredients, to be found in most households. In the Ottoman cuisine, animal fat, buttermilk and kaymak (clotted cream) were preferred to vegetable fats. Sweets like baklava, muhallebi, creamed rice and halva (or helva) were some of the favourite desserts.119 Yufka, light puff pastry sheets (see above), served to make favourite desserts such as syrup-y baklava and rich kadayıf, age-old desserts which could be found on the table of the legendary Harun al Rashid.120 Once the ethnic Turks left the vilayet of Buda, the Transylvanian vilayets of Timişoara and Oradea at the end of the 17th century, and the Romanian Principalities (Wallachia and Moldavia) at the end of the 18th, the locals continued the Ottoman-inspired traditions for preparing sweets and pastry such

115  Tótfalusi, Szakáts mesterségnek, 5–10. 116  Alev Lytle Croutier, Harem: Lumea din spatele vălului, trans. Claudia Roxana Olteanu (Bucharest: 2014), 93–100. 117  Ibid., 93–100. 118  Ilknur Haydaroglif, Osmanlı Saray Mutfağından Notlar (University of Ankara: 2003), 8. 119  Dobrovits, “Étkezés a török-kori,” 49–55. 120  Harun al-Rashid (763–809), Caliph of the Abbasid dynasty. See Clot, Civilizația arabă, 230–2.

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as simit and gevrek, as well as doughnuts.121 In Dobrudja, the remaining Tartar and Turkish minorities continued the Ottoman culinary traditions. The departure of Turkish traders and artisans from the former pashaliks and vilayets left a vacuum which was filled by European, especially German, migrants. The earliest German confectioneries opened in Budapest in the mid17th century. However, some of the Ottoman-inspired products continued to be sold, especially by Greek, Jewish and Armenian retailers who came from the Porte. In his memoirs, the Romanian writer Radu Rosetti reminisced about the food and dishes he relished in mid-19th century Moldavia: Alongside traditional and French-inspired dishes, Greek and Turkish food was much valued: many varieties of oil, kadayıfs, baklavas, kaplamas, which are still enjoyed today, and others, now defunct, which I can still remember: kuskebak, tingirikebak, kafasaki, skewered minced steak and many other delicious, if not easy to digest, dishes, whose names I forget.122 In the early modern period ceremonials at the Ottoman Porte often included the display of live animals from the Sultan’s collection as well as life-sized animal sculptures made of sugar. Gradually, and especially after the sultanate of Süleyman Kanuni (1520–1566), live animals were totally replaced with figurines.123 In the Ottoman imperial capital, desserts were decorated variously with candied fruit, figurines of animals and plants made of caramelised sugar, or human figurines made of breadcrumbed almond paste.124 Festive banquet tables in Transylvania often featured figurines such as lions made of aromatic jelly or marmalade125 placed on silver trays, cold meats in various colours,126 and fruit made of jelly.127 The Romanian princely courts, like other European courts in the early modern period, also used displays of sugar or jelly table sculptures at banquets.128 121  A larger variety of lokma, sprinkled with sugar rather than soaked in syrup. 122  Radu Rosetti, Amintiri. Ce am auzit de la alții. Din copilărie. Din prima tinerețe (Bucharest: 2013), 70. 123  And, 16.Yüzyılda, 233–9. 124  Bornemisza, Szakács könyve, 69. 125  The term used in Transylvania was the Latin lictarium. 126  Bornemisza, Szakács könyve, 71. 127  Ibid., 72. 128  Ibid., 2–15. For evidence of such displays in the Romanian lands, see also the contribution by Angela Jianu in this volume.

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The tradition of handing out food, especially apples, on festive days is ancient. In the Ottoman Empire, bread and apples were distributed at Şeker Bayramı, the Festival of Sweets immediately following the fasting month of Ramadan. In the Romanian lands, apples and nuts were offered at Christmas, while at Transylvanian weddings guests and bystanders were given small round bread rolls.

Coffee, Wine, Boza, and Tobacco

The main drink of the Blue Turks was called begin and was made from wheat and millet; the Oghuz drank boza.129 The Tartars drank boza in the evening because it was an intoxicating drink.130 Although it had an alcohol content of 3–4 per cent, the drink was allowed for Muslims. “The Turks make the boza in the manner it is made in Hungary, Transylvania and Szecklerland,” noted Dernschwam. “[T]his drink is made of millet. It has an atrocious taste.”131 Boza and braga (fermented millet ‘beer’ with honey), were served cold, sprinkled with cinnamon or leblebi—roast chickpeas. The Turkish sellers of boza and braga would carry the drink on their shoulders in large brass containers and would go around the streets “crying out” their merchandise.132 There were public establishments called bozahane where the beys—members of the urban elites—used to go and eat a kebab and drink boza. Sellers called “bozagii” and “bragagii”—both names derived from Turkish—also operated in Transylvania and the Romanian lands. The Ottomans regarded coffee as a revitalizing drink, but also as a drink that could encourage diuresis.133 Coffee was available in its natural form, or flavoured with cardamom, cinnamon, cloves and rose petals, and was, more often than not, accompanied by smoking. In this sphere of consumption, the Eastern influence was so significant in the Romanian lands that in 1844 when the Moldavian poet Vasile Alecsandri described the multi-ethnic demographic 129  The Göktürks, or Celestial Turks, and the Oghuz were old Turkic populations of Central Asia. A Khanate of the Göktürks is documented for 552–745 AD. 130  Halil Inalcık, Devlet-I Aliyye, Osmanlı Imparatorluğu üzerinde, vol. 2 (Istanbul: 2013), 94. For a recent contribution on the consumption of boza, see İklil Selçuk, “Boza Consumption in Early-Modern Istanbul as an Energy Drink and a Mood-Altering Substance,” Akademik İncelemeler Dergisi 11 (1) (2016): 61–81. 131  Dernschwam, Istanbul ve Anadolu`ya, 146. 132  Croutier, Harem, 93–100. 133  Inalcık, Devlet-I Aliyye, vol. 2, 94.

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of the capital city Iaşi, he wrote about “Greek cafés,” “full of large fezzes and fustanellas,” where “the felegens of coffee, the chibooks and nargiles reigned supreme” and “His Cloudiness tobacco smoke ruled.”134 Western trends gradually replaced Ottoman influences from the 18th century in Transylvania and from the 19th in the Romanian Principalities. In the Ottoman world, the consumption of alcohol was in theory prohibited on religious grounds, but in Istanbul, for instance, there were clandestine establishments where customers could drink raki and wine. As early as the 16th century, Istanbul had around five hundred night-bars, run by Christians from the Istanbul areas of Galata and Pera, where wine was sold.135 Otherwise, by day the only drinks were water, sometimes with sherbet, or hoşaf suyu, a beverage obtained from soaking dried fruit in water. In contrast, in the Romanian lands the range of wines available for domestic or public consumption was significantly wider and included types of wine such as: “good” wine, abrak wine (i.e. cheap, mediocre wine),136 new wine, old wine,137 bitter wine, vermouth and wormwood wine,138 etc. Conclusions The impact of Ottoman culture on the cuisine of Transylvania was significant. From the methods of preparing and flavouring food to table manners and lifestyle choices (such as the keyif, the post-prandial siesta during which the boyars’ beards were left to dry), the entire culinary culture of the area carried the Ottoman imprint. A number of features were common to the Ottoman and Transylvanian cuisines: the sweet-ish-sour taste; the abundant use of spices such as turmeric, of parsley and vinegar; serving the food on a bed of bread and the use of flour for thickening; the use of finely-chopped vegetables such as onions and garlic. There were similarities in the methods for priming and cooking foods: the meat was washed several times and the juices resulting from boiling 134  Andrei Oişteanu, Narcotice în cultura română: Istorie, religie și literatură (Iași: 2014), 126. For the uses of coffee and manners of coffee-drinking in the Romanian lands, see also the contribution by Olivia Senciuc in this volume. “Felegean” is the Romanian-language corrupt variant of the Tr. fincan, meaning cup. 135  Inalcik, Devlet-I Aliyye, 2, 94. 136  From the Hung. abrak meaning “fodder.” 137  Kiss András, Források és értelmezések (Bucharest: 1994), 222–41. 138  Rüsz-Fogarasi Enikő, “Alteritate și ospitalitate în Cluj la turnura secolului al XVII-lea,” in Identitate și alteritate, eds. Bocşan et. al., vol. 2, 63.

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were removed; the technique of having the laskas and meat both boiled and fried; the pané method of breadcrumbing foods; the use of fillings of minced meat in cabbage and other vegetables. The appearance of potatoes and tomatoes in Europe marked the beginnings of a significant diversification of dishes and led to the emergence of new cooking techniques: soups became clearer and thinner, the dolma-type vegetable fillings alternated with fillings of minced meat, turmeric was largely replaced by tomato paste and honey by sugar. Such changes resulted largely from the rise of a mercantile middle class and of entrepreneurial capitalism which led to the expansion of markets, as well as to the increasing affordability of a wider range of foods to the poorer sections of the populations. The 19th and 20th centuries affected changes in the culinary traditions of all European regions. Bibliography Archival Sources Cluj-Napoca, Arhivele Naționale ale României, filiala Cluj [The National Archives of Romania, Cluj county archives]: Fondul Familial Gyulay-Kuun [Fonds Gyulay-Kuun family]. Fondul Colecția de socoteli princiare [Fonds Court accounts]. Budapest, The Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences: Fonds Szilády Hagyaték. Published Primary Sources Bornemisza, Anna, Szakács könyve 1680–tól [The cookbook of Anna Bornemisza of 1680] (Bucharest: 1983). Borsos, Tamás, Vásárhelytől a Fényes Portáig [From Târgu Mureș to the Sublime Porte], ed. Kocziány László (Bucharest: 1972). Çelebi, Evliya, Seyahatnamesi [A travel diary], vol. 1. Kitap: İstanbul, ed. Orhan Şaik Gökyay (Istanbul: 1996); vol. 2, eds. Zekeriya Kurşun, Seyat Ali Kahraman, and Yücel Dağli (Istanbul: 1999). Constantinescu, Ioana, and Matei Cazacu (eds.) O lume într-o carte de bucate: Manuscris din epoca brâncovenească [A world in a cookbook: a manuscript from the Brâncoveanu era] (Bucharest: 1997). De Gérando, Auguste, Transilvania și locuitorii sǎi [La Transylvanie et ses habitants (Paris: 1845)] vol. 1, trans. Laurenţiu Malomfălean and Marius Mitrache (ClujNapoca: 2014). Dernschwam, Hans, Istanbul ve Anadolu`ya Seyahat Günlüğü [Tagebuch einer Reise nach Konstantinopel und Kleinasien (1553–55)], trans. Yaşar Önen (Ankara: 1992).

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Cantemir Dimitrie, Viața lui Constantin Cantemir zis cel Bătrân, Domnul Moldovei [The Life of Constantin Cantemir, the Elder, voivode of Moldavia], ed. Radu Albala (Bucharest: 1960). Lytle Croutier, Alev, Harem: Lumea din spatele vălului [Harem: the world behind the veil] trans. Claudia Roxana Olteanu (Bucharest: 2014). Mikes, Kelemen, Törökországi levelek [Letters from Turkey], ed. Veress Dániel (Bucharest: 1988). Radvánszky, Béla, Szakács könyvek [Cookbooks] (Budapest: 1893). Rosetti, Radu, Amintiri. Ce am auzit de la alții. Din copilărie. Din prima tinerețe [Souvenirs and stories from my childhood and early youth] (Bucharest: 2013). Sennyei, Pongrác, and Rácz Péter, “Utazások a Török Birodalomban” [Travels in the Turkish Empire] in Utazások a török birodalomban [Travels in the Turkish Empire], ed. Binder Pál (Bucharest: 1983), 21–28. Tótfalusi Kis, Miklós, Szakáts mesterségnek könyvetskéje: Mellyben külömb-külömb féle válogatott tzifra, jó, egésséges, hasznos, tiszta és szapora étkeknek meg-készítése [The little book of cooks: recipe varieties for fancy, good, healthy, useful, clean and quick meals] (Cluj: 1795). Yerasimos, Marianna, 500 Yıllık Osmanlı Mutfağı [500 years of Ottoman cuisine] (Istanbul: 2014). Secondary Literature And, Metin, 16.Yüzyılda Istanbul [Istanbul in the 16th century] (Istanbul: 2011). Benda, Borbála, Étkezési szokások a 17. századi főúri udvarokban Magyarországon [Culinary habits in the aristocratic courts of modern Hungary] (Budapest: 2004). Beldiceanu, Nicoară, “L’influence ottomane sur la vie urbaine des Balkans et des Principautés Roumaines,” in La culture urbaine des Balkans (XV e–XIX e siècles): 3. La ville dans les Balkans depuis la fin du Moyen Age jusqu`au début du XX e siècle, eds. Nikola Tasić, Verena Han, Marina Adamović and Dušica Stošić (Belgrade-Paris: 1991), 23–30. Benda, Borbála, Étkezesi szokások a magyar föúri udvarokban a kora újkorban [Culinary habits in the aristocratic courts of early modern Hungary] (Szombathely: 2014), URL: http://archivum.piar.hu/batthyany/benda/doktori-disszertacio.pdf. Binder, Pál (ed.), Utazások a török birodalomban [Travels in the Turkish Empire] (Bucharest: 1983). Clot, Andrei, Civilizația arabă în vremea celor 1001 de nopți [Arabic culture in the period of the 1,001 nights] (Bucharest: 1989). Costăchel, Valeria, Petre P. Panaitescu and Anton Cazacu, Viața feudală în Țara Românească și Moldova în secolele XIV–XVII [Feudal life in Wallachia and Moldavia in the 14th–17th centuries] (Bucharest: 1957).

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Dobrovits, Mihály, Étkezés a török-kori magyarországon [Food in Hungary in the Ottoman period], Publicationes Universitatis Miskolciensis. Sectio Philosophica (Miskolc: 2005). Füreder, Balázs Gábor, A Hosszú Reneszánsz konyhakultúra: Magyar nyelvű szakácskönyveinek bemutatása és összehasonlitó elemzése [The culture of the high Renaissance kitchen: a comparative analysis of Magyar cookbooks] unpublished doctoral thesis (Debrecen University, 2009), URL: http://hdl.handle.net/2437/89181 [accessed 25 July 2016]. Füreder, Balázs Gábor Reneszánsz gasztronómia magyarországon: Egy XIV. századi magyar recept bemutatása [Renaissance gastronomy in Hungary: a Magyar cookbook from the 14th century], URL: http://elib.kkf.hu/okt_publ/szf_21_12.pdf [accessed 25 July 2016]. Gemil, Tahsin, Românii și Otomanii în secolele XIV–XVI [Romanians and Ottomans in the 14th–16th centuries] (Constanța: 2008). Graff, Rudolf, “Imaginea românului din Banat în viziunea unor cărturari și funcționari austrieci” [Representations of the Romanians of Banat in the accounts of Austrian scholars and officials] in Identitate şi alteritate: Studii de imagologie [Identity and otherness: imagological studies], eds. Nicolae Bocşan, Sorin Mitu and Teodor Nicoară, vol. 2 (Cluj-Napoca: 1998), 109–22. Gündisch, Gustav, “Über die Vermögensbildung des Hermannstädter Bürgermeisters und sachsengrafen Peter Haller (1490?–1569)” in idem, Aus Geschichte und Kultur der Siebenbürger Sachsen (Köln-Wien: 1987). Haydaroglif, İlknur, Osmanlı Saray Mutfağından Notlar [Notes on the kitchen of the saray] 1–9, URL: http://dergiler.ankara.edu.tr/dergiler/18/30/210.pdf [accessed 6 August 2016]. Inalcık, Halil, Devlet-I Aliyye, Osmanlı İmparatorluğu üzerinde araştırmalar, vol. 2, [Devlet-I Aliyye. Studies on the Ottoman Empire] (Istanbul: 2013). Iorga, Nicolae, Istoria românilor prin călători [A History of the Romanians through travellers’ accounts] (Bucharest: 1981). Kafesoğlu, Ibrahim, Türk Milli Kültürü [The national culture of the Turks] (Istanbul: 1984). Kisréti, Zsombor, “Népek Konyhája” [Cuisine of the nations], in Erdély Napló (30 October 2014): 12. Lukács, Iosif, Clujul Renascentist: Aspecte privind viața cotidiană în Cluj în secolul al XVI-lea și al XVII-lea. Alimentația și gastronomia [Renaissance Cluj: aspects of daily life in Cluj in the 16th and 17th centuries. Food and gastronomy], unpublished doctoral thesis (Babeș-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca: 2012). Maxim, Mihai, O istorie a relațiilor româno-otomane, cu documente noi din arhivele turcești [A history of Romanian-Ottoman interactions, with new documents from the Turkish Archives] (Brăila: 2012).

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Mehmed, Mustafa Ali, Istoria turcilor [A history of the Turks] (Bucharest: 1976). Mór, Jókai, A magyar nemzet története regényes rajzokban [The history of the Magyar nation in stories and sketches], ed. Pétery Kristóf (Szentendre: 2006), URL: http:// lendvaykati.gportal.hu/portal/lendvaykati/upload/658331_1284234975_05382.pdf [accessed 6 August 2016]. Oğuz, Burhan, Türkiye halkının kültür kökenleri [The cultural roots of the people of Turkey], vol. 1 (Istanbul: 1976). Oişteanu, Andrei, Narcotice în cultura română: Istorie, religie și literatură [Narcotics in Romanian culture: history, religion, literature] (Iași: 2014). Ortaylı, İlber, Osmanlı Düşünce Dünyası ve Tarih Yazımız [Ottoman mentalities and our historiography] (Istanbul: 2010). Ortaylı, Ilber, Üç kıtada Osmanlılar [Ottomans on three continents] (Istanbul: 2007). Rüsz Fogarasi, Enikő, “Alteritate și ospitalitate în Cluj la turnura secolului al XVII-lea” [Otherness and hospitality in Cluj at the turn of the 17th century], in Identitate şi alteritate: Studii de imagologie [Identity and otherness: imagological studies], eds. Nicolae Bocşan, Sorin Mitu and Teodor Nicoară, vol. 2 (Cluj-Napoca: 1998), 56–64. Sefercioğlu, Nejat, Türk Yemekleri, XVIII Yüzyıla Ait Bir Yemek Risalesi [Turkish dishes: a recipe from the 18th century] (Ankara: 1985). Selçuk, İklil, “Boza Consumption in Early-Modern Istanbul as an Energy Drink and a Mood-Altering Substance,” Akademik İncelemeler Dergisi [Journal of Academic Inquiries] 11 (1) (2016): 61–81. Suciu, Emil, Influența turcă asupra limbii române [The Turkish influence on the Romanian language], vol. 1 (Bucharest: 2010). Warman, Arturo, Corn and Capitalism: How a botanical bastard grew to global dominance, trans. Nancy L. Westrate (University of North Carolina Press: 2003).

Chapter 5

Exotic Brew? Coffee and Tea in 18th-Century Moldavia and Wallachia Olivia Senciuc Starting with the 16th century, Europeans gradually became accustomed to the taste of three beverages imported from overseas: coffee from Ethiopia via the Arabic Peninsula, tea from China and chocolate from Mexico.1 However, the adoption of these brews was not spread evenly across the continent. Whereas the Spaniards preferred chocolate, the Dutch, British and Russians opted for tea, while the French and Germans prioritised coffee.2 It was not simply the taste of these new beverages that distinguished them from the drinks Europeans had been used to. Three key characteristics ensured their success: they could be consumed in fairly large amounts without causing inebriation, they improved energy levels and, crucially, they fitted in perfectly with the art of conversation in an age of sociability.3 Consequently, they were quickly adopted and transformed the eating and drinking habits of consumers across the social spectrum in many European countries. This chapter is an enquiry into similar developments in the Romanian Principalities. When and in what circumstances were tea and coffee introduced and adopted in Moldavia and Wallachia? When did the residents of these two provinces become acquainted with coffee, tea and chocolate, what was their response, how quickly did they adopt them? What social groups were the first to take up the new beverages? And, equally importantly, what was the impact of the new drinks on the daily lives of their Romanian consumers? We have attempted to place changes in the culinary choices of the Romanians in the context of the economic and cultural impact of relations with the two neighbouring, and competing, empires, the Ottoman and the Russian. This enquiry is based on a wide range of sources: travel narratives and native chronicles, memoirs, monographs, dowry lists, testaments, estate accounts, 1  Fernand Braudel, Civilisation matérielle, économie et capitalisme, XVe–XVIIIe siècle, 1: Les structures du quotidien: Le possible et l’impossible (Paris: 1979), 213. 2  Ibid., 216. 3  Florent Quellier, La table des Français: Une histoire culturelle (XVe–début XIXe siècle) (Rennes: 2007), 66.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi 10.1163/9789004367548_007

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lists of purchases, registers of ceremonial and other expenses, trade accounts, private letters, and official acts issued by the princely chancelleries. This ostensible abundance of sources is misleading and is in inverse ratio to the amount of relevant information they contain, hence the recourse to a diversified typology. Owing to insufficient evidence, it is not yet possible to establish a precise date for the arrival of coffee and tea in the Romanian provinces of Wallachia and Moldavia. Evidence for the consumption of chocolate is almost entirely lacking.4 What is known, however, is that around 1504 the Great Logothete Ioan Tăutu, head of chancellery to the new ruling prince of Moldavia Bogdan the Blind5 was received by the Grand Vizier on an official visit to the Ottoman Porte. According to the chronicler Ion Neculce, the boyar was invited to sit opposite his host “on a makad”6 as coffee was served. The chronicler recounts hilariously that, according to the customary protocol, the visiting boyar proceeded to “raise a toast” to the Sultan and to his host and “drank up from the goblet” in the same manner as he would have had “any other drink”—namely, in the same way in which he would have raised a goblet of wine to honour his own prince back home. However, as he burnt his tongue on the hot beverage, he “threw away the vessel and broke it.”7 We could construe this incident as evidence that no Moldavian or Wallachian before Tăutu had ever had a taste of the new drink. But should we accept Ion Neculce’s claim that the Great Logothete was the first to sample coffee before any of his co-nationals? The historian Aurel Decei, an expert on early modern Ottoman history, would appear to disagree. He has argued that it would have been impossible for the sultan, his officials and visiting dignitaries to have coffee in the early 16th century, as the earliest coffee houses only opened in Constantinople in 1554–55.8 Fairly recent studies by the French historians Jean-Louis Bacqué-Grammont and Francis Richard have put forth new data which, while not allowing for a definitive answer, at least would suggest that Ion Neculce’s claim was not 4  A small number of trade documents show that Wallachian merchants purchased chocolate, in bulk or in small units, from Transylvanian sellers. See Catalogul documentelor referitoare la viaţa economică a Ţărilor Române în sec. XVII–XIX. Documente din Arhivele Statului Sibiu, vol. 1 (Bucharest: 1966), 76, doc. 269, 99, doc. 392, 262, doc. 1234, 264, doc. 1245. 5  Prince Bogdan the Blind (Bogdan vodă cel Orb), ruler of Moldavia from 1504 to 1517. 6  Tr. makad or makat: small rug or mat. 7  Ion Neculce, Opere, Letopiseţul Ţării Moldovei and O samă de cuvinte, ed. Gabriel Ştrempel (Bucharest: 1982), 168–9. 8  Aurel Decei, “Logofătul Tăutu NU a băut cafea,” Magazin istoric 6 (1972): 58–9.

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entirely unfounded. The data in question resulted from the two historians’ research into a number of 16th-century Ottoman manuscripts. Jean-Louis Bacqué-Grammont studied the text of an account by Feridün Bey of Süleyman the Magnificent’s campaign of 1538 in Moldavia, in which his attention focused on the toponym Qahve Bashi, the place where the Ottoman army stopped over on 29 August 1538, a few days only after crossing the Lower Danube at Isaccea. It would appear that the name was derived, via a fairly common Turkish popular etymology, from the local name Cahul, which suggests that at the time the term “qahve” was known and used outside a close circle of mystics and poets.9 In other words, if the term was familiar to a larger group of individuals—albeit still within the sultan’s circle—the beverage of the same name must have been equally familiar in 1538. Francis Richard’s conclusions take us even closer to the moment we have been trying to pin down. The object of his investigations has been the manuscript copy of a collection of poetry initially destined for the library of Sultan Hüseyn Mirza Bayqara, the ruler of Khorasan from 1468 to 1505. The manuscript ended up in Ottoman hands after the conquest of Trabzon in 1514. The miniatures illustrating this work were produced around 1520 in the imperial workshop in Istanbul. The miniature that is of interest here represents a court ceremonial during which it would appear that coffee is being served. (Fig. 5.1) The sultan—presumably Selim I, with the young Süleyman standing next to him—is being offered a tray on which sits a white-and-blue cup the content of which is kept hot on a brazier, hence the supposition that the scene might represent a “coffee ceremony.”10 Although there is still some doubt as to the nature of the liquid being served, the miniature could suggest that coffee was known at the Sublime Porte much earlier than 1554, when coffee-houses opened and coffee became affordable to ordinary Istanbul residents. The evidence is flimsy, but it suggests that Ion Neculce might have been right. Pending the emergence of further, still-to-be-discovered sources—if they exist—one may speculate that the drink served to the Great Logothete Ion Tăutu at the Grand Vizier’s table in 1504 could well have been coffee. 9  Jean-Louis Bacqué-Grammont, “Autour des premières mentions du café dans les sources ottomanes,” in Le commerce du café avant l’ère des plantations coloniales: Espèces, réseaux, sociétés (XVe–XIXe siècle), ed. Michel Tuchscherer (Cairo: 2001), 18. The Isaccea ford is located between present-day Galaţi and Ismail, not far from the Danube-Black Sea estuary. 10  Francis Richard, “Une cérémonie du café à la cour ottomane aux alentours de 1520,” in Le commerce du café, ed. Tuchscherer, 409–10.

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Figure 5.1 An illustration from Le divan en turc-oriental de Sultan Hoseïn Mirza, 1485 (Bibliothèque nationale de France, Département des manuscrits, Supplément turc 993).

After this episode involving the high Moldavian dignitary, there are no references to coffee-drinking in internal sources. The silence lasted for almost two centuries when, suddenly, we learn that coffee-drinking had in the meantime become routine at the courts of Şerban Cantacuzino11 and Constantin Cantemir.12 Around the same time, one document mentions a Turk named 11  Anton-Maria del Chiaro, Revoluţiile Valahiei, ed. and trans. Nicolae Iorga (Iaşi: 1929), 92. Şerban Cantacuzino was ruling prince of Wallachia from 1678 to 1688. 12  Dimitrie Cantemir, Viaţa lui Constantin-vodă Cantemir, ed. Liliana N. Iorga (Craiova: 1942), 123. Constantin Cantemir ruled in Moldavia from 1685 to 1693.

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Hamic who owned a coffee-house in Bucharest but, unfortunately, it does not supply any details on the number and background of the clientele. After Hamic’s death in December 1691 the business was sold to one of his “companions,” Ivaz.13 He, in his turn, sold it in August 1693 to the Abbot of Cotroceni Monastery, who arranged for it to be integrated on the site of the monastery.14 As we do not know the causes for these frequent changes in ownership, it is difficult to form an accurate impression of the success of this type of commerce at the time. Is it the case that in the early 18th century coffee was still a luxury good that few could afford apart from the ruling prince? It would appear that in neighbouring Moldavia coffee was not even available for purchase. This is suggested by a letter from Iaşi, dated 17 January 1711, in which Athanasios Kondoidis—future preceptor to the children of Moldavia’s Prince Dimitrie (Demetrius) Cantemir15—thanked Chrysanthos Notarás, Patriarch of Jerusalem, for a gift of coffee. In his letter, the Greek scholar admitted to an “indulgence of coffee,” a pleasure he would have had to forsake without the benevolent gift of the church hierarch because, he wrote, where he was “coffee was still unknown.”16 This was about to change dramatically along the 18th century, as an increasing number of sources seem to indicate. A fair number of sources suggest that the exotic brew soon became a staple at court ceremonials and at events in boyars’ households. The ruling prince offered coffee at his own enthronement,17 or at the installation of metropolitans and bishops,18 as well as at the celebrations of major annual religious festivals.19 Coffee was also served at the court receptions of foreign

13  George Potra, Documente privitoare la istoria oraşului Bucureşti (1634–1800) (Bucharest: 1982), 98, doc. 54. The document specifies that Hamic was one of the “Seymen of the imperial palace,” a military rank which Ivaz probably shared. 14  Ibid., 106, doc. 63. 15  Dimitrie Cantemir, son of Prince Constantin Cantemir, ruled in Moldavia twice: in 1693 and from 1710 to 1711. 16  Nicolae Iorga (ed.), Documente greceşti privitoare la istoria românilor, vol. 14III (Bucharest: 1936), 85, doc. 51. 17   Literatura românească de ceremonial: Condica lui Gheorgachi, 1762, ed. Dan Simonescu (Bucharest: 1939), 264–265; Pseudo-Enache Kogălniceanu, Letopiseţul Ţării Moldovei de la domnia întâi şi până la a patra domnie a lui Constantin Mavrocordat voevod (1733–1774), eds. Aurora Ilieş and Ioana Zmeu (Bucharest: 1987), 102. 18   Literatura românească, 302; Pseudo-Kogălniceanu, Letopiseţul, 97. 19  Simonescu (ed.), Literatura românească, passim.

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dignitaries20—including members of their retinues21—and the princess consort, too, had coffee served when she received.22 Famous for their hospitable manners, members of the local elites, the boyars, served coffee to their native guests23 as well as to visiting foreigners24 as a sign of great honour, and failure to acknowledge this was deemed inconsiderate.25 Feasts, whether at court,26 in boyar households,27 at weddings28 and christenings,29 would have been incomplete without a final serving of the aromatic drink. With the coffee came the sweetmeats (Rom. zaharicale)30—rose, lemon or orange preserve—, sherbet,31 and sometimes alcoholic drinks,32 wine, raki or even liqueurs, often called in the period’s jargon vutcă. It would appear that especially the men could not entirely savour the coffee without the accompanying aroma of their chibooks.33

20  Del Chiaro, Revoluţiile, 92; Călători străini despre Ţările Române, vol. 8, eds. Maria Holban et al. (Bucharest: 1983) 344; Călători străini despre Ţările Române, vol. 9, eds. Maria Holban et al. (Bucharest: 1997), 331, 417, 427, 479 and 608; Călători străini despre Ţările Române, vol. 10I, eds. Maria Holban et al. (Bucharest: 2000), 231 and 721; Călători străini despre Ţările Române, vol. 10II, eds. Maria Holban and Paul Cernovodeanu (Bucharest: 2001), 1021. [Hereafter Călători străini]. 21   Călători străini vol. 8, 594. Călători străini, vol. 9, 427 and 608. 22   Călători străini, vol. 9, 366. Călători străini, vol. 10I, 700. 23   Călători străini vol. 9, 288; Călători străini, vol. 10I, 691; Pompei P. Samarian, O veche monografie sanitară a Munteniei: “Topografia Ţării Româneşti” de dr. Constantin Caracaş (1800– 1828) (Bucharest: 1937), 103. 24   Călători străini, vol. 10II, 1245. 25   Călători străini, vol. 10II, 915 and 1269. 26   Călători străini, vol. 8, 56 and 178; Literatura românească, 283; Călători străini, vol. 9, 366. 27  Del Chiaro, Revoluţiile, 23; Călători străini, vol. 9, 288. 28   Călători străini, vol. 10II, 1208 and 1217. 29   Studii şi documente cu privire la istoria românilor, vol. V I (Bucharest: 1903), 156, doc. 104. 30   Călători străini, vol. 8, 178 and 594; Călători străini, vol. 9, 417, 427, 479 and 608; Călători străini, vol. 10I, 200, 231 and 721; Călători străini, vol. 10II, 915, 1104, 1208, 1217 and 1269; Samarian, O veche monografie, 103. 31  Del Chiaro, Revoluţiile, 92; Călători străini, vol. 8, 178; Pseudo-Kogălniceanu, Letopiseţul, 97; Călători străini, vol. 9, 608; Călători străini, vol. 10II, 1245; foreign visitors described the sherbet as a refreshing drink made of fruit paste served in water. 32   Călători străini, vol. 8, 178, 378 and 594; Pseudo-Kogălniceanu, Letopiseţul, 102; Călători străini, vol. 10II, 1217. 33  Eastern tobacco-pipe, Călători străini, vol. 8, 56 and 378; Călători străini, vol. 9, 288 and 366; Călători străini, vol. 10I, 231 and 691; Călători străini, vol. 10II, 915 and 1269. The Transylvanian doctor Andreas Wolf, who lived in Moldavia for a few years, noted that smoking was not adopted by the native women, but that Greek women living in the principality did smoke, Samarian, O veche monografie, 103.

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At court, coffee was usually served in the ‘audience hall,’ i.e. in the throne room (also called spătărie), where the prince used to receive foreign guests and where the local notables had to assemble for court ceremonies.34 Less often, coffee could be served in the princess consort’s rooms,35 but there were occasions when the ruling prince would order coffee to be brought to a separate room where he would withdraw with selected guests.36 Foreigners were invited to sit on chairs specially laid out for them,37 on divans or on cushions.38 Travel narratives show that these were more often than not relaxed occasions destined for sociability and general conversation, during which the prince would make complimentary observations on the visitors and their home countries or make benevolent enquiries about foreign rulers and dignitaries.39 Sharing the aromatic drink was often a feature of boyar visits to each other, in the course of which they could ‘chatter’ leisurely about their affairs between a sip of coffee and a puff of the pipe.40 Such sociable encounters took place in the guest room—where guests were invited to sit on a sofa41—or in the host’s own room if the occasion was a feast.42 Coffee was served with much pomp, according to a ritual which, at court, was entrusted to a boyar with expert knowledge called cafegiu (Tr. kahvecı). In his Codex of ceremonial usage of 1762, the Logothete Gheorgachi states that no one apart from this particular boyar was allowed to set “in front of the prince the customary napkin (Tr. peşkir), also called fotă,” and then serve him the coffee,43 which was presumably prepared under his direct supervision, according to a recipe known only to himself. The rest of the guests were attended to by his assistants, the “household pages” (Rom. copiii din casă).44 In spite of his role, which was linked directly to the prince’s person, the Great Kahvecı does not appear to have ranked amongst the country’s top boyars, at least not as far 34   Călători străini, vol. 8, 344; Călători străini, vol. 9, 427; Călători străini, vol. 10I, 231 and 721: Călători străini, vol. 10II, 1207; Literatura românească, passim. 35   Călători străini, 10I, 700; Literatura românească, 294. 36   Călători străini, vol. 8, 56: Călători străini, vol. 10II, 1103. 37   Călători străini, vol. 8, 178; Călători străini, vol. 9, 366, 416 and 427. 38   Călători străini, vol. 8, 56 and 344; Călători străini, vol. 10I, 700 and 721; Călători străini, vol. 10II, 1208. 39   Călători străini, vol. 8, 56; Călători străini, vol. 9, 331, 366, 417 and 427; Călători străini, vol. 10I, 700 and 721; Călători străini, vol. 10II, 1104. 40   Călători străini, vol. 10I, 691. 41   Călători străini, vol. 10II, 1269. 42   Călători străini, vol. 8, 378. 43   Literatura românească, 279; Călători străini, vol. 10I, 171. 44   Literatura românească, 279; Călători străini, vol. 9, 427.

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as one can judge from the pay he received from the state coffers, compared to other court officials. For example, in 1776 and 1777, the court of Moldavia’s Great Kahvecı received 20 lei from the state budget, which adds up to 240 lei per annum.45 In the same period, the highest-ranking official, the Great Postelnic,46 received 500 lei47 monthly, which amounts to an annual salary of 6,000 lei.48 We should, however, bear in mind that the kahvecı supplemented his income from taxes levied on coffee-house revenues,49 and that the number of such establishments, as we shall see, increased in the Principalities. In contrast, in boyar households the kahvecı was more often than not recruited from among the Gypsy slaves. In order for the kahvecı to be available whenever needed, he was allowed to eat and sleep in the manor itself rather than in the backyard huts destined to servants.50 But when the boyars received, the honours were performed by the lady of the house herself, who served the sweetmeats and coffee with “her own hands.”51 In time, therefore, the court became the venue for the performance of a real ritual involving coffee, seen increasingly as a symbol of hospitality. Some of the high-rank visitors were singled out for special treatment by the prince and his family, who were now in possession of this special ingredient for the new ritual. Gradually, starting first with boyars close to the circles of power and then trickling down to lower-ranking officials, this type of sociability was adopted as a status marker which distinguished the elites from the masses. But neither the ruling prince nor his dignitaries needed the pretext of a special occasion in order to indulge in the new beverage. Constantin Cantemir, for example, often shared coffee with his close courtiers on ordinary evenings, after a meal.52 In his turn, Constantin Mavrocordat53 would have coffee served 45   Documente privitoare la istoria oraşului Iaşi, vol. 7 (Iaşi: 2006) 269, doc. 221, 363, doc. 266 and 132, doc. 129; in 1775, the Great Kahvecı was paid only 15 lei per month from the state budget. 46  Court marshal. 47  Romanian coin. 48   Documente privitoare la istoria oraşului Iaşi, vol. 7, 268, doc. 221, and 361, doc. 266. 49  Ibid., 248, doc. 221 and 341, doc. 266; Vasile A. Urechiă, Istoria românilor, vol. 1 (Iaşi: 1891) 114–5; in addition, the Great Kahvecı was entitled to own three tax-exempt coffee-houses in Bucharest; cf. Urechiă, Istoria, vol. 4, 266; alongside these three, the Great Kahvecı was also entitled to one tax-free coffee-shop in Craiova. 50  Radu Rosetti, Scrieri, ed. Cătălina Poliacov (Bucharest: 1980), 77. 51   Călători străini, vol. 10II, 1269, 1217 and 1245. 52  Cantemir, Viaţa, 104 and 123. 53  Constantin Mavrocordat had ten reigns in the Romanian Principalities; in Wallachia he ruled in the following periods: 1730, 1731–33, 1735–41, 1744–48, 1756–58, 1761–63; in Moldavia he ruled four times, in 1733–35, 1741–43, 1748–49, and 1769.

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“every morning” to his boyars, including to the so-called mazil boyars who no longer held an official role at court.54 He must have been particularly fond of the dark, bitter drink, which he only gave up during the prescribed fasting periods.55 And it was perhaps because coffee-drinking became a habit that some used it for their nefarious deeds. Ion Neculce, who was not above using hearsay as a source, tells in his chronicle how Prince Mihai Racoviţă56 may not have been a stranger to the death of the Great Vornik57 Lupu Bogdan. Although he had been temporarily deposed, Prince Racoviţă still coveted the throne and was suspicious of the high-ranking dignitary’s influence over his rival Antioch Cantemir,58 to whom he had remained loyal. Racoviţă therefore decided to remove the Vornik by “having poison poured into his coffee.” Even the doctors agreed that this was the immediate trigger of Vornik Bogdan’s illness which led to his death within six months.59 We do not have information on any other stories of dark deeds involving the dark brew, but we do have a lot of evidence for coffee-drinking as a happy, pleasurable habit. The boyars would often order their coffee to be brought to their bedrooms before their morning ablutions60 so they could savour its aroma in bed.61 They would drink it at the conclusion of their lunch,62 their supper,63 and often throughout the day.64 These observations come to us from the accounts of visitors because unfortunately none of the inveterate coffee-drinkers themselves left testimonies of their habit. Presumably there were many like the Ban65 Constantin Caragea for whom sipping coffee added to the charm of intimate family moments. In his personal memoir, Efemeride [Ephemerides], the boyar 54  Neculce, Opere, 731–2. The term mazil derives from the Turkish mazul. 55   Cronica Ghiculeştilor: Istoria Moldovei între anii 1695–1754, eds. Nestor Camariano and Ariadna Camariano-Cioran (Bucharest: 1965), 621. 56  Mihai Racoviţă had five reigns in the Romanian Principalities. In Moldavia he ruled in the periods 1703–05, 1707–09 and 1715–26, and in Wallachia in 1730–31, 1741–44. 57  Judge of a district. 58  Antioch Cantemir, son of Prince Constantin Cantemir and brother of Prince Dimitrie Cantemir, ruled in Moldavia in 1695–1700 and 1705–07. 59  Neculce, Opere, 452–3. 60  Nicolae Iorga, “Manuscripte din biblioteci străine relative la istoria românilor,” Analele Academiei Române. Memoriile Secţiunii Istorice, series 3, 20 (1898): 201; Alexandros Papadopulos-Kerameus, Scrieri şi documente greceşti privitoare la istoria românilor din anii 1592–1837, trans. George Murnu and Constantin Litzica (Bucharest: 1914), 95. 61  Rosetti, Scrieri, 406. 62  Papadopulos-Kerameus, Scrieri, 95; Rosetti, Scrieri, 120. 63  Cantemir, Viaţa, 104. 64   Călători străini, 10II, 1104; Samarian, O veche monografie, 103. 65  Administrator of a province.

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reminisces nostalgically about the time spent at the estate at Paşcani of the Great Vistier66 Iordache Balș in the spring of 1760. During those days, together with his “most precious” wife Ralița Ghica, he would savour his coffee by the rivulets which sprang at the bottom of nearby hills, under the rose trellis in the garden or in other places where the spouses never tired of admiring “nature’s beauties” together.67 We may also presume that there were many boyar households like that of the chronicler Ioniţă Canta where the “brazier for roasting the cahvè” was constantly in use.68 The period’s documents encourage us to think that in fact many coffeedrinkers, sometimes including children, had lost all sense of proportion in their indulgence of the brew.69 Constantin Caracaş—the author of a welldocumented monograph on Wallachia, who practised medicine in early 19th-century Bucharest—deplored the fact that a significant number of boyar children drank coffee, “often several times a day,” a habit which he considered unhealthy.70 It is fairly obvious that the Moldavian and Wallachian consumers of coffee were first lured by its taste, which explains the rapid rise of the new culinary habit. However, the evidence cited shows that there were additional causes for the immediate success of the drink. In the intimacy of the home, coffee could be enjoyed as a solitary pleasure, or shared just with family members or close acquaintances, irrespective of the time of day or occasion. In addition, there were no special requirements as to the space chosen for having coffee, which explains why many picked locations which they associated with their physical and emotional well-being. The psychological implications of coffee-drinking also explain its rising popularity. A taste for coffee-drinking developed not only among the flock but also among priests and prelates. The Aşezământ [Charter] (1713) of the Antim Monastery in Bucharest shows that a new type of tax had been introduced. Four times a year—at Christmas, Easter, on the feast day of Saint Constantine and of the church patron saint—the abbot was required to make the ruling

66  Treasurer. 67  Papadopulos-Kerameus, Scrieri, 95; modern-day Paşcani is located in the north-western area of Iaşi county. 68  Nicolae Iorga, “O gospodărie moldovenească la 1777, după socotelile cronicarului Ioniţă Canta,” Analele Academiei Române. Memoriile Secţiunii Istorice, series 3, 8 (1928): 110. 69   Călători străini, 10II, 915 and 1266; doctor Andreas Wolf also mentioned “the abuse of […] coffee.” 70  Samarian, O veche monografie, 96.

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prince a present of “one okka of coffee and one of sugar.”71 Similar documents from neighbouring Moldavia show that such a tax was not only introduced, but was actually paid. The account books of the St. Spiridon Monastery in Iaşi for 1772–1800 show that every year on the feast day of the patron St. Spiridon, on 12 December, an amount of the coffee purchased was kept for the needs of the monastery, while the rest was offered to the metropolitan, to the ruling prince (“la gospod”), and less often to copyists and to the “3 log(o)f(ă)t,”72 who presumably were employed by the monastery. What these entries suggest is that coffee could be used as a gift to the period’s notables as well as payment in kind for certain services. Lists of church and family assets, testaments of laypersons and clerics, private letters and especially dowry documents, demonstrate that coffee occupied a central position in the culinary world of the well-to-do in Moldavia and Wallachia. Elite households seem to have vied with each other in purchasing the utensils and equipment needed for the priming and grinding of coffee beans and for the preparation and serving of the sought-after brew. The sources frequently mention, for example, the Turkish-style porcelain coffee mugs called filcan (Rom. felegean), with their silver filigree supports (Tr. zarf ), served on silver or, less frequently, brass trays.73 A British traveller, the barrister William Hunter,74 left a description of these vessels which he saw in Bucharest as he visited in the summer of 1792. “Their cups, which are very small, are generally of ſine porcelain, and are placed in a second cup of gold 71  Antim Ivireanul, Opere, ed. Gabriel Ştrempel (Bucharest: 1997), 292. The Ottoman-Turkish weight unit okka equals 1.28 kilograms. 72   Logofăt = secretary. Documente Iaşi, vol. 7, 50, doc. 59; 84, doc. 95; 144–5, doc. 131; 198, doc. 182; 293, doc. 239 and 511, doc. 384. 73   Documente Iaşi, vol. 10, 393, doc. 32. Documente Iaşi, vol. 6, 280, doc. 326 and 681, doc. 776; Documente Iaşi, vol. 7, 441, doc. 326 and 664, doc. 1; Nicolae Iorga, (ed.), Documente privitoare la familia Callimachi, vol. 2, (Bucharest: 1903), 36, doc. 78; Constanţa VintilăGhiţulescu, “Foile de zestre şi importanţa lor în construirea unei căsătorii (1700–1865),” Revista de istorie socială 10–12 (2005–2007) (2009): 145, doc. 4; Documente Iaşi, vol. 8, 196, doc. 148; Gheorghe Ghibănescu, Studiu şi documente cu privire la familia Râşcanu (Iaşi: 1915), 57 and 59, doc. 38; Theodor Codrescu, Uricariul, vol. 16 (Iaşi: 1891), 276; Petronel Zahariuc (ed.), Documentele familiei Miclescu (Iaşi: 2014), 226, doc. 177 and 235, doc. 190; Rosetti, Scrieri, 120. 74  Very little is known about the life and activities of the British traveller William Hunter (c. 1769–1815). In 1792, he travelled through France and the eastern Mediterranean, and on to Constantinople. On his return journey over land he transited the Romanian Principalities. His travel narrative was published in Romanian translation in the series Călători străini, vol. 10II, 1087–1113.

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or silver, elegantly embossed, or worked in ſiligree,” Hunter wrote, adding that “[i]n these articles the rich go to an astonishing expense.”75 There was competition among the boyars for the acquisition of such items. Their proud display was a way of showcasing their owners’ status as privileged members of the country’s top-ranking social and political elites. Before the fragrant beverage reached the cup, the beans were roasted76—it would appear that the so-called “brazier for roasting the cahvè,” mentioned earlier, was nothing more than an iron tray.77 The beans were then ground, if we can judge from documentary references to “coffee mills” (Rom. morişte de cafea),78 although the same William Hunter saw the beans being pounded in a mortar, after which the resulting powder was boiled in a kettle,79 but “always […] on the grounds of coffee that has been been used.”80 The period’s merchants brought the sought-after product either from the Ottoman Empire,81 or, via the Transylvanian traders, from Western Europe.82 Therefore, consumers could buy “cafe Eminu” or “Emin café,” the terms used in documents to designate coffee coming from Yemen, “French coffee,”83 the generic term which presumably referred to coffee from the French colonies of 75  William Hunter, Travels in the year 1792 through France, Turkey, and Hungary, to Vienna: concluding with an account of that city. In a series of letters, to a lady in England (London: 1796), 329, Rom. trans. in Călători străini, vol. 10II, 1104, n. 50. See also Cronici şi povestiri româneşti versificate (sec. XVII–XVIII), ed. Dan Simonescu (Bucharest: 1967), 95. The rich and corrupt dignitary Iordache Stavarache reputedly imported his “china saucers.” Each saucer had an embossed precious stone, which raised the value of these items to “twelve pouches of coins.” A pungă (pouch) was a unit of money, understood as 500 ducats (Rom. galbeni). 76  Hunter, Travels, 328, Rom. trans. in Călători străini, vol. 10II, 1104, n. 50. 77  Urechiă, Istoria, vol. 5, 405. See also Studii şi documente, vol. 5I, 56, doc. 255. Some of the boyars ordered theirs from Transylvania. 78  Urechiă, Istoria, vol. 4, 244; Documente Iaşi, vol. 4, 458, doc. 708; Catalogul Sibiu, vol. 1, 115, doc. 466; 116, doc. 468; 138, doc. 578; 145, doc. 619; 186, doc. 833. 79   Documente Iaşi, vol. 6, 321, doc. 369 and 325, doc. 370; Documente Miclescu, 169, doc. 125. Cronici şi povestiri, 95; Codrescu, Uricariul, vol. 16, 278. Documente Iaşi, vol. 10, 485, doc. 149 and 497, doc. 161; Urechiă, Istoria, vol. 4, 244 and 405. 80  Hunter, Travels, 328–29, Rom. trans. in Călători străini, vol. 10II, 1104, n. 50. 81   Studii şi documente, vol. 5I, 145, doc. 84. Cronici şi povestiri, 118. 82   Catalogul documentelor greceşti din Arhivele Statului de la oraşul Braşov, ed. Nicolae Limona (Bucharest: 1958), vol. 1, 583–4, doc. 1833 and 584, doc. 1836; Catalogul Braşov, vol. 2, 241, doc. 931; 241, doc. 932; 249, doc. 973; 277–8, doc. 1098. Transylvanian traders purchased varieties of coffee from Trieste, Vienna and Pest. 83   Documente Iaşi, vol. 4, 69, doc. 91; Iorga, “O gospodărie”, 109; Documente Iaşi, vol. 9, 119, doc. 130. Urechiă, Istoria, vol. 4, 241; ibid., Istoria, V, 347.

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Martinique and San Domingo,84 and “Dutch coffee,”85 so called because it was probably imported from the Dutch East Indies.86 Whatever variety was chosen, the outcome was the same: boiling it resulted in a highly concentrated infusion served without sugar and unfiltered—even the dregs were consumed—with a layer of “blonde” kaymak on top.87 Some of the foreign travellers, coming from areas where tastes differed,88 observed that the Moldavians—the Wallachians were no different—had their coffee without sugar or milk,89 just like the Turks.90 Some also commented that the entire coffee-serving ritual was also Ottoman-inspired.91 Such observations show that this new culinary habit and the new type of social interaction it entailed were the outcome of the Ottoman impact on the Romanian elites. In addition, as demonstrated by the linguist Lazăr Şăineanu, the fact that coffee-related terms such as felegén (cup), ibric (kettle), and zarf (saucer, coaster)92 were of Eastern derivation, endorses the view that the coffee-drinking ritual itself was Ottoman-inspired. In contrast, references to tea-drinking are significantly less frequent. However, there is evidence that tea, too, was adopted by members of the wealthiest families. Household lists sometime include “a white tin for tea” (1 chichiţă de fier alb de ceai),93 the occasional teapot—made of “red brass,” tin or silver,94 or even complete sets such as “six large mugs [all] for tea, with tea 84  See Catalogul Braşov, vol. 1, passim. Catalogul Sibiu, vol. 1, 57, doc. 192 and 115, doc. 464. See also Braudel, Civilisation, vol. 1, 223; Quellier, La table, 70; Steven C. Topik, “Coffee,” in The Cambridge World History of Food, vol. 1 (New York: 2000), 648. 85   Catalogul Sibiu, vol. 1, 41, doc. 107. 86  Quellier, La table, 70; Corinne Trang, “Coffee,” in The Encyclopedia of Food and Culture, vol. I (New York: 2003), 431. 87  Samarian, O veche monografie, 103. William Hunter referred to it as kimak and compared it to the clotted cream of Devonshire in his Travels, 164–5, Rom. trans. in Călători străini, vol. 10II, 867; Rosetti, Scrieri, 120. 88  In Western Europe the bitter taste of coffee was attenuated with additions of sugar and milk. See Quellier, La table, 69. 89   Călători străini, vol. 10II, 867–8, 1269. See also Samarian, O veche monografie, 103. 90   Călători străini, vol. 10II, 1269, 1104, n. 50. 91  Del Chiaro, Revoluţiile, 92; Călători străini, vol. 9, 479, 608; Călători străini, vol. 10II, 1021. 92  Lazăr Şăineanu, Influenţa orientală asupra limbii şi culturii române, vol. 21 (Bucharest: 1900), 169, 222, 387. 93  Nicolae Iorga, “Documente inedite,” in Opere economice (Bucharest: 1982), 284, doc. 2. 94  Urechiă, Istoria, vol. 2, 311; Documente Iaşi, vol. 8, 78, doc. 55 and 563, doc. 441; Studii şi documente, vol. 8, 16, doc. 68; Urechiă, Istoria, vol. 4, 404; see also Dumitru Z. Furnică, Din istoria comerţului la români (Bucharest: 1908), 84, doc. 22; Codrescu, Uricariul, vol. 19, 42. In these documents the vessel used for brewing tea is designated with the Turkish-derived term ibric.

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cosies and saucers.”95 If tea was not available on the local market—tea supplies appear to have come from Ottoman areas or from Leipzig96—orders were addressed directly to Transylvanian merchants.97 Despite a lack of documentary references, one can presume that tea-drinking was ‘imported’ as a result of the increasing influence which Russia exercised in the Principalities as a result of its ongoing conflict with the Porte in the course of the 18th century. The hypothesis is supported linguistically: the Romanian term for the drink is derived from the Russian čaj.98 Tea had been known in Russia from around 1567, but its use spread starting with the mid-18th century and reached one of its highest levels of consumption in Europe within a very short time.99 Presumably, it was the officers of the occupying Russian armies who brought tea-drinking into Wallachian and Moldavian boyar households where it became a drink enjoyed for pleasure rather than for any therapeutic uses, for which we have no evidence.100 Tea was also sometimes served to dinner guests.101 We are inclined to believe that the small number of documentary references to tea-drinking, at least for the 18th century, is due to the lesser place occupied by tea in wealthy elite households compared to coffee. Furthermore, sources show that it was coffee- rather than tea-drinking which trickled down and spread considerably among the less wealthy. From the mid-18th century onwards, coffee-houses and the kahfecı who ran them became an increasingly visible presence, especially in market towns in both Moldavia and Wallachia. However, the documents hardly offer any details on the coffee-house owners themselves. According to tax registers for the city of Iaşi in 1755, only one individual named Bǎlaș was registered as a taxpaying cahfegiu,102 whereas the 1774 registers listed thirteen individuals with this occupation.103 The documents do not, say, however, how many of these worked at court and how many ran their own businesses in town. Jeremy

95   Din istoria comerţului, 31, doc. 22. 96  Ibid., 121, doc. 68; Urechiă, Istoria, vol. 4, 240. 97   Din istoria comerţului, 115, doc. 64. 98  Petronela Savin, Universul din lingură: Despre terminologia alimentară românească (Iaşi: 2012), 97. 99  Braudel, Civilisation, vol. 1, 217. 100  Rosetti, Scrieri, 385; Iorga, “Manuscripte,” 201. 101  P.P. Panaitescu, Călători poloni în Ţările Române (Bucharest: 1930), 173. 102  Gheorghe Ghibǎnescu, (ed.), Catastihul Iaşilor din 1755 (Iaşi: 1921), 13, 21, 35. According to the register, Bălaş worked as a kahfecı at court, as one of the lesser courtiers. 103  Gh. Platon, “Populaţia oraşului Iaşi de la jumătatea secolului al 108–lea până la 1859,” in Populaţie şi societate: Studii de demografie istorică, ed. Ştefan Pascu (Cluj: 1972), 311, doc. 3.

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Bentham,104 who passed through Bucharest in the winter of 1785–1786, noted that there were “Coffee-houses in plenty” in the Wallachian capital city.105 Much more specific is a report dated 18 March 1797 sent by the Great Aga (chief of police) to the Prince in which he refers to fourteen such establishments in Bucharest.106 In spite of the fact that there are very few descriptions of such places available, we may form an idea of what they looked like from some of the travel narratives. A Moldavian coffee-house—and there is no reason to believe that things were much different in Wallachia—was “an identical replica of a Turkish one,” a “room” of “little beauty,” divided into smaller compartments, “each accommodating up to four or five persons.” Customers were received in this space where, in a corner, the cahfecı kept his utensils and brewed the coffee on his counter. The invigorating drink was served on “small, four-legged” tables to customers crouching on divans with their “feet doubled under them.”107 Observations by the aforementioned doctor Constantin Caracaş complement this tableau. He tells us, in addition, that the air inside these rooms was “very bad”—let us not forget that customers also smoked—and that the utensils used were of a very dubious quality.108 The fact that this type of establishment retained its original specificity even when transplanted onto Wallachia soil further suggests that coffee-drinking and its spaces were an Ottoman loan. But our curiosity also extends to the customers visiting these places: who were they? Princely decrees show that, alongside foreigners—musafiri, as they were called in Wallachia with yet another Turkish loan word—coffeehouses were frequented by “local folk and townspeople,”109 a formulation which remains vague. The same doctor Caracaş claimed that, precisely because of the unhealthy environment, these establishments were frequented, alongside 104  Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832), the English jurist, social reformer and radical, travelled from Constantinople to Russia via the Romanian Principalities in the suite of the sister of the then Moldavian Prince Alexandru Mavrocordat Firaris (1785–1786). The letters and diary entries he wrote on his journey were published by E.D. Tappe as “Bentham in Wallachia and Moldavia,” Slavonic and East European Review 29 (1950): 66–76. For the Romanianlanguage translation of these letters, see Călători străini, vol. 10I, 704, 706. 105  Tappe, “Bentham in Wallachia and Moldavia,” 71, Rom. trans. in Călători străini, vol. 10I, 711. 106  Urechiă, Istoria, vol. 7, 143. 107  P.B. Campenhausen visited Wallachia in 1790–1791. Călători străini, vol. 10II, 867. The German-born Swedish envoy Johan Wendel Bardili (1709) describes a coffee-house in Bender (Tighina), currently in the Republic of Moldova, Rom. trans. in Călători străini, vol. 8, 267. 108  Samarian, O veche monografie, 118. 109  “[Oa]meni pământeni şi orăşeni”. Urechiă, Istoria, vol. 4, 339; idem, Istoria, vol. 5, 431.

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foreign travellers, only by “people of lower condition [and] by artisans.” In other words, the peasants were less likely to step into the coffee-houses and remained until the early 19th century almost exclusively loyal to the tavern and to the consumption of alcoholic drinks.110 We may, therefore, infer that coffeehouses were the preferred venues of a male, urban and not necessarily select clientele. It should come as no surprise, therefore, that they became a source of concern for the state as well as for the church. Prince Alexandru Ipsilanti111 of Wallachia deemed the number of coffee-houses too high, especially as they did not seem to be “of any value to the city […] or to the community of people, but only a cause of disturbance.”112 There was concern that customers wasted their time with games of cards, billiards, chess, and other games of fortune, as well with idle chatter,113 chatter which, moreover, often turned critical of the Prince and the suzerain Porte, and therefore was to be discouraged.114 There are eloquent examples from neighbouring Moldavia, too. On 2 July 1790, the abbot of the St. Sava monastery in Iaşi petitioned the country’s Divan (assembly) to close down the coffee-house adjoining the monastery— owned by a certain “Toader from Braşov”—claiming that the shop was a meeting place for “all sorts of men” suspected of pursuing “ill-gotten gains” and that one such “thief” had been caught in the holy grounds of the monastery only days before.115 It is more than likely that the abbot was not solely concerned for the safety of the worldly goods of the monastery. Documents show that the secular and ecclesiastical authorities alike often expressed concern over these spaces of male sociability as sites of idleness and, more importantly, as potential threats to public morality and even to political stability. From this perspective, the authorities felt justified in keeping these places under surveillance and policing them via regular legislation. No other person apart form the Great Kahfecı could run an establishment of this kind without “leave” from the prince himself and without paying a tax specifically created for this trade.116 In Bucharest, coffee-houses had to observe specific opening hours: they were “free to stay open” only “until the fourth hour” of the night, i.e. until ten in 110  Samarian, O veche monografie, 118. On taverns and the consumption of alcohol in the Romanian Principalities see the study of Andrei Oişteanu in the present volume. 111  Alexandru Ipsilanti had three reigns in the Romanian Principalities. He ruled in Wallachia in 1774–82 and 1796–7 and in Moldavia from 1786 to 1788. 112  Urechiă, Istoria, vol. 7, 143. 113  Ibid. Samarian, O veche monografie, 118. 114  V.A. Urechiă, Istoria, vol. 1, 245 and 307. 115   Documente Iaşi, vol. 8, 672, doc. 544. 116  Urechiă, Istoria, vol. 1, 114–5.

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the evening.117 More specifically, the owners were notified that they would be punished with “utmost severity” or could risk having their establishment closed down if they allowed customers to “chat with undue licence.” In order to enforce these measures, the authorities “placed spies” on the premises, authorizing them to arrest non-compliant owners.118 Such measures were not exceptional. In the Ottoman Empire, for example, non-compliant coffee-house owners risked finding themselves in a tied-up, weighted sack at the bottom of the Bosphorus,119 while in revolutionary America and France, coffee-houses were widely perceived as sites of turbulence and political subversion.120 But, in spite of all the prohibitions and regulations against such establishments in the course of time, coffee-drinking endured, and so did coffee-houses. We can conclude that, as the consumption of coffee and tea became more widespread in the course of the 18th century, the inhabitants of Moldavia and Wallachia had not only to adopt a new culinary habit, but also to adapt to new types of behaviour. The new beverages came from the Ottoman Empire and from Russia, respectively, and the first to adopt them were members of the local elites. Coffee, and to a lesser extent tea, were enjoyed for their taste, but they also acquired roles as catalysts of new forms of human interaction and sociability. Drinking coffee and tea together encouraged polite and relaxed conversation and strengthened community ties. Coffee- and tea-drinking soon trickled down the social ladder in urban spaces and led to the appearance of a new type of establishment: the coffee-house. Frequented largely by a male, and often rather disreputable, clientele, these new public spaces soon arose the suspicions of both secular and church authorities as sites of disorder and political subversion, and as such they were placed under constant surveillance. Bibliography Published Primary Sources Antim Ivireanul, Opere, ed. Gabriel Ştrempel (Bucharest: 1997). Camariano, Nestor and Ariadna Camariano-Cioran (eds.), Cronica Ghiculeştilor: Istoria Moldovei între anii 1695–1754 [The chronicle of the Ghica family: a history of Moldavia from 1695 to 1754], (Bucharest: 1965).

117  Idem, Istoria, vol. 7, 485. 118  Idem, Istoria, vol. 1, 245 and 307–8. 119  Trang, “Coffee,” 432. 120  Ibid., 431.

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Cantemir, Dimitrie, Viaţa lui Constantin-vodă Cantemir [The life of Prince Constantin Cantemir], ed. Liliana N. Iorga (Craiova: 1942). Caproşu, Ioan (ed.), Documente privitoare la istoria oraşului Iaşi [Documents on the history of Iaşi], vols. 4–8, 10 (Iaşi: 2001–2007). Catalogul documentelor referitoare la viaţa economică a Ţărilor Române în sec. XVII– XIX: Documente din Arhivele Statului Sibiu [A catalogue of documents on the economic history of the Romanian Principalities in the 17th–19th centuries: documents from Sibiu State Archives], vol. 1 (Bucharest: 1966). Călători străini despre ţările române [Foreign travel narratives on the Romanian lands], eds. Maria Holban, M.M. Alexandrescu-Dersca Bulgaru and Paul Cernovodeanu, new series, vols. 8, 9, 10I , 10II (Bucharest: 1983, 1997, 2000, 2001). Chiaro, Anton-Maria del, Revoluţiile Valahiei [The Revolutions of Wallachia], trans. Nicolae Iorga (Iaşi: 1929). Codrescu, Theodor (ed.), Uricariul, vols. 16, 19 (Iaşi: 1891). Furnicǎ, Dumitru Z. (ed.), Din istoria comerţului la români [Aspects of the history of Romanian commerce] (Bucharest: 1908). Ghibǎnescu, Gheorghe (ed.), Catastihul Iaşilor din 1755 [Census of Iaşi for 1755] (Iaşi: 1921). Ghibǎnescu, Gheorghe, Studiu şi documente cu privire la familia Râşcanu [A documentary study on the Râşcanu family] (Iaşi: 1915). Iorga, Nicolae (ed.), Documente greceşti privitoare la istoria românilor [Greek documents relating to the history of the Romanians], vol 14III (Bucharest: 1936). Iorga, Nicolae (ed.), Documente privitoare la familia Callimachi [Documents on the Callimachi family], vol. 2 (Bucharest: 1903). Iorga, Nicolae, “Manuscripte din biblioteci străine relative la istoria românilor” [Manuscripts from foreign libraries relating to the history of the Romanians], Analele Academiei Române. Memoriile Secţiunii Istorice, series 3, 20 (1898): 197–203. Iorga, Nicolae, “O gospodărie moldovenească la 1777, după socotelile cronicarului Ioniţă Canta” [Information on a Moldavian household in 1777 in the account ledgers of chronicler Ioniţǎ Canta], Analele Academiei Române. Memoriile Secţiunii Istorice, series 3, 8 (1928): 105–16. Iorga, Nicolae, (ed.), Studii şi documente cu privire la istoria românilor [Studies and documents on the history of the Romanians], vols. 5I, 8 (Bucharest: 1903, 1906). Iorga, Nicolae, “Documente inedite” [Unpublished documents], in Opere economice (Bucharest: 1982), 282–5. Kogălniceanu, Enache pseudo, Letopiseţul Ţării Moldovei de la domnia întâi şi până la a patra domnie a lui Constantin Mavrocordat voevod (1733–1774) [A chronicle of Moldavia from the first to the fourth reign of Prince Constantin Mavrocordat 1733– 1774], eds. Aurora Ilieş and Ioana Zmeu (Bucharest: 1987).

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Limona, Dumitru (ed.), Catalogul documentelor greceşti din Arhivele Statului de la oraşul Braşov [Greek documents from the State Archives of the city of Braşov], 2 vols. (Bucharest: 1958). Neculce, Ion, Opere. Letopiseţul Ţării Moldovei şi O samă de cuvinte [Works: the chronicle of Moldavia and A string of words], ed. Gabriel Ştrempel (Bucharest: 1982). Panaitescu, Petre P., (ed. and trans.), Călători poloni în Ţările Române [Polish travellers’ accounts of the Romanian Lands] (Bucharest: 1930). Papadopulos-Kerameus, Alexandros, Scrieri şi documente greceşti privitoare la istoria românilor din anii 1592–1837 [Greek writings and documents on the history of the Romanians 1592–1837], trans. George Murnu and Constantin Litzica (Bucharest: 1914). Platon, Gheorghe, “Populaţia oraşului Iaşi de la jumătatea secolului al XVIII-lea până la 1859” [The population of the city of Iaşi from the mid-18th century to 1859], in Populaţie şi societate: Studii de demografie istorică [Population and society: studies in historical demography], ed. Ştefan Pascu (Cluj: 1972), 307–19. Potra, George (ed.), Documente privitoare la istoria oraşului Bucureşti (1634–1800) [Documents on the history of the city of Bucharest 1634–1800] (Bucharest: 1982). Rosetti, Radu, Scrieri [Works], ed. Cătălina Poliacov (Bucharest: 1980). Samarian, Pompei P., O veche monografie sanitară a Munteniei: “Topografia Ţării Româneşti” de dr. Constantin Caracaş (1800–1828) [An old sanitary monograph of Wallachia: Dr. Constantin Caracaş’s “Topography of Wallachia”] (Bucharest: 1937). Simonescu, Dan (ed.), Literatura românească de ceremonial: Condica lui Gheorgachi, 1762 [Romanian ceremonial literature: the chronicle of Gheorgachi 1762] (Bucharest: 1939). Simonescu, Dan, Cronici şi povestiri româneşti versificate (sec. XVII–XVIII) [Romanian chronicles and tales in verse 17th–18th centuries] (Bucharest: 1967). Urechiă, Vasile A., Istoria românilor [A history of the Romanians], vols. 1, 2, 4, 5, 7 (Bucharest: 1891–1894). Vintilă-Ghiţulescu, Constanţa, “Foile de zestre şi importanţa lor în construirea unei căsătorii (1700–1865)” [Dowry papers and their role in the construction of a marriage 1700–1865], Revista de istorie socială 10–11 (2005–2007) (2009): 143–53. Zahariuc, Petronel (ed.), Documentele familiei Miclescu [Documents of the Miclescu family] (Iaşi: 2014). Secondary Literature Bacqué-Grammont, Jean-Louis, “Autour des premières mentions du café dans les sources ottomanes,” in Le commerce du café avant l’ère des plantations coloniales: Espèces, réseaux, sociétés (XV e–XIX e siècle), ed. Michel Tuchscherer (Cairo: 2001), 17–21.

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Braudel, Fernand, Civilisation matérielle, économie et capitalisme, XV e–XVIII e siècle, vol. 1: Les structures du quotidien: le possible et l’impossible (Paris: 1979). Decei, Aurel, “Logofătul Tăutu NU a băut cafea,” [The Logothete Tăutu did NOT drink coffee] Magazin istoric 6 (1972): 57–61. Quellier, Florent, La table des Français: Une histoire culturelle (XV e–début XIX e siècle) (Rennes: 2007). Richard, Francis, “Une cérémonie du café à la cour ottomane aux alentours du 1520,” in Le commerce du café avant l’ère des plantations coloniales: Espèces, réseaux, sociétés (XV e–XIX e siècle), ed. Michel Tuchscherer (Cairo: 2001), 409–410. Savin, Petronela, Universul din lingură: Despre terminologia alimentară românească [A universe in a spoon: the Romanian culinary terminology] (Iaşi: 2012). Şăineanu, Lazăr, Influenţa orientală asupra limbii şi culturii române, vol. 2, Vocabularul, 1: Vorbe populare [The Eastern influence on Romanian language and culture, vol. 2: the vocabulary, 1: folk words] (Bucharest: 1900). Topik, Steven C., “Coffee,” in The Cambridge World History of Food, vol. 1 (New York: 2000), part. 3, 641–52. Trang, Corinne, “Coffee,” in The Encyclopedia of Food and Culture, vol. 1 (New York: 2003), 429–34.

Part 2 Ingredients, Kitchens and the Pleasures of the Table

∵

Chapter 6

Kitchen Gardens and Festive Meals in Transylvania (16th–17th Centuries) Kinga S. Tüdős In pre-modern and early modern Transylvania, particularly in regions inhabited by the Székelys, 1 the processes of modernization in terms of lifestyles, table manners and cuisine followed uneven, and even contradictory pathways. The present study explores the complex, interlocking routes of these processes and the fusion of traditional, often jealously guarded, patterns of sociability with novelties imported from both West and East. Another objective of the research was to look at the ways in which diet and table etiquette reflected an increasingly visible process of social differentiation. In the 17th century, culinary practices in Transylvania were dominated by a relatively egalitarian model, which had its origins in Protestantism and in the specific social structures of the Széckely military communities. As such, these practices were by and large homogeneously abstemious, natural and anchored in tradition. Two specific features are particularly interesting. One is the eminent role played by noble women in the diffusion of culinary expertise and recipes, as well as in the management of vegetable gardens and the circulation of foodstuffs. The second is the custom of rewarding highly-performing cooks with titles of nobility. Once the Principality of Transylvania entered the orbit of the Habsburg Empire, this relative egalitarianism started being eroded by the temptations of Baroque luxury and the social ambitions of status-seeking elites. The table and its ritual became highly visible emblems of this new dynamic. There are many excellent studies available on the ways in which tables were laid out and dishes served on a daily basis or on special and ceremonial occasions, as well as on the wide range of ingredients used and foods prepared

1  The Székelys were a Hungarian-speaking ethnic group, living in eastern Transylvania (Szecklerland, or Székely Land), where they served as guards on the frontier zone. The Székely identity was founded on their traditional privileges and administrative autonomy. See Harald Roth (ed.), Die Szekler in Siebenbürgen: Von der privilegierten Sondergemeinschaft zur ethnischen Gruppe (Cologne-Weimar-Vienna: 2009).

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi 10.1163/9789004367548_008

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in the cuisine of the Principality of Transylvania.2 The present study is a continuation of this work of reconstruction based largely on a category of sources which, until fairly recently, historians have generally approached with some methodological caution: memoirs and observations left by scholars, notables, nobles, and affluent, educated householders. The surviving correspondence and domestic inventories left by Tran­syl­ vanian nobles from the 16th and 17th centuries are veritable mines of information on the life of the period’s castles and manors (Lat. Curiae), as well as on the socio-economic history of the adjacent towns and regions. These records often document in great detail the structure and furnishings of rooms, kitchens and pantries, as well as of the utensils used on daily basis or at festivities. There is also significant empirical information on the tools and utensils, as well as on the foods stored in pantries, cellars and sheds.

The ‘Dining Room as Palace’ and the Layout of the Table

Towards the end of the 16th and especially in the 17th century, the growing self-awareness of European aristocracies as a class left an imprint on social life, including culinary patterns and table manners. In Western Europe, aristocratic codes combined with a new orientation towards more restricted family circles, who, nevertheless, were bound to observe these codes.3 Compared to the rest of Europe, such trends emerged with a certain time lag in Transylvania, where even in the early 17th century the tradition of the so-called ‘long table’ was still maintained. A communal meal brought together not only family members, but also more distant relatives, friends and guests. The aristocrat Apor Péter left a reference to the availability of so-called ‘extendable’ tables which could be adjusted according to the number of diners.4 Commensality in Transylvania continued in the period as an instrument of representation which strengthened the bonds between family members and between families and their friends. 2  Bogos Zsuzsanna, Fejedelmi lakomák: Régi magyar étkek (Budapest: 2012); Hoffman Tamás, Europai parasztok. Életmódjuk története: Az étel és az ital (Budapest: 2001); Jenei-Toth Annamária, Urunk udvarnépe (Debrecen: 2012); Koltai András, Magyar udvari rendtartás: Utasítások és rendeletek, 1617–1708 (Budapest: 2001); Benda Borbála, Étkezési szokások a magyar főúri udvarokban a kora újkorban (Szombathely: 2014). The Principality of Transylvania was tributary to the Ottoman Empire from 1541 to 1711. 3  Norbert Elias, La civilisation des mœurs (Paris: 1973), 191–228. 4  Apor Péter, Baron (1676–1752), royal judge of Székely Land and author of Metamorphosis Transylvaniae azaz Erdélynek változása (1736; repr. Budapest: 1972).

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Quite often, important political decisions were taken round the dinner table. Renaissance culture flourished late in Transylvania and peaked in the 17th century, and the modes of representation and display that this culture fostered led to structural changes in the Transylvanian manors, castles and fortresses. The noble owners of these places had special spaces reserved and furnished for dining and for entertaining their important guests. In the written sources, such spaces are referred to as ebédlő palota, the “dining hall,” the “palace for dining.” Members of the guests’ retinues, musicians, and servants had their own, separate dining room. The central pieces of furniture of the ebédlő palota were tables, sideboards, dressers and items for seating (chairs or benches). According to one description of such a hall by Count Bethlen Miklós, the table was “next to the wall […], with cushioned benches along the walls and armchairs on the other side of the table.” The guests were seated round rectangular tables which were “extendable at both ends, and when there were too many guests, they were seated down the table extension.”5 The dresser displayed kitchenware, wines carafes and wine coolers, salt and pepper mills, and even candelabra, which reflected the host’s wealth and taste. The documents often tell us whether the dining area was used regularly or whether the ‘long table’ was in use only on special occasions. It is quite possible that a ‘long table’ was in daily use at Valea Crişului (Hung. Köröspatak, Covasna county) in the household of Count Kálnoky Sámuel,6 at that time Transylvania’s Vice-Chancellor and Delegate to the Diet in Vienna. An inventory of 1689 cites a “domed dining room,” furnished very simply. That space contained an extendable table, four armchairs, three benches, and a basic chair. The dresser was carved in stone in a niche in the wall, and there was a stove made of glazed green ceramic tiles as well as a heating kiln.7 Another inventory of 1689 was that of a castle in the commune Gorneşti (Hung. Gernyeszeg, Ger. Kärign) belonging to the Chancellor Count Teleki Mihály,8 the most important state dignitary at the court of Prince Apafi Mihály I.9 From this document we learn that the dining hall was equipped with many of the period’s mod cons: 11 Persian wall hangings, 44 framed paintings of 5  Bethlen Miklós, Count, Műve önéletírása (Budapest: 1955), 56. Bethlen Miklós (1642–1716), first chancellor in Habsburg-dominated Transylvania and author of the journal which is the source of this quotation. 6  Kálnoky Sámuel, Count (d. 1709), Supreme Judge of the Three Seats (sedes) in Székely Land, subsequently Transylvania’s Vice-Chancellor appointed in Vienna. 7  Tüdős S. Kinga, Székely főnemesi életmód a XVII. század alkonyán (Bucharest-Cluj: 1998), 200. 8  Teleki Mihály, Count (1634–90), Chancellor of Transylvania during the reign of Prince Apafi Mihály I. 9  Prince Apafi Mihály (1662–1689).

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various sizes, 11 copper candle-holders, 2 chandeliers with pull chains, made of deer-horn, 2 long tables, 3 rectangular tables, and 15 armchairs.10 The curia (manor) of the Székely family in Chilieni (Hung. Kilyén, Covasna county), in Székely Land, had a beautifully-decorated dining hall. According to an inventory of the curia’s so-called “grand palace” in 1700, as one entered through the padded door, made of fir-tree wood, there were two coat-hangers on the stone walls. Three extendable doors occupied a prominent central space. Among them were 24 sculpted chairs, also of fir-tree wood. The chairs were painted blue and the seats, padded with wool, were upholstered with a heavy-duty checked, green fabric. The blue-green colour scheme was pleasantly complemented by the stove, made of glazed green ceramic and decorated with scalloped edges. Against the wall was an ornate dresser, with small, tinedged glass squares at the top. On the walls hang two framed maps and three painting, presumably family portraits. The stone walls of the dining hall were lit by eight small candle-holders made of gilded wood.11 In Transylvania, as well as elsewhere in Europe in the mediaeval and early modern periods, there were two main meals in a day: at ten in the morning one would sit down for the mid-day meal, and at six in the evening for supper. Writing about the Transylvanians’ dining habits, Apor Péter noted: “The meals were served regularly between ten and twelve for lunch, and between six and seven for supper.” This pattern was observed strictly. Apor’s observations on a Transylvanian aristocrat, and prefect of Turda county, confirm this: “the old Haller János,12 although a lord of high rank, if he was travelling, even in the middle of a field, at ten would stop his carriage and order lunch to be served.”13 The Transylvanian Chancellor Bethlen Miklós, who maintained a large court, observed two specific times in the day for dining: lunch at eleven, and the evening meal at seven. He wrote: “once I was no longer a child, I started serving only lunch and supper, but I ate with great appetite.”14 The midday meal would often be followed by a banquet, in which case there would be no break between lunch and supper, because of the continuing revelry. Seventeenth-century sources start mentioning breakfast, but having three

10  Tüdős S. Kinga, A régi gernyeszegi várkastély (Târgu-Mureş: 2009), 58. 11  Tüdős S. Kinga, “Adatok a kilyéni Székely család és udvarház történetéhez,” in Historia manet: Volum omagial Demény Lajos Emlékkönyv, eds. Tüdős S. Kinga and Violeta Barbu (Bucharest-Cluj: 2001), 294. 12  Haller János (d. 1696), Counsellor to the Prince, prefect (ispán) of Turda county. 13  Apor, Metamorphosis, 40. 14  Bethlen, Önéletírása, 129.

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daily meals would have disassociated elite habits from the peasants’ natural eating patterns—and as such the new structure only imposed itself gradually. When the lord of the manor was a high-ranking member of the elites, laying out the table had its own specific dynamic. The table would first be covered with thin table runners (Hung. asztalkerületet), richly embroidered with silver and gold thread, over which would be laid white tablecloths, followed by napkin table centres (Hung. asztalköze). Such items and other table accessories were frequently listed in the period’s inventories, as well as, crucially, in dowry lists, as documented in a source from 1660.15 An inventory from Braşov (Hung. Brassó, Ger. Kronstadt) dated 1668 includes a description of two long tablecloths called kamuka, with needlework and embroideries in the style of the region around Sighişoara (Hung. Segesvár, Ger. Schäßburg).16 Textile table centres served not only as ornaments, but also to hide the fact that the tablecloth was joined at the middle. In dowry lists, the number of tablecloths was identical to the number of napkin table centres. Some of the latter formed sets with the tablecloths, being both white and embroidered with silk in the Spanish or in the Turkish style.17 Napkins would also cover the plates on which small bread rolls (Hung. cipó) were served. In the manors of the Transylvanian aristocracy of the 16th and 17th centuries the task of laying out the ‘long tables’ for lunch and supper fell to the cupbearer or first cupbearer. It was the cupbearer’s responsibility to make sure that all the cutlery, utensils and ornaments occupied their proper place on the table. The plates and bowls used were normally made of tin and enamel, but the use of silver tableware was frequent at elite tables. For example, in the household of the wealthiest Transylvanian aristocrat, the Székely Count Apor István,18 every day at table eighty-eight silver plates would be used, and as many silver tureens, as thick as the ones made of pewter; for his wife, they would lay out golden spoons and square-shaped silver plates two fingers thick. The wine-cooling bucket was made of silver and was large enough for a six-year-old child to have a bath in it. It was gold plated on the inside

15  Radvánszky Béla, Magyar családélet és háztartás a XVI. és XVII. században, vol. 1 (Budapest: 1895), 191. 16  Tüdős, Székely, 223. 17  Radvánszky, Magyar családélet, 191–2. 18  Apor István, Count (1638–1706), treasurer of Transylvania.

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and the outside, with a thick layer of gold, and had been imported from Vienna for three thousand German forints.19 It is difficult to say how realistic this description is, but sources such as probate inventories, dowry papers, and testaments from the 16th–17th centuries include a profusion of tureens, plates, salt mills, goblets, spoons and forks made of silver, for everyday as well as ceremonial use. In her 1563 testament, Soma Anna distributed the following among her children: 23 silver spoons with goldtoned flowers, 5 silver forks, 6 silver tureens and platters.20 In his will of 1578, Ráthotti Gyulafi László, the supreme commander of the Transylvanian army, left 24 spoons, 9 forks and 12 silver platters.21 The Counsellor, later Treasurer, Haller János noted in his memoirs in 1694: “Not long ago, I purchased a silver tableware set, 24 silver tureens, 13 silver gold-plated cups, 2 silver candelabra, engraved with our coat of arms, for myself and my wife.” This was followed by the description of a wash-basin with pouring jug, six cups and glasses, three ornate golden goblets and by a list of silver items.22 Such expensive items of tableware were not routinely used either for family meals or even when there were guests, but the table always had a centrepiece made of silver or other valuable materials. Documents mention, for instance, decorative tableware used in the household of Prince Bethlen Gábor23 such as “goblets in the shape of lions, windmills and towers.”24 One must conclude this short survey of the top end of early modern Transylvanian tableware with the observation that, starting with the 16th century, under the impact of Protestant notions of thrift, diners in affluent households would routinely eat and drink from ordinary vessels, called “house vessels” in documents. These were made of pewter and other metals less expensive than silver but could also be made of wood. This suggests that gold-plated silverware was a luxury item to be used only in exceptional circumstances. A document from 1563 shows that pewter pots, plates and mugs were willed in a testamentt, 19  Apor, Metamorphosis, 28. The German forint was a silver coin equivalent to a Rhenish florin. 20   Erdélyi testamentumok, vol. 1: Erdélyi nemesek és főemberek végrendeletei (1551–1600), ed. Tüdős S. Kinga (Târgu Mureş: 2006), 73–6, doc. 6. 21  Ibid., doc. 20. 22   Erdélyi testamentumok, vol. 4: Erdélyi nemesek és főemberek végrendeletei (1660–1723), ed. Tüdős S. Kinga (Târgu Mureş: 2010), 201–6, doc. 49. 23  Bethlen Gábor (c. 1580–1629), Prince of Transylvania (1613–1629), King of Hungary (1620–1621). 24  Radvánszky, Magyar családélet, 195.

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while an inventory of 1645 lists wooden dishes and plates.25 The 1696 testament of Bulcsesti Sára, a Transylvanian noblewoman, lists a large amount of tableware. An iron casket in her household contained 60 unused pewter bowls, and another casket housed 60 unused pewter platters monogrammed with her initials and those of her husband, Székely László (1644–1692).26 Bulcsesti Sára was undoubtedly an extremely rich woman. The frugality suggested by her and other nobles’ habit of eating in wooden tableware may have been a Protestant influence. In his memoirs, Baron Apor Péter comments thus on the new trend: “when the new fashion for pewter came, that great holy man, Haller János, ordered small wooden saucers to be made, which he placed on pewter platters, and he himself would eat from a wooden plate.”27 A new trend in the 17th century was for guests to bring their own tableware, a step forward in civilizing processes in the areas of serving and dining. Guests would bring knives, spoons and forks in boxes carried by their valets.28 The use of spoons in Transylvanian aristocratic households was frequent from the early 17th century onward.29 In the aforementioned testament of 1563, the lady of the citadel willed “twelve golden spoons with flowers” to her son. The wife of the 17th-century Transylvanian treasurer Apor István30 had gold-plated spoons on her table. In his testament of 1618, Csehi András, Prince Bethlen Gábor’s servant, left his younger brother a number of “silver spoons,”31 among other silver items, which suggests that the use of spoons trickled down, at least among non-nobles close to the circles of power and wealth. While in Renaissance western Europe, even members of the elites still ate with their hands, 16th-century Transylvanian inventories frequently listed forks as indispensable items of tableware. However, no knives were laid out on the tables for the use of diners. Knives were handled by the servants, who had to clean them during the meal. As mentioned earlier, elite guests would bring their own knives, as described by Baron Apor: [A]t their back in a scabbard attached to their belts they had the knife, and when they sat down to eat, they took the knife out of the scabbard; 25   Erdélyi testamentumok, vol. 2, 57, doc. 6. 26   Erdélyi testamentumok, vol. 4, 222. 27  Apor, Metamorphosis, 34. 28  Benda, Étkezési szokások, 11. 29  Ibid., 193. 30  See note 18 above. 31   Erdélyi testamentumok, vol. 3: Erdélyi nemesek és főemberek végrendeletei (1600–1660), ed. Tüdős S. Kinga (Târgu Mureş: 2008), 72–4, doc. 22.

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when they finished eating they put the knife back in the scabbard. Before dinner, and before supper, the servant took the knife form his master, cleaned it and returned it to the lord to place back in the scabbard on his belt.32 Women, too, carried knives: “they carried two smaller knives and a fork in scabbards attached to their belts by a long cord, so that the tip of the scabbards reached down to their ankles.”33 Elite dinner tables were also equipped with salt mills, more often than not made of silver. Also present on the table were cruet sets, as well as small dispensing bowls for vinegar and horseradish to use with rich dishes. For serving the drinks, there were silver goblets for the daytime and goblets made of goldplated silver, glass or crystal for the evening.

The Emblazoned Chefs

Most large noble households employed several cooks under the supervision of a head cook. Some of the cooks specialized in the preparation of just one dish. Some excelled in the preparation of roasts, others in the baking of pastries and pasta.34 The range of choice foods served at the wedding banquet of the nobleman Székely Ádám35 and his bride Bánffy Anna in 1702 is on a par with the most sumptuous baroque banquets elsewhere in Europe: “On each table, antique dishes carried pastries made of multi-coloured dough. Some had trees made of dough, apple-trees, pear-trees, lemon-trees and orange-trees with green leaves and fruit hanging from their branches.” Dough was also used to mould deer, turtle doves and pigeons, all “seated peacefully in that grove.” The entire citadel of Făgăraş36 had been erected on the table ad vivum out of dough, complete with “its interior and exterior bastions, with the armed German guard standing at the gate, the guns on the bastions, and all around it the moat, full of 32  Apor, Metamorphosis, 15. 33  Ibid., 17. 34  Jeney-Toth, Urunk, 128. 35  Count Székely Ádám was the chairman of the King’s Bench (1735) and chairman of the Transylvanian treasury. 36   The building of the actual citadel of Făgăraş (Hung. Fogaras, Ger. Fogarasch, Fugreschmarkt) started in 1310 on the site of a 12th-century wood-and-earth fortification. In the course of the 17th century, with short interruptions, Făgăraş was the residence of the ruling princes of Transylvania, and therefore de facto the capital of the principality.

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water and live, frolicking fish.” The “master baker” of all these choice decorative foods was the Székely Márton from the Sedes of Mureş (Rom. Scaunul Mureşului, Hung. Marosszék), who had also served Prince Apafi Mihály (the father), and whose skill was unparalleled in the entire Transylvania.37 The model for these Schau-Essen pieces38 was the 1626 wedding banquet in Kassa (Košice, in today’s Slovakia) for the marriage of Prince Bethlen Gábor to Katharina von Brandenburg.39 It often happened that high-achieving cooks were raised to the nobility and granted a coat of arms. Thus, in May 1580, Prince Báthori Kristóf 40 had ennobled his cook Szalay Pál, exempting him from taxes and other public duties for life.41 It was the master chef who signalled to the lord and lady of the house that the dishes were ready, upon which the diners proceeded towards the arranged table, men first, followed by unmarried maidens and then by married women. The head cupbearer and his assistant welcomed the diners with hand towels, wash-basins and jugs with perfumed water. If the occasion was a princely feast, the first to wash his hands in the silver basin was the prince, followed by the princess. They both wiped their hands dry on hand towels embroidered with scofium (silver or gold wire). Once this was done, the prince himself, or a preacher, would “utter a prayer in a quiet, pleasant tone of voice, while the prince doffed his fur cap, holding it under his arm” until the prayer was over.42 The master cook strictly supervised the service at table: he instructed the stewards (Lat. dapifer, Hung. étekfogó) which foods to carry to the dining hall, and then the chief steward (Lat. siniscalcus, Hung. asztalnok)43 and the master of ceremonies served out the food. In more modest households, this role was performed by a senior servant. A strict rule at princely feasts was that, throughout the banquet, the court sword-bearer (Hung. fegyverhordozó) had to stand right behind the prince bearing the “sword in its golden scabbard and with gems, and the prince’s mace.”44 37  Apor, Metamorphosis, 64. 38  ‘Visual food’ used as table centrepieces at Renaissance and Baroque banquets. 39  Ultimately, these confections derived from Italian court traditions of the late Renaissance, as studied by Ken Albala in The Banquet: Dining in the great courts of late Renaissance Europe (Chicago: 2007). 40  Báthori Kristóf, Prince of Transylvania (r. 1575–81). 41  Sándor Imre, Czimerlevelek (Kolozsvár: 1910), doc. 9. 42  Apor, Metamorphosis, 22. 43  The court official who poured water in a copper wash-basin for hand-washing before meals. 44  Apor, Metamorphosis, 23.

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The seating order respected the hierarchy of court ranks and the seniority of noble titles, and this was done even when the guest was the descendant of an old, but ruined, noble family. This is illustrated by an incident which took place at the curia of Apor Lázár at Turia de Jos (Hung. Also Torja) in 1723. One day, after the arrival of Petki István, the chief captain of the Sedes of Ciuc (Hung. Csikszék) and Gheorgheni (Hung. Gyergyószék), who was a relative of the lord, and as they were about to sit at the ‘long table,’ the lord of the manor assigned the “top of the table to a man wearing peasant footwear (Hung. bocskoros) and a coarse peasant’s overcoat (Hung. zekés).” This is how the scene unfolded, in Baron Apor’s description: Upon seeing this, Petki István was troubled in his mind as to why he would have the man with peasant sandals and coat seated before him […] and when they finished dining, he asked the lord of the house: My lord brother, why did you give the top seat to that boor in peasant shoes (Hung. bocskoros nemes) and the peasant coat? Upon which Apor Lázár answered: this is, my son, because even in peasant sandals and overcoat I respect this man as a nobleman; even though he wears peasant clothes, he is a very ancient nobleman, a man of intelligence and beauty, whilst all those seated after him were only given the title yesterday and the day before yesterday.45

“Everything that Lives and Moves about Will be Food for You.” (Genesis 9: 3)

The consumption of all foods, including meat, respected Biblical prescriptions in Transylvania, as it did elsewhere. According to the “clear and wise teachings” of the cookbook commissioned by the wife of Transylvania’s Prince Apafi Mihály I, Bornemisza Anna, and published in 1680, “at emperors’ feasts, as well as the feasts of kings, princes, counts, noblemen, but also at the tables of burghers and peasants,” the menu was divided between days when the consumption of meat was allowed and fasting days. On meat-eating days, the menu was made up of 27 different courses, among which: boiled beef, ram’s meat, roasts, fowl, cockerel, medallions of deer, ox, pheasant, etc. Most animals could become, in fact, a source of food.46 Princess Bornemisza’s collection includes 45  Ibid., 80. 46  Bornemisza Anna, Szakácskönyve 1680–ból, ed. Lakó Elemér (Bucharest: 1982) 50. The work of Max Rumpolt, Ein neues Kochbuch, published in 1581 in Frankfurt, was translated

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83 recipes for bull’s meat, 59 for beef, 45 for ram, and 35 for pork. Goat meat was much valued in the Transylvanian households. Kid’s meat could be prepared in 34 ways, according to the period’s recipes. In his memoirs, Count Bethlen Miklós gratefully acknowledged the role of goats in times of war: “I had four goats instead of cows, and some sheep, which greatly helped those who were sick […] it was goat’s milk which brought my men back home to Transylvania alive.”47 On important occasions, attended by numerous guests, a whole cow or ox would be roasted on a spit, a procedure which lasted hours. This is how Apor describes a peasant wedding of the early 18th century: “so that the villagers should not be left unfed, they roasted a whole ox, and when it was ready they plunged many knives into it, and painted its horns in gold, the wine was flowing through pipes into tubs, there was bread aplenty in a wooden trough, and everybody drank, ate and made merry, without any hindrance.”48 Venison was much prized, but regarded as a food for special occasions. Mountainous areas abounded in big game (stags, deer, wild boars, bears), while in the plains the favourites were hares and pheasants. Hunting was a favourite aristocratic pastime. In a letter dated October 1723, Baron Apor Péter cautioned his wife against allowing his sons to go hunting in his absence: “I myself would not let them go hunting alone, I hear there are many bears.” In the same letter, he asks his wife to tell their sons to “keep the gundogs healthy, so we can go hunting together upon my return.”49 Hunting was not just a sport, and often court hunters would be sent out to hunt and provision the pantry with game. The Countess Kálnoky Borbála wrote to her husband, Kálnoky Samuel, temporarily away from their home at Turia de Jos (Hung. Also Torja), detailing the amount of game brought back from the hunt: I sent him [presumably the manor hunter] but he returned only with three young deer. Last week they hunted three older deer, and the next day Lord Apor Farkas’s hunters returned with a handsome stag, with and updated for Transylvania in 1680 by Keszei János, who dedicated it to Bornemisza Anna. The period’s cookbooks often include references to the cultural sources of certain dishes such as: “prepared in the German fashion” (or in the Italian, Hungarian, Polish, Turkish, etc., fashion). 47  Bethlen, Önéletírása, 321. 48  Apor, Metamorphosis, 57. 49  Apor Péter, Verses művei és levelei (1676–1752), vol. 2, ed. Szádeczky Lajos (Budapest: 1903), 104.

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seven branches in his antlers on one side. They also came back with a young deer.50 The collection dedicated to Princess Bornemisza lists 37 different recipes for stag meat.51 The preparation methods indicated in these recipes often sound alien to modern readers. In one, the stag’s head was cooked “with the hair still on” after being rubbed with sage; the antlers were painted in gold, and the head was served cold, “proving as tasty as it was good to look at.” The ears and neck were served with a lemon dressing, the tongue was smoked, and the meat was boiled or roasted, with the addition of many spices. A whole stag, with a cooked kid inside it, was roasted and served at one of the aristocratic tables, although this dish was considered unusual even for the early modern period: “The lords and young masters all partook of it. But while a peasant might deem that eating this means eating death itself, this is a meal for the lords and, when well cooked, it can be eaten whole with the bones.”52 The 17th-century cookbooks comprise many recipes for game intended for elite diners seated around the ‘long tables’: 29 recipes have been identified for deer, 40 for wild boar, 20 for hare. Other meats used in the period were beaver, squirrel and even hedgehog. Hunting dogs and sparrowhawks were trained for use in catching wildfowl such as: different varieties of partridge and grouse, pheasants, pigeons, thrushes, eagles etc. The importance of dogs and hawks in noble manors is underlined by Baron Apor Péter when he complains to his wife in the autumn of 1717: “[…] you have given away the sparrowhawk, so be it, even I have only one left, and it doesn’t catch anything; I don’t have any retrievers53 left, so I barely had any meat to eat.”54 Gifts of food among the Transylvanian patricians included preparations made of venison: roasts, terrines and, more rarely, soups. Wild duck was boiled or roasted, and seasoned with onions and parsley, or cooked in the Hungarian manner with aromatic herbs which gave it the characteristic sweet-and-sour flavour.55 Swan terrines were often decorated with the bird’s own feathers. Dishes made of fattened pheasant were considered a delicacy. Other dishes, made with pigeons, partridges, turtle doves, thrushes, larks, swifts, sparrows 50  Ibid., 121. 51  Bornemisza, Szakácskönyve, 113. 52  Ibid., 117. 53  This was the Vizsla, the Hungarian retriever or pointer, nowadays a much-prized breed. 54  Apor, Verses, 76. 55  For the rise and decline of the sweet-and-sour flavour in the Transylvanian cuisine, see the contribution by Margareta Aslan in the present volume.

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and other small birds, and garnished with juniper, raisins and other spices, were considered nutritious and appropriate for the convalescing. Terrines made with the meat of small birds often had the bones ground into the mixture. Transylvanians who lived in areas rich in waterways had a wide range of fish on their tables, the most frequent being pike, turbot, eel, and the period’s favourites, trout and carp. Pike could be prepared in at least forty ways: as roast, in sausages, terrines, or cooked in the Hungarian manner with onions, apples, tarragon, black pepper and cane sugar. The Polish recipe was less spicy. Count Bethlen Miklós left some interesting comments on the preparation of fish. He noted that, when in transit, fish went off in the heat. Having asked the cook and the butler whether vinegar, sage and juniper were available, he instructed the cook to have one half of the carp cooked with salt and pepper, and to have the other half done in aspic to keep it fresh for longer. The chef replied: “Who has ever heard of carp in aspic? Upon which, I said to him: you will see, we will see … It is so good, that the gentlemen will marvel at such a delicacy […].”56 Regrettably, although it lists 25 types of dishes made with carp, the recipe collection of Princess Bornemisza Anna does not mention Bethlen’s aspic. Animal fat and lard were favoured ingredients in Transylvanian kitchens, with the latter being also used as a medicine against constipation. In 1736, Apor Péter noted that lard was a key ingredient in Hungarian dishes: “We did not have then dishes cooked in butter, but truly Hungarian dishes made with lard.” The Transylvanian palate was used to this, so much so that when “the Germans came to Transylvania, the Hungarian who ate German food at the German’s table had his stomach upset.”57 This does not mean that the Transylvanians disliked butter, on the contrary. They cooked cabbage in milk and butter, roasted pikes in butter, and baked apples in butter for mash. Other dairy products used in cooking were soured cream and clotted cream (Hung. tejföl, Tr. kaymak).58 The Transylvanian cuisine had many recipes for “cheese dishes” (Hung. túros étek) and “cream dishes” (Hung. tejfeles étek), including pigeon cooked in cream, for instance. Hard cheeses as well as soft, ricotta-style cottage cheeses were age-old, familiar foods. They were often mentioned in documents: to give one example, the papers of a solicitor from Székely Land in 1590

56  Bethlen, Önéletírása, 321. 57  Apor, Metamorphosis, 61. 58  For the use of kaymak (clotted cream) in the Romanian Principalities and references to it in travel narratives, see the contributions by Margareta Aslan and Angela Jianu.

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mention “salted hard cheese” (Hung. sós sajt) and “barrel-aged soft cheese” (Hung. vider orda) as objects under litigation.59 Soup on its own was not considered a staple food in Transylvania. Its consumption picked up towards the end of the 17th century. The stock was made of beef, which was thickened with flour starch (Hung. rántás) or by soaking bread in it. Often, soups were made with wine or milk.60

The “Hungarian Pepper” which Makes a Man’s Blood Boil

Vegetables were kept in cellars and pantries or dried for winter. Many household inventories document the vegetable contents of storage spaces. Onions and garlic topped the list of vegetables commonly grown in the period’s gardens.61 Parsley, carrots, cauliflowers, kohlrabi, celery and artichoke were also routinely cultivated and were key ingredients in the Transylvanian cuisine.62 Lettuce, cucumbers, radishes, spinach, as well as various herbs such as marjoram, rosemary, lavender and others, were also cultivated. Some of the aromatic herbs and spices had culinary as well as medicinal uses.63 In 17th-century Transylvania, by far the most popular and appreciated of vegetables was the cabbage: the ordinary, green variety, but also the red cabbage (at the time called “blue” or “Italian” cabbage). It was very much a vegetable for cross-class consumption, being popular with princes, nobles and peasants alike. The earliest scientific description of cabbage in Transylvania was published by Apáczai Csere János (1625–1659), a professor at the Reformed College in Cluj (Hung. Kolozsvár, Ger. Klausenburg). In his work, Magyar Encyclopaedia (Utrecht, 1653–1655), he wrote: [C]abbage is most useful to humans and animals in equal measure […] The Romans, who had no knowledge of the healing virtues of other plants, for over six hundred years used only cabbage for curing most ailments. Concentrated cabbage juice (obtained by boiling) is very good 59   Székely oklevéltár, n.s., vol. 1, eds. Demény Lajos and Pataki József (Bucharest: 1983), 104. 60  For Ottoman influences on Transylvanian soups, see the extensive section on soup in Margareta Aslan’s contribution to this volume. 61  Kinga S. Tüdős, “Doamnele gospodine din Ţinutul Secuiesc și grădinile lor,” in Grădina rozelor: Femei din Moldova, Țara Românească și Transilvania (sec. XVI–XIX), eds. Violeta Barbu et al. (Bucharest: 2015), 321–30. 62  Apor, Verses, vol. 2, 117. 63  Apáczai Csere János, Magyar Encyclopaedia, ed. Szigeti József (Bucharest: 1977), 315, 316.

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against kidney stones. Cabbage leaves are applied on inflamed and sore areas. The raw juice can be used as a remedy for stubborn, ugly abscesses. It is also used for helping hair grow again. A cabbage soup cooked with the flesh of an older cock eases colic and other ailments of the stomach.64 Hot spices were characteristic for the cuisine of Transylvania. Salt, honey and vinegar were predominantly use din cooking, and tarragon, parsley, saffron, rosemary, lovage, all cultivated locally, were used for garnishing. Horseradish was the key aromatic garnish used for beef. Herbs and spices which grew in the wild, such as cumin, fennel, fenugreek and juniper, were also used routinely, as were wild mushrooms. Eastern spices such as pepper, ginger, nutmeg and its flower, cloves, cinnamon, as well foodstuffs such as rice, figs, and sultanas, were comparatively more expensive and therefore were used with some parsimony in less affluent households.65 The Transylvanians used fruit (apples, pears, morello cherries, gooseberries, ‘sea grapes’ (Lat. Ephedra dystachia, Hung. tengeri szölö), etc) as sides for meat dishes, as well as for preparing compotes and for giving a sour flavour to sauces and soups. Nowadays, paprika is perhaps the best-known of spices used in the Hungarian cuisine. Called variously “garden pepper,” “Hungarian pepper,” “heathen pepper,” “Turkish pepper,” and “red pepper,” it was first used in peasant households. We do not know when it entered the kitchens of the elites and the urbanites. But one thing is certain: the so-called “Turkish pepper” was wellknown in these regions, much earlier than its first mention in the Hungarian language (1604).66 Ground paprika (Rom. boia from the Tr. boya) was adopted into aristocratic households in the 18th century. The earliest reference to paprika dates from 1792. It was described as “as a strong, hot substance which makes a man’s blood boil.”67

64  Ibid., 312. 65  A document dated 1589 tells of a woman who often travelled to a market town called Odorheiu Secuiesc (Hung. Székelyudvarhely, Ger. Hofmarkt), where, among other items, she bought imported black pepper. See Székely oklevéltár, vol. 1, 67. 66  In the writings of Szenczi Molnár Albert (1574–1634), Hungarian reformed priest, philosopher, linguist and translator. His work Elementa grammaticae latinae was published in Nuremberg in 1604. 67  Csapó József, Új füves és virágos magyar kert (Pozsony [today Bratislava]: 1792), 284. See Bornemisza, Szakácskönyve, 17.

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Foreign Delicacies and Native Pride

In the period considered, fruits such as oranges, lemons, pomegranates and raisins, though considered expensive, were imported or purchased from local merchants, alongside some spices, by the more affluent Transylvanians. They were consumed as food, condiment and remedy. In the winter of 1636, the Princess Lorántffy Zsuzsanna (1600–1660) wrote to her husband, Transylvania’s ruling Prince Rákóczi György I (r. 1630–1648): “Your Lordship needs some medicine; they brought the lemons in, and I sent two pieces to Your Lordship.”68 In another letter sent to the same lady, her son, Prince Rákóczi György II (r. 1648– 1657), thanks his mother for the fruit she had sent: “the post has brought the lemons.”69 This is perhaps the best place to mention the consumption of two luxury items which caused quite a stir when first introduced: coffee and tobacco. Coffee-drinking came from the Arabic world via a Turkish channel. Coffee became a favoured drink in Transylvania in the second half of the 17th century, when the locals had mastered the art of preparing it. Not everybody was captivated by the new beverage. The famous chronicler Apor Péter, often cited in this study for his observations on gastronomy, wrote about coffee and hot chocolate: “no, not in the slightest,”70 an interjection which would nowadays translate as a vehement “no way!”. His contemporary, Bethlen Miklós, however, wrote in his memoirs that he had been known to drink coffee occasionally. Smoking elicited similar reactions. Transylvanians have retained a view of smoking as a Turkish custom. The arrival of tobacco to Transylvania has been linked to the last bishop of the mediaeval period, Bornemisza Pál (appointed on 9 April 1568), who is supposed to have brought and acclimatized the first tobacco plant.71 In the period of the Principality of Transylvania (1570–1711), the bread favoured by the elites was the so-called “high bread” made of a mix of wheat and rye. It was left to rise with the help of a leavening agent. Other bakery items considered “fit for the lords” were cakes, especially a variant of brioche baked in the oven. Other types of cakes baked in the oven were bélés made of filo pastry, pogácsa (Tr. poğaça), gateaux and ladyfingers. A type of brioche called 68   A két Rákóczy György fejedelem családi levelezése, ed. Szilágyi Sándor (Budapest: 1875), 52. 69  Ibid., 92. 70  Apor, Metamorphosis, 14. 71  Tüdős S. Kinga, “A dohányzással kapcsolatos Erdélyi Országgyűlési Végzések (XVII. század vége),” in Az Eszterházy Károly Főiskola Történettudományi Doktori Iskolájának Kiadványa, vol. 2 (Eger: 2011), 34–54.

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kürtő kalács72 was baked directly over charcoal flames. Other varieties of cakes, such as pies and doughnuts, were cooked in fat or butter.73 The art of cooking was taken seriously in Transylvania’s elite kitchens and the ladies of the house competed with each other or tried to learn the other’s tricks by sending their servants and cooks to be trained in other houses. Countess Kálnoki Borbála’s bakers were so famous that “Anna principissa Moldaviae”, the wife of the ruling Prince of Moldavia Mihai Racoviţă, asked the countess to take her servant into her kitchen at Turia de Jos (Hung. Also Torja) so that he could learn how to bake. The correspondence was mediated by the sister of Lady Borbála, Countess Kálnoki Ágnes, who notified her sister in December 1723 that Princess Anna would send her servant with the post coach and bids her to “allow him into Your Ladyship’s kitchen so that he can learn how to make bread, but also some lighter preparations, kürtő kalács, pastries and other light dishes.”74 Kálnoki Ágnes added her own comments, referring, not without some pride, to the manor at Turia de Jos: “that servant, upon his return, will tell of how seigneurs and ladies live on the estate and what food they eat.”75 The wines varied in quality and type and were matched to the time of day and the nature of the food. In the morning, men would often have a little “wormwood wine, tasty, sweet-and-spicy” (Hung. jó finom, édes-csípős ürmösbort is ittanak).76 The Transylvanian vineyards in the hilly areas of Aiud (Hung. Enyed) and Alba Iulia (Hung. Gyulafehérvár) produced good wine, but wine was also purchased from the neighbouring Romanian Principalities, Wallachia and Moldavia. Beer was also often referenced in contemporary documents. Székely Land was a beer-producing area. The court minutes of Udvarhelyszék (Sedes of Odorhei) (1569–1600) show that often the object under litigation was beer or hops.77 The records of a trial from 1585 over the division of land involving the lesser military nobles (Lat. primipili) of Păuleni-Ciuc (Hung. Csikpálfalva) show that they had owned “a brewery.” Other documents, too, refer to brewing utensils or to ingredients (hops), including the theft of hops. In 1591, a resident of Udvarhely had a ban on brewing overturned and earned 72   Kürtő kalács: a cake made of dough with yeast, baked on a wooden tray over an open fire, and sweetened with caramelised sugar and nuts. 73  For more on Ottoman influences on the Transylvanian art of bakery, see the contribution by Margareta Aslan in this volume. The term pogácsa is related to the Italian focaccia. 74  Apor, Verses, vol. 2, 110. 75  Ibid., 111. 76  Apor, Metamorphosis, 14. 77   Székely oklevéltár, eds. Demény and Pataki, vol. 1, 23, 26, 229; vol. 2, 161.

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the right to build fires in his garden for the production of beer.78 In 1593, as he was about to get married, a villager asked for a barrel of beer from his brother.79 To sum up some of the data we have gathered so far on Transylvanian foods, here is a list of cattle and ingredients bought in 1691 for the wedding of the General Tax Collector Széki István to the noblewoman Donáth Klára: 2 older cows ready for slaughter, 8 rams and 8 lambs, 19 pigs, suckling pigs, 90 hens, chickens, 20 geese, 2 turkey hens, 500 eggs, 2 bucketfuls of butter, 1 bucketful of honey. Varieties of fish and crustaceans were also purchased, as well as lard and flax oil. The list of spices included 2 pounds80 of pepper and raisins each, half a pound of ginger, 5 pounds of rice, 1 pound of figs and almonds each, saffron, nutmeg flowers and cloves, 3 half ounces each.81 Three barrels of wine, each of 40 litres, and 10 câble of wheat82 were consumed. 10 forints were paid to the cook on loan from a Lord Bethlen Elek, 3 forints and 2 bushels of wheat were given to the fiddler.83

Nomadic Foods

Because estates and manors were located at great distances from each other, the period’s sources contain many references to people travelling often, usually in carriages, and having meals in transit. If a man travelled on horseback alone, without wife or children, his servants would carry wine, white bread, lard, garlic and roast chickens. At the right time, once a suitable location was found, a mantle would be spread out on the ground and the meal was served al fresco.84 If the entire family travelled together, the servants would take a large pot with sarma,85 roast meats and white bread. The wine was carried in barrels or caskets, because good wine was not available everywhere. A box in the middle of the carriage behind the horses carried the cutlery and other items such napkins and salt mills. Female servants carried baskets with buttered pogácsas, brioche, filled chicken, lard, garlic and even ready-made custard.86 In the 78  Ibid., vol. 1, 229. 79  Ibid., vol. 2, 161. 80  1 pound = 0.5 kg. 81  Half an ounce = 17.51 grams. 82  1 câblă (Hung. köböl) = 64 litres or 2 bushels. 83  Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Budapest [The National Archives of Hungary, Budapest], P 5, Antos Family Archive, File 3, fol. 25. 84  Apor, Metamorphosis, 40. 85  An Ottoman-derived dish of mince meat rolled in cabbage leaves. 86  Ibid., 46.

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autumn of 1681, when Bethlen Miklós and his soldiers went on campaign, they took with them many cattle for slaughter, poultry, pigs, as well as vegetables and fruits. For his own personal use, the prince packed items such as: fine flour, trimmed garden peas, salt, lentils, millet, smoked meats and pike, lards, cheeses, butter, honey, custard, vinegar, parsley, sage, tarragon, dried carrots, juniper, dried fruits and a medicine chest. According to his own description, wine was poured from the gourds into glasses with ice, or if ice was not available, it was cooled underground.87 When in transit, as shown, Transylvanian aristocrats carried cutlery with them. In his 1589 testament, Transylvania’s supreme commander, Gyulaffi László, noted: “for travelling, I had much silverware, gold-plated goblets, six or eight silver-tone tureens, twelve silver plates, a silver wash-basin and jug, two glasses, for drinking on the road […] a silver salt mill, a spoon and a fork.”88 In 1696, Bulcsesti Sára’s testament listed: “an iron travelling hamper box,” which carries 26 tureens, 12 mugs, and “four small metal flasks in the corners.”89

Food: Downstairs, Upstairs

In this study, I have attempted to describe the rituals of table arrangements and the foodstuffs available in the manors of the Transylvanian nobles on the basis of period sources. The gaps and inconsistencies in the documentation have made it impossible to do the same for the more modest, peasant households. The scattered, and mostly indirect, sources for the lower strata of society suggest that such households, with precarious food supplies and kitchen utensils, could only afford basic, cheap foodstuffs. Some common items used in aristocratic manors and peasant huts alike were meat, cabbage and other greens, barley and millet. One must bear in mind that in Transylvania, compared to Western European regions in the same period, the gap between social strata was less significant, which means that there were overlaps, as well as cross-contamination between the culinary cultures and eating patterns of all orders, ranks and classes. What was left out of the present survey was a detailed description of the order of service at Transylvanian princely and aristocratic tables. Therefore, in guise of conclusion, here are the brief observations of Galeotto Marzio, King Mátyás Corvinus’ chief librarian, on the Hungarians’ luxurious lifestyles. They 87  Bethlen, Önéletírása, 315. 88   Erdélyi testamentumok, vol. 2, 114. 89   Erdélyi testamentumok, vol. 4, 222.

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“love luxury at their tables” and are “blessed with a plentiful and rich array of food and drink.”90 Bibliography Archival Sources Budapest, Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár [The National Archives of Hungary]: P 5, Antos Family Archive. Published Primary Sources A két Rákóczy György fejedelem családi levelezése [Family correspondence of the Rákóczy princes], ed. Szilágyi Sándor (Budapest: 1875). Apáczai Csere, János, Magyar Encyclopaedia [The Magyar Encyclopaedia], ed. Szigeti József (Utrecht: 1635–1655, repr. Bucharest: 1977). Apor, Péter, Verses művei és levelei (1676–1752) [Poetical works and letters, 1676–1752], ed. Szádeczky Lajos, vol. 2 (Budapest: 1903). Apor, Péter, Metamorphosis Transylvaniae, azaz Erdélynek változása (1736) [Meta­ morphosis Transylvaniae or the transfiguration of Transylvania] (1736, repr. Budapest: 1972). Bornemisza, Anna, Szakácskönyve 1680–ból [The cookery book of Bornemisza Anna, 1680], ed. Lakó Elemér (Bucharest: 1982). Csapó, József, Új füves és virágos magyar kert [New Hungarian herb and flower garden] (Bratislava: 1792). Sándor, Imre, Czimerlevelek [Decrees of ennoblement and coats-of-arms] (Cluj: 1910). Székely oklevéltár [The Székely diplomatarium], n.s., 2 vols., eds. Lajos Demény and József Pataki (Bucharest: 1983, 1985). Szenczi Molnár, Albert, Elementa grammaticae latinae (Nuremberg: 1604). Tüdős S., Kinga (ed.), Erdélyi testamentumok, vol. 2: Erdélyi nemesek és föemberek végrendeletei (1551–1600) [Transylvanian testaments, vol. 2: testaments of Transylvanian nobility and gentry 1551–1600] (Târgu Mureş: 2006). Tüdős S., Kinga (ed.), Erdélyi testamentumok, vol. 3: Erdélyi nemesek és főemberek végrendeletei (1600–1660) [Transylvanian testaments, vol. 3: testaments of Transylvanian nobility and gentry 1600–1660] (Târgu Mureş: 2008). Tüdős S., Kinga (ed.), Erdélyi testamentumok, vol. 4: Erdélyi nemesek és főemberek végrendeletei (1660–1723) [Transylvanian testaments, vol. 4: testaments of Transyl­ vanian nobility and gentry (1660–1723] (Târgu Mureş: 2010). 90  Galeotto Marzio (1427–97), head librarian of King Mátyás Corvinus. See Kazinczy Gábor, Mátyás király: Kortársai tanúsága szerént (Pest: 1863), 19, 34, 60; Radvánszky, Magyar családélet, 197.

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Secondary Literature Benda, Borbála, Étkezési szokások a magyar főúri udvarokban a kora újkorban [Culinary customs of Hungarian noble courts in the early modern period] (Szombathely: 2014). Bogos, Zsuzsanna, Fejedelmi lakomák: Régi magyar étkek [Princely feasts: old Hungarian meals] (Budapest: 2012). Hoffman, Tamás, Europai parasztok: Életmódjuk története, vol. 2: Az étel és az ital [European peasant life: a history, vol. 2: food and drink] (Budapest: 2001). Jenei-Toth, Annamária, Urunk udvarnépe [The servants of the princely court] (Debrecen: 2012). Kazinczy, Gábor, Mátyás király: Kortársai tanúsága szerént [King Matthias as seen by his contemporaries] (Pest: 1863). Koltai, András, Magyar udvari rendtartás: Utasítások és rendeletek, 1617–1708 [Protocols of the Magyar noble courts: decrees and regulations, 1617–1708] (Budapest: 2001). Radvánszky, Béla, Magyar családélet és háztartás a XVI. és XVII. században [Magyar family life and households in the 16th and 17th centuries], vol. 1 (Budapest: 1895). Roth, Harald (ed.), Die Szekler in Siebenbürgen: Von der privilegierten sondergemeinschaft zur ethnischen gruppe (Cologne-Weimar-Vienna: 2009). Tüdős S., Kinga, Székely fönemesi életmód a XVII. század alkonyán [The lifestyle of Székely nobles in the late 17th century] (Bucharest-Cluj: 1998). Tüdős S., Kinga, “Adatok a kilyéni Székely család és udvarház történetéhez” [Data on the history of the Székely family of Chilieni and their manor], in Historia manet: Volum omagial Demény Lajos Emlékkönyv [Historia manet: a tribute to Demény Lajos], eds. Kinga S. Tüdős and Violeta Barbu (Bucharest-Cluj: 2001). Tüdős S., Kinga, A régi gernyeszegi várkastély [The ancient citadel of Gornești] (Târgu Mureş: 2009). Tüdős S., Kinga, “A dohányzással kapcsolatos Erdélyi Országgyűlési Végzések (XVII. század vége)” [Decrees of the Transylvanian Diet on the use of tobacco], in Az Eszterházy Károly Főiskola Történettudományi Doktori Iskolájának Kiadványa [Proceedings of the Eszterházy Károly University Doctoral School of History], vol. 2 (Eger: 2011), 34–54. Tüdős S., Kinga, “Doamnele gospodine din Ţinutul Secuiesc și grădinile lor” [The ladies of the manor and their gardens in Székely Land], in Violeta Barbu, Maria Magdalena Székely, Kinga S. Tüdős and Angela Jianu, Grădina rozelor: Femei din Moldova, Țara Romănească și Transilvania (Sec. XVI–XIX) [A garden of roses: women from Moldavia, Wallachia and Transylvania, 16th–19th centuries] (Bucharest: 2015), 321–30.

Chapter 7

Food and Culinary Practices in 17th-Century Moldavia: Tastes, Techniques, Choices Maria Magdalena Székely The absence of a culinary history of the Danubian Principalities may be surprising to anyone unfamiliar with the available primary sources for the mediaeval and early modern periods in Romania. There are no collections of recipes or cookbooks, no lists of menus, household inventories, or registers of foodstuffs from manufacturing units or retail outlets. Deprived of such sources, the Romanian historian has to resort to written sources of a more general nature: chronicles, travel narratives, chancellery acts, lists of expenses, dowry papers, testaments, etc. Such documents sometimes include data on food and food practices. However, the information they contain is often minute, indirect or partial, and needs to be complemented with material supplied by archaeology, ethnology, anthropology, linguistics and the visual arts. In this context, it is self-evident that, on the one hand, the collection of data is a difficult, longterm process and, on the other, the researcher cannot use the type of monolithic approach normally used specifically for each sub-discipline of history. The historian of food practices will have to build his own methodology by ‘borrowing’ rules and analytical tools from other disciplines and adapt them to each category of the sources used. The present chapter aims to overcome some of the above-mentioned limitations while also offering a broad overview of culinary practices in one of the historic Romanian provinces, Moldavia, across one century. It is only a preliminary exercise, as we await the all-encompassing historical synthesis of food and culinary practices in the region. Several scenes on the church murals of Suceviţa Monastery—the building of which finished in the last years of the 16th century—would appear to be an appropriate starting point for an overview of the history of food in Moldavia.1 Whether they depict the Supper at Mamre, the Last Supper, the nativity of Saint 1  In this context, Moldavia does not refer to the present-day state known as the Republic of Moldova. For the current state of research on the history of foodways in the Romanian Principalities, see Olivia Senciuc, “Istoriografia românească a alimentaţiei: Geneză, surse documentare, direcţii şi metode de cercetare,” Cercetări istorice 30–31 (2011–2012): 65–8, and

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Anne, of John the Baptist, of Saint George or the miracles of Saint Nicholas, they all feature tables on which are laid out vessels and food, frozen in the brief moment when the painter saw them (Figs. 7.1–7.9). The one item present in all of these representations is bread, an apt illustration of its symbolic value and of its importance as the key staple food of that period. Ingredients Most of the prime ingredients uses in the preparation of food in Moldavia were native produce sourced in local households. However, the picture of the area’s culinary culture would not be complete without reference to the trade in exotic, Eastern foods, fruit and spices. The early cultivation of wheat in the region is widely documented. In the early 18th century, the scholar-prince Dimitrie Cantemir (r. 1710–1711), for example, as well as travellers and visitors to Moldavia commented on the rich crops in the region. There were other cultures known under the generic term pâine (bread), for instance: spelt, barley, rye, buckwheat and, to a lesser extent, oats. In the last decade of the 17th century, the cultivation of maize was also introduced.2 During a major famine which occurred under the reign of Prince Ştefăniţă (r. 1659–61), cereals were replaced with dried bulrush which was ground to obtain a kind of alternative flour.3 Crops were stored in specially made underground repositories which preserved the grains in good condition but were not burglar-proof. There were granaries and barns as well. In Iaşi, one such barn—which must have been impressive in size—was built in the precinct of the princely court.4 Loaded onto ships at the Danubian port Galaţi, Moldavian wheat was exported far into the heart of the Ottoman Empire, ­ensuring major revenues to native entrepreneurs.5 Virginia Petrică, Identitate culinară românească din perspectiva călătorilor străini (Bucharest: 2013). 2  Ion Neculce, Opere. Letopiseţul Ţării Moldovei şi O samă de cuvinte, ed. Gabriel Ştrempel (Bucharest: 1982), 357; Nicolae Iorga, “Vechimea culturii porumbului la noi,” Revista istorică 6 (7–9) (1920): 170–5; Constantin C. Giurescu, Probleme controversate în istoriografia română (Bucharest: 1977), 123–126; Vasile Neamţu, La technique de la production céréalière en Valachie et en Moldavie jusqu’au XVIIIe siècle (Bucharest: 1975), 219–22. 3  Miron Costin, Opere, ed. P.P. Panaitescu (Bucharest: 1958), 195. 4  Costin, Opere, 140. 5  Dimitrie Cantemir, Descrierea Moldovei, trans. Gh. Guţu, eds. Maria Holban et al. (Bucharest: 1973), 75, 77; M.M. Alexandrescu-Dersca, “Economia agrară a Ţării Româneşti şi Moldovei descrisă de călătorii străini (secolele XV–XVII),” Studii. Revistă de istorie 21 (5) (1968): 849–51.

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On some of the tables in the murals of Suceviţa can be seen pots with a soup-like content in which float whole fishes, calf’s heads and various pieces, presumably of meat and fish (Figs. 7.1, 7.2, 7.5). Fish ponds and lakes, as well as angling utensils (toils, nets, fishing baskets, trammels, fishing poles) make frequent appearances in sources.6 The Danube abounded in every type of sturgeon as well as carp, and the region’s rivers and lakes yielded carp, trout, mudminnows and wels catfish. A well-stocked fish pond was a small fortune to its owner. This was the reason why, in 1643, when two villagers from Suceava county carved up the pond made by a third man and “let the fish go, so that the fish was wasted,” the ruling prince ordered an enquiry which was supposed to determine among other things “how much fish was damaged.”7 In order to increase the fish stock in a pond, techniques of insemination were sometimes used.8 At Iaşi, behind the princely residence, a man-made pond was used as a fish nursery where angling was only permitted to the prince’s fishermen.9 There were also regulations on angling rights in waters owned by monasteries. Danubian fish was salted and carried by cart or sledge, depending on the season, to be sold in the country’s major market towns. This explains why sturgeon bone remains were found on archaeological sites at considerable distances from the species’ natural habitats.10 A letter dated September 1633 from a merchant in Suceava illustrates this latter point: he writes that, while there were “no more than two cartfuls of fish” at the market, he had managed to make a purchase for the mayor of Bistriţa of twenty pieces of sturgeon and one hundred herrings.11 Monasteries were great consumers of fish, hence the need for these establishments to be constantly supplied with this food item. Although

6  Constantin C. Giurescu, Istoria pescuitului şi a pisciculturii în România, vol. 1 (Bucharest: 1964). 7  Petronel Zahariuc et al. (eds.), Documenta Romaniae Historica, A, vol. 27 (Bucharest: 2005) 145, no. 148. [Hereafter DRH]. 8  N. Iorga, Scrisori de boieri, scrisori de domni, 3rd ed. (Vălenii de Munte: 1931), 86, no. 61. 9  Maria Holban et al. (eds.), Călători străini despre Ţările Române, vol. 5 (Bucharest: 1973), 75, 232 [Hereafter Călători străini]; Paul de Alep, Jurnal de călătorie în Moldova şi Valahia, ed. Ioana Feodorov (Bucharest-Brăila: 2014), 206. 10   Luminiţa Bejenaru, Carmen Tarcan-Hrişcu, “Date arheozooologice din aşezarea medievală Siret,” Arheologia medievală 19 (1996): 311; eadem, “Date arheozoologice privind resursele animale utilizate în economia unor aşezări medievale de pe teritoriul Moldovei,” Arheologia medievală 4 (2002): 215; eadem, Arheozoologia spaţiului românesc medieval (Iaşi: 2003), 143; eadem, Arheozoologia Moldovei medievale (Iaşi: 2006), 48. 11  Vasile Gh. Miron et al.(eds.), Suceava, file de istorie: Documente privitoare la istoria oraşului, 1388–1918, vol. 1 (Bucharest: 1989), 261, no. 129.

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the presence of fish as food is widely documented in written sources for the 17th century, the archaeozoological bone finds are rare and inconclusive. Meat was usually cheap and could be pork, beef, lamb, ram or poultry. There is some evidence for the consumption of horse meat,12 but it would appear that it was resorted to only in extreme situations when food was scarce.13 The analysis of animal bones found at archaeological sites shows what is more or less self-understood, namely that animals were sacrificed only when they were no longer fit for labour and that pigs were reared exclusively for meat.14 Even though Moldavia seems to have lacked hunting treatises such as those available in the Byzantine Empire or Western Europe, hunting was widely practised15 and it is somewhat surprising that internal sources do not mention it more often. In contrast, references to hunting abound in the narratives of foreign visitors to the Romanian Principalities.16 The aforementioned Dimitrie Cantemir noted the richness of game in Moldavia. He makes reference to a wide range of wildlife and wildfowl: stags, deer and goats, hares, boars and bears, foxes, lynxes, martens and wolves, musk oxen, wild horses, as well as

12  Marco Bandini, Codex. Vizitarea generală a tuturor Bisericilor Catolice de rit roman din Provincia Moldova, 1646–1648, ed. Traian Diaconescu (Iaşi: 2006), 376. 13  Bejenaru, “Date arheozoologice privind resursele animale,” 219; Luminiţa Bejenaru, “Strategia de exploatare a animalelor în cadrul unor aşezări medievale de pe teritoriul Moldovei: date arheozoologice,” Arheologia medievală 5 (2005): 196, 198; Bejenaru, Arheozoologia spaţiului românesc, 171. 14  Sergiu Haimovici, “Studiul materialului faunistic din aşezarea orăşenească de la Baia,” in Oraşul medieval Baia în secolele XIV–XVII, eds. Eugenia Neamţu, Vasile Neamţu and Stela Cheptea, vol. 1 (Iaşi: 1980), 270–272; Sergiu Haimovici and Ion Cojocaru, “Studiul materialelor paleofaunistice din unele aşezări feudale rurale din Moldova,” Arheologia Moldovei 11 (1987): 265; Sergiu Haimovici, “Studiul arheozoologic al resturilor din două aşezări medievale situate în judeţul Neamţ,” Memoria Antiquitatis 19 (1994): 434, 447, 449; Bejenaru, Arheozoologia spaţiului românesc, 243; Bejenaru, Arheozoologia Moldovei, 139. 15  Gheorghe Nedici, Istoria vânătoarei: Vânătoarea în România (Bucharest: 2003); Constantin C. Giurescu, Istoria pădurii româneşti din cele mai vechi timpuri până astăzi, 2nd ed. (Bucharest: 1976), 258–276; Ion Nania, Istoria vânătorii în România: Din cele mai vechi timpuri până la instituirea legii de vânătoare—1891 (Bucharest: 1977); Toader Nicoară, “Din distracţiile societăţii de curte în Ţările Române: Vânători şi plimbări domneşti în sec. XVII şi XVIII,” Caiete de antropologie istorică 10–11 (2007): 57–78; Victor Munteanu, “Obiecte folosite în practicarea vânătorii tradiţionale aflate în patrimoniul Muzeului Etnografic al Moldovei,” Anuarul Muzeului Etnografic al Moldovei 7 (2007): 363–372; Victor Munteanu, “Recipiente din corn pentru praf de puşcă aflate în colecţiile Muzeului Etnografic al Moldovei,” Anuarul Muzeului Etnografic al Moldovei 10 (2010): 585–92. 16   Călători străini, vol. 5, 596; vol. 7, 255.

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a peculiar type of grouse called hazel grouse.17 Of these, only the meat from animals considered “clean” was deemed fit for human consumption, from the others only the skins were used. Smaller game (hares, partridges, mountain hens and others) were available cheaply at markets. Bone remains from smaller wildfowl are less frequent among zooarchaeological finds than those from big game such as deer, wild boar or musk ox, hunted for their meat.18 Cow’s and sheep’s milk and their dairy derivates such as butter and cheeses were produced for domestic consumption, but also for sale in Moldavian market towns. Butter travelled even further, being in demand in Istanbul and other areas of the Ottoman Empire.19 In exceptional situations, the Moldavians used mare’s milk as well.20 Naturally, eggs were available in abundance. In the frescoes at Suceviţa only one other food item appears as frequently as bread: large, black turnips (Figs. 7.1–7.9). Given that the vegetable in question had no religious connotations, was not listed in manuals of church painting (Gk. ermineia) for its symbolic or aesthetic meaning, its frequent appearance must have a different explanation. We have a mid-17th-century testimony from the Swedish envoy Conrad Jacob Hiltebrant, in the city of Alba Iulia on an official mission to Transylvania: “[d]essert consisted of various fruit, as the season allowed, but always accompanied by a large, black turnip […]. As dinner ended, there was a scuffle amongst the Hungarians over this radish, of which the Sieurs envoys did not partake, but which the Hungarians relished.”21 This confirms data from the account books of Transylvanian towns, which show that radishes and turnips were often served to guests from the 16th century onwards. They were served with the fruit at dessert, their role being that of facilitating digestion after a copious meal. Moldavian envoys to Transylvania were also served turnips at table and, although we do not have written evidence for this, it is quite possible that the habit was carried to Moldavia by returning diplomats, which might explain the repeated occurrence of the vegetable in the period’s murals. 17  Rom. ieruncǎ, Lat. Tetrastes bonansia. Cantemir, Descrierea, 115, 117, 119, 237. 18  Luminiţa Bejenaru, “Date arheozoologice privind strategia de punere în valoare a unor animale sălbatice în aşezări medievale de pe teritoriul României,” Arheologia Moldovei 25 (2002): 305–8; Bejenaru, “Date arheozoologice privind resursele animale,” 216; Bejenaru, “Strategia,” 191–2, 196; Bejenaru, Arheozoologia, 58–64, 78–89, 136–8, 145–56; Bejenaru, Arheozoologia Moldovei, 49–61, 130–35. 19   Călători străini, vol. 7, 249; Cantemir, Descrierea, 65, note, and 77; Alexandrescu-Dersca, “Economia agrară,” 856. 20  Bandini, Codex, 376. 21  “Conrad Iacob Hiltebrandt,” [sic] (1656–8), Rom. trans. in Călători străini, vol. 5, 561–2.

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Alongside turnips, the frescoes of Suceviţa show bundles of green leaves (Figs. 7.2, 7.9), probably spring onions, a vegetable often grown in 17th-century Moldavian gardens. Other commonly grown vegetables included: sweet leek, garlic, beans, lentils, green peas, cabbage, beetroot, parsley and small, not very juicy cucumbers, which matured by the end of June.22 Gardeners were employed to tend kitchen garden plots. Among them, those who grew or sold cabbage formed a specialized group. Moldavia produced an abundance of very tasty, juicy fruit: apples, cherries, plums, quinces, peaches, pears, chestnuts, grapes and melons. “You will find not orchards, but forests of fruit trees,” noted Dimitrie Cantemir,23 an observation confirmed by other sources. The Archdeacon Paul of Aleppo had seen apricot and almond trees in the orchards of the Galata Monastery in Iaşi and also noted that peach trees were normally planted in mid-March in Moldavia.24 Among apples, the most fragrant and colourful were the so-called princely apples (Rom. mere domneşti). The plums were very sweet and came in a wide range of colours: white, yellow, red and russet. In the area of Cotnari plums survived on the trees until late autumn.25 The available sources often mention hazel shrubs and the fact that harvesting hazelnuts on monastery-owned lands was limited. A shrub mentioned for forested areas of higher altitude was a type of dogwood which produced an edible fruit called cornelian cherry (Lat. Cornus mas).26 The sweetener commonly used in 17th-century Moldavia was honey, produced in large amounts by numberless apiaries all over the country, some of which were located in forests.27 The high-quality Romanian honey was conveyed to the Ottoman Empire,28 not only under the terms of the tribute called haraç (owed to the Porte by tributary state), but also for sale at markets. Another Romanian export much valued in the Ottoman world29 was salt, extracted in salt-mines as large blocks conveyed to the surface on large wheels 22  Paul de Alep, Jurnal, 200, 230, 234. 23  Cantemir, Descrierea, 109. 24  Paul de Alep, Jurnal, 212, 227. 25   Călători străini, vol. 5, 237. 26  Felicia Monah, “Noi determinări arheobotanice pentru Moldova,” Arheologia Moldovei 12 (1988): 305. 27  Ioan Ciută, Apicultura în Moldova feudală, străveche îndeletnicire românească (Bucharest: 1994); Eugen Agrigoroaiei, “Modele de selecţie şi ameliorare folosite în stupăritul tradiţional,” Anuarul Muzeului Etnografic al Moldovei 1 (2001): 213–28. 28   Călători străini, vol. 7, 249; Cantemir, Descrierea, 65, note, and 77; Alexandrescu-Dersca, “Economia agrară,” 858. 29   Călători străini, vol. 5, 248, 452, 495; Cantemir, Descrierea, 65, note, and 77, 105; Călători străini, vol. 7, 249.

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pulled by horses.30 In its brute form, the salt had a dark colour, but once ground became very white, fine and had a good taste.31 The salt trade was in the hands of specialized merchants. Other ingredients used in cooking were vinegar and fermented bran (Rom. borş).32 Some important cooking ingredients not mentioned in the sources are wild mushrooms and a variety of aromatic herbs and roots growing in the wild and common to the cooking traditions of many European countries. Imported foodstuffs, especially from the East,33 complemented local produce in 17th-century Moldavia. The documents mention oil, olives, fish roe, calamari, rice, vermicelli, chicory, lemon juice, pomegranates, oranges, pepper, long-grain pepper (Tr. darifülfül),34 cinnamon, cloves and other spices. At elite level, some foods arrived in Moldavia as gifts made by visiting diplomats or officials. In 1653, the visiting Patriarch Makarios of Antioch made gifts of choice foodstuffs to Prince Vasile Lupu (r. 1634–1653), his family and court dignitaries: fish roe, sugar candy, ginger conserve, Kabul jam, candied fruit, almonds, sultanas, dates, apricots and pistachio—both salted and unsalted.35 Lists and inventories from the period show which ingredients were used for preparing food for various occasions. For example, as Probota Monastery was about to celebrate its patron saint every year, the ruling princes sent gifts of wheat and barley and a barrel of honey.36 On the same occasions, the Bishopric of Huşi was allocated a similar amount of wheat and barley and two barrels of honey.37 The Monastery at Vânători (today Vânători Neamţ, in Neamț county) was entitled to an annual princely gift of wheat, barley, three barrels of honey and one hundred blocks of salt.38 On one occasion, by the mid-17th century, seven Russian labourers hired for seven weeks to divert water

30   Călători străini, vol. 5, 248, 275, 495; Dorinel Ichim, “Exploatarea sării în Moldova medievală,” in Sarea, timpul şi omul, eds. Valeriu Cavruc and Andrea Chiricescu (Sfântu Gheorghe: 2006), 125–31. 31   Călători străini, vol. 5, 20, 495. 32  Bandini, Codex, 376. 33   Călători străini, vol. 5, 232; Călători străini, vol. 6, 484; Paul de Alep, Jurnal, 199–201. 34   Călători străini, vol. 6, 484. 35  Paul de Alep, Jurnal, 174–5. 36   Documente privind istoria României, A, vol. 17 (2) (Bucharest: 1953) [Hereafter DIR], 70, no. 77; 184, no. 242. 37  DIR, A, vol. 17 (3) (Bucharest: 1954), 141, no. 222; I. Caproşu, C. Burac (eds.), DRH, A, vol. 20 (Bucharest: 2011), 599, no. 548. 38  DIR, A, vol. 17 (2), 169–70, no. 219; DIR, A, vol. 17 (3), 85–6, no. 139; DIR, A, vol. 17 (4) (Bucharest: 1956), 28, no. 41.

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for a pond received the following as their food allocation: cereals (pâine),39 fish, cheese, butter and meat (two cows and five pigs).40 Throughout the century, the Transylvanian municipalities allocated certain amounts of provisions to Moldavian official envoys: four, millet, raw fish, salted fish, eels, crabs, many varieties of meat, from chicken and goose to venison, as well as a wide range of vegetables and fruit. Interestingly, among the cooking oils and flavours were a number of exotic imports of Middle Eastern origin such as turmeric, ginger, sultanas, almonds.41 Writing about the famine which ravaged the country at the start of the last reign of Prince Dumitraşco Cantacuzino (r. 1684–1685),42 the chronicler Ion Neculce enumerates basic foodstuffs which could only be procured for enormous prices: meat, honey, chickens, eggs, butter and cheese.43 During periods of scarcity and political instability, people resorted to extreme actions, among which to thefts of food. Such cases are well-documented: for instance, as their neighbour was away from home in neighbouring Wallachia, a villager from Negoeşti (Vaslui county) and his sons stole honey from forty of the man’s beehives, two barrels of wine, sixty geese and one hundred chickens.44 Another Moldavian resident and his son-in-law stole the cheese, flour, beehives and whatever food they found from underground beehives located in what was supposed to be a secret place in the village Dolheşti.45 The son of a villager from Burduşeşti stole an unspecified amount of cheese,46 while others took no fewer than 1,060 okka (c. 1,368 kg) of cheese, sixty sheepskins and twenty beehives.47 A pretender to the Moldavian throne named Alexandru Davidel and a companion of his, Manea, a lower-rank boyar, managed to find the fourteen barrels of honey hidden by their owner at the bottom of a pond and, in 39  For the use of this term, see above, p. 171 40  Nistor Ciocan et al. (eds.), DRH, A, vol. 25 (Bucharest: 2003), 275, no. 280. 41  Ştefan Meteş, Domni şi boieri din Ţările Române în oraşul Cluj şi Românii din Cluj (Cluj: 1935), 22–82; Ioana Constantinescu and Matei Cazacu (eds.), O lume într-o carte de bucate: Manuscris din epoca brâncovenească (Bucharest: 1997), 32–6; Matei Cazacu, The Story of Romanian Gastronomy, trans. Laura Beldiman (Bucharest: 1999), 106–10. 42  Prince Dumitraşco Cantacuzino also ruled from 1673 to 1674 and from 1674 to 1675. 43  Neculce, Opere, 289. 44  DIR, A, vol. 17 (4), 156, no. 193; 203, no. 254; 204, no. 255. 45   Catalogul documentelor moldovenești din Arhiva Istorică Centrală a Statului, vol. 3 (Bucharest: 1968), 176, no. 771; Cătălina Chelcu, “Avere furată, făptuitori şi pedepse în Moldova (secolul al XVII-lea—prima jumătate a secolului al XVIII-lea),” in Pedeapsa în Moldova între normă şi practică: Studii şi documente, ed. eadem (Iaşi: 2015), 102. 46  Chelcu, Pedeapsa, 197, no. 11. 47  Ibid., 203, no. 16.

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addition, also stole the honey from 149 beehives hidden by the same owner in a cellar.48 Lastly, etymology helps establish the availability and use of certain foods which are not documented in the written sources for the 17th century.49 Thus, the terms osânză (blubber, fat), caş (hard cheese), zer (whey), lăptuci (lettuce), linte (lentils) and napi (turnips), mure (blackberries) and fragi (strawberries) are all part of the old Latin stratum of the Romanian language; urdă (cottage cheese), leurdă (wild leek), mărar (dill) and coacăze (blackcurrant) belong to the native linguistic stock, while words like drojdie (yeast), smântână (cream), hrean (horseradish) and lobodă (lovage) come from old Slavonic.50

Space Management: Vessels and Utensils

As descriptions of kitchens and household annexes are lacking for the 17th century, it is difficult to reconstruct the spaces where food was stored and cooked and the types of utensils used. Most certainly the key area must have been the hearth or oven, an assumption confirmed by ethnographic51 and archaeological sources.52 As a rule, the cooking equipment, which doubled as a source of heating in the cold season, occupied one of the corners or sides of the house in peasant homes and boyar manors alike. Often, ovens were located in the immediate vicinity of the house. Open hearths could be oval, trapezoidal or 48  Constantin Turcu, Ştiri noi despre pretendentul Alexandru Davidel (Iaşi: 1948), 11–5, nos. 1, 2. 49  Luminiţa Fassel, “Haben die Rumänen eine eigene Küche? Eine diachronische und nicht zuletzt moldauische Perspektive,” in Culinaria balcanica, eds. Thede Kahl et al. (Berlin: 2015), 157–68; Rodica-Cristina Ţurcanu, “Erlebtes, Erzähltes, Erforschtes: Eine kulinarisch-linguistische Reise durch Rumänien mit zeitlichen und räumlichen Abstechern,” in Culinaria balcanica, eds. Kahl et al., 253–74. For Romanian-language idioms constructed with food-related terms, see Ioana Scherf, “‘Die Sprache bittet zu Tisch:’ Zu Lebensmittelbegriffen in rumänischen Redewendungen,” in Culinaria balcanica, eds. Kahl et al., 113–30. 50  Petronela Savin, Universul din lingură: Despre terminologia alimentară românească (Iaşi: 2012), 23, 25, 26, 28, 34, 35, 44, 45, 47, 78, 79, 81–3, 84, 85. 51  Mihai Lupescu, Din bucătăria ţăranului român, eds. Radu Anton Roman et al. (Bucharest: 2000), 25–7. 52  Rodica Popovici, “Negoeşti, un sat din zona Neamţ în secolele XIV–XVII,” Arheologia medievală 4 (2002): 29; Rodica Popovici, “Negoieşti, un village de la zone de Neamţ dans les XIVe–XVIIe siècles,” Arheologia Moldovei 25 (2002): 239, 240; Paraschiva-Victoria Batariuc, “Instalaţii de încălzit în locuinţe din mediul rural din Moldova. Secolele XIV– XVII,” Arheologia Moldovei 21 (1998): 155, 160.

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horseshoe-shaped and were placed directly on the clay floors or on a layer of earth. Ovens were carved into one of the walls or were dome-shaped structures made of clay. Archdeacon Paul of Aleppo describes a special variety of stove with a sort of in-built ‘extraction fan:’ a square chimney covered in green and red earthenware tiles or ceramic tiles (in the houses of the wealthy), supported on two pillars and covered with a kind of metal beam meant to block the fumes.53 Outside the main building, there were ovens for baking bread and cooking food outdoors in the summer. The princely courts and major monasteries had their kitchens set up in dedicated buildings. One such kitchen has been preserved at the Monastery of Cetăţuia in Iaşi: it is a square room built in stone with a remarkably complex domed ceiling. Outside, the building is equipped with a cylindrical shaft with a covered round vent at the top for expelling the smoke. This structure, though unique among the early modern Romanian architecture, is akin to a type widely used in the Mediterranean world and can be seen at some of the monastic establishments at Mount Athos.54 Archaeological digs at Probota Monastery unearthed two 17th-century structures built in the southern precinct. The first had several chambers, one of which was equipped with a tall stove made of brick of which only the plinth and hearth still remains; another one had a stone oven raised on a polygonal plinth; the last chamber of interest here had a smaller, circular oven.55 A second building is remarkable for its spectacular domed cellars, standing about three meters high and compartmentalized by three brick pillars into two naves with a total area of around one hundred square meters.56 Such cellars were known from other sources and had a major role in preserving wine and food reserves for longer. Ethnographic sources have yielded information on a wide range of domestic utensils, many made of perishable materials such as wood, bulrush, wicker, textiles, organic matter.57 Kitchen vessels were largely ceramic pottery, as suggested by remains still being found, some of which still bear the imprint of heat. Pots with handles, jars, lids, platters, bowls, plates, jugs and mugs, were 53  Paul de Alep, Jurnal, 164; Batariuc, “Instalaţii,” 160. 54  Gh. Lupu, “Cetăţuia din Iaşi,” Buletinul Comisiunii Monumentelor Istorice 8 (1915): 111–4; Dan Bădărău and Ioan Caproşu, Iaşii vechilor zidiri până la 1821 (2nd ed. Iaşi: 2007), 236–8. 55  Voica Maria Puşcaşu, Mănăstirea Probota: Arheologie şi istorie (Suceava: 2013), 77–80. 56  Ibid., 83–86. 57  Lupescu, Din bucătăria, 29–53; Maria Ciocanu, “Alimentaţia din satul BoldureştiNisporeni: Contribuţii etnografice la monografia satului,” Anuarul Muzeului Etnografic al Moldovei 6 (2006): 237.

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generally made of red ceramic or kaolin paste. Typically, they were incised or painted in white, green, yellow or brown and then glazed.58 Other utensils recovered archaeologically are cutlery (cleavers, spoons, knives and two-pronged forks),59 some with handles made of bones and with strong similarities to types of cutlery used across the Carpathians, in Transylvania.60 Utensils mentioned in documents such as testaments, dowries, domestic inventories and purchase lists are predominantly items made of metal: frying pans, pots, pewters, brewing cauldrons, skewers, copper buckets, leaden flasks.61 The use of undocumented utensils can be inferred from the etymology: ciur (sieve, from

58  Alexandru Andronic and Eugenia Neamţu, “Cercetări arheologice pe teritoriul oraşului Iaşi în anii 1956–1960,” Arheologia Moldovei 2–3 (1964): 421–5; Alexandru Andronic, Eugenia Neamţu and Marin Dinu, “Săpăturile arheologice de la curtea domnească din Iaşi,” Arheologia Moldovei 5 (1967): 223–228; Al. Artimon, “Cercetările arheologice din aşezarea medievală de la Tg. Trotuş, jud. Bacău,” in Materiale şi cercetări arheologice. A XIV-a sesiune anuală de rapoarte (Tulcea: 1980), 611–612, 615; E. Neamţu et al. (eds.), Oraşul medieval Baia, vol. 1 (Iaşi: 1980), 124–7, vol. 2 (Iaşi: 1984), 227–8; Alexandru Andronic, Iaşii până la mijlocul secolului al XVII-lea: Geneză şi evoluţie (Iaşi: 1986), 67–8; Rodica Popovici, “Cercetări arheologice în aşezarea rurală medievală Măleşti (secolele XIV–XVII),” Arheologia Moldovei 11 (1987): 186–187; Victor Spinei and Elena Gherman, “Şantierul arheologic Siret (1993),” Arheologia Moldovei 18 (1995): 232, 240–1, 246; Popovici, “Negoeşti,” 33, 251. 59  Ştefan Olteanu, “Meşteşugurile din Moldova în secolul al XVII-lea,” Studii și materiale de istorie medie 3 (1959): 227, pl. VI (3, 6); Artimon, “Cercetările,” 611–2, 616; E. Neamţu et al., Oraşul, vol. 1, 64; eidem, Oraşul, vol. 2, 86–7; Popovici, “Negoeşti,” 33; Popovici, “Negoieşti,” 251; Paraschiva-Victoria Batariuc, “Obiecte de os medievale păstrate în colecţiile Complexului Muzeal Bucovina din Suceava,” Arheologia medievală 7 (2008): 276 and 284, fig. 2 (2–4). 60  Batariuc, “Obiecte,” 276. 61  Zahariuc et al. (eds.), DRH, A, vol. 27, 49, 50, no. 43; V.A. Urechiă, “Autografele lui Varlaam mitropolitul,” Academia Română, Memoriile Secțiunii Istorice 10 (1889): 345; Haralambie Chirca (ed.), DRH, A, vol. 19 (Bucharest: 1969), 128, no. 108; Ilie Corfus, “Odoarele Movileştilor rămase în Polonia: Contribuţii la istoria artei şi a preţurilor,” Studii. Revistă de istorie 1 (1972), repr. in Movileştii: Istorie şi spiritualitate românească, vol. 1 (Sfânta Mănăstire Suceviţa: 2006), 304, no. 30; Nicolae Iorga, Documente româneşti din arhivele Bistriţei, vol. 2 (Bucharest: 1900), 19, no. 195; Gheorghe Ghibănescu (ed.), Ispisoace şi zapise, vol. 2 (1) (Iaşi: 1909), 37, no. 23; Constantin Cihodaru and Ioan Caproşu (eds.), DRH, A, vol. 24 (Bucharest: 1998), 125, no. 131; Nicolae Iorga, Documente româneşti din arhivele Bistriţei, vol. 1 (Bucharest: 1899), 92, no. 115; Petronel Zahariuc, “Două catastife ale Cantacuzinilor moldoveni din veacul al XVII-lea,” Revista de istorie socială 4–7 (1999– 2002): 186–7, no. 1; 192, no. 2.

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the Latin), pâlnie (funnel) and sită (food strainer) (from Old Slavonic) and scafă (wooden bowl, from ancient Greek).62

Trades, Court Servants and Court Dignities

Brewing, cooking and serving the food, the transport and preservation of foodstuffs required increasing levels of expertise which led to the emergence of specialized labour, as well as to the vocabulary designating new occupations. On the one hand we witness the emergence of artisans specializing in the manufacture of domestic tools, vessels and utensils, on the other of professions directly related to food.63 Seventeenth-century documents mention olari (who moulded earthenware pots), blidari (who made wooden dishes), căldărari and tălgerari (who made metal vessels and were sometimes recruited among the Gypsy slaves), butnari (who produced barrels), and many other narrowly specialized manufacturers. The preparation of food and beverages also became very neatly compartmentalized and, interestingly, also gendered: while millers, butchers and mead-brewers were mostly male, bakers could be male (Rom. pitari) or female (Rom. pităriţe). Brewers and sellers of beer, of braha64 as well as of brandy or raki could be female, as the designations show: masc. berari/ fem. berăriţe; fem. vinǎrsǎriţe, rachieriţe). An interesting niche female occupation was that of maker of liturgical bread: priscorniţe. In the larger market towns, certain occupations and trades lent their names to specific areas or streets. Thus, for instance, in Iaşi the manufacture and retail of certain alimentary items left their imprint on street names such as Uliţa Făinăriei (a street with flour shops) and Târgul Făinei (the Flour Market), Uliţa Chităriei (a street with baker shops), Uliţa Măjilor (a street where the fish market was located), Podul Mesărnicilor (Butchers’ Way), Uliţa Sărăriei (named after shops selling salt), and Uliţa Brăhăriei (a street with shops vending braha). At the princely court, where food was linked to displays of power, a number of dignitaries had titles which denoted their roles in provisioning the court or

62  Savin, Universul, 23, 24, 32, 45, 47, 48, 104, 106. 63  Eugen Pavlescu, Economia breslelor în Moldova (Bucharest: 1939), 268; Ştefan Olteanu and Constantin Şerban, Meşteşugurile din Ţara Românească şi Moldova în Evul Mediu (Bucharest: 1969), 123–243. 64  For further references to the consumption of braga (var. braha), see the chapters by Margareta Aslan, Violeta Barbu and Andrew Dalby in the present volume.

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serving the food.65 For example, the high cup-bearer (Rom. marele ceaşnic or paharnic, Lat. supremus pincerna) was responsible for the drinks served at the prince’s table, for the purchase of beverages and the management of vineyards. At banquets, he was the one who served the prince his first goblet of wine, after taking a sip to make sure that it was not poisoned. The high butler (Rom. marele stolnic, Lat. culinae praefectus) supervised the court kitchen and the layout of the prince’s table. At important banquets, he too tasted the food and served it to the prince himself. Medelnicer was the title of a low-rank official who brought the prince water for washing his hands before eating. The keybearer (Rom. clucer, Lat. claviger) had the keys to the princely pantry and was responsible for provisioning it with items such as: honey, salt, butter, cheeses and fruit. The role of the sluger (Lat. lanionum praefectus) was to ensure that the prince’s court and his guests had their appropriate allocations of meat. The jitnicer (Lat. annonae praefectus) oversaw the harvesting, warehousing and distribution of cereals for the needs of the court. Lastly, the court also had a pitar (Lat. pistoribus praeest) who supervised the baking and allocation of bread at court.

The Preparation of Dishes

Whereas the oldest known cookery book in Wallachia dates from the time of Prince Constantin Brâncoveanu (r. 1688–1714),66 in Moldavia such books, as well as collections of recipes,67 appeared much later. This absence makes the

65  C.C. Giurescu, “Contribuţiuni la studiul marilor dregătorii în secolele XIV şi XV,” Buletinul Comisiei Istorice a României 5 (1926): 136–41, 144–8; Nicolae Stoicescu, Sfatul domnesc şi marii dregători din Ţara Românească şi Moldova (sec. XIV–XVII) (Bucharest: 1968), 272–3, 277–80, 282–4, 287–9, 290–1, 292–3; N. Grigoraş, Instituţii feudale din Moldova, vol. 1 (Bucharest: 1971), 272–4, 278. See entries in Ovid Sachelarie and Nicolae Stoicescu (eds.), Instituţii feudale din Ţările Române. Dicţionar (Bucharest: 1988). 66  Constantinescu and Cazacu (eds.), O lume, 83–94; Cazacu, The Story, 131, no. 1. Things were very different in Transylvania [Benda Borbála, “Obiceiuri alimentare pe domeniile aristocratice şi evoluţia lor în secolul al XVII-lea,” Caiete de antropologie istorică 8–9 (2006): 33–4)] and in Western Europe [(Bruno Laurioux, Les livres de cuisine médiévaux (Turnhout: 1997), 7–11, 65–72)]. For a selection of cookbooks published in the 19th and 20th centuries see Cazacu, The Story, 132–7, nos. 2–18. See also Mariana Neţ, Cărţile de bucate româneşti: Un studiu de mentalităţi (Bucharest: 1998). 67  Maria Magdalena Székely, “Bucate şi leacuri de altădată,” Revista de istorie socială 8–9 (2003–2004): 205–36.

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reconstruction of 17th-century dishes a very difficult task. The historian must necessarily resort to the ethnographic method. Bread was baked with wheat flour, ground in the mills which make frequent appearances in sources. Wholemeal and white bread were both available, the latter being generally much enjoyed. At Iaşi, the bread baked by Hungarian bread-makers appears to have been particularly appreciated.68 A traveller noted that in the port of Galaţi he had had “the best ordinary bread I remember to have tasted.”69 Bread could be purchased all over Moldavia, but important guests or visiting foreign officials received bread allocations from the prince as a gift.70 Moldavian envoys to Transylvania always had bread and rolls on their tables allocated by the municipalities they visited, as shown in fiscal registers of the respective towns.71 Bread was a staple food which ensured survival in any of life’s circumstances. The Bishop Marco Bandini, for example, noted in 1646 that he had seen “many times, men of the boyar class standing by a fountain where they dipped dry bread in the water and ate with great appetite.”72 The evidence from written sources is complemented by a serendipitous discovery made a few years ago. During archaeological digs in a village of Neamţ county, the team found the charred remains of a loaf of bread in a 17th-century house. It was a round-shaped bread with a diameter of around 28 cm (Fig. 7.10) and some of the fragments still had the imprints of fingers from the person who had kneaded the soft dough several hundred years earlier. Despite the many pores observed in section—witnesses to processes of fermentation— the uneven thickness of the loaf suggested to the archaeologist that the dough had not risen properly. When the discovery was first made public, the bread had not been analysed yet for further details on its ingredients (flour, yeast) or its preparation.73 This flat bread can also be studied for its aspect. The scenes depicted on the murals at Suceviţa Monastery seem to show only well-risen breads, which the artists represented frontally as circles, which caused a distortion of perspective (Figs. 7.1–7.9). Most probably, the painters chose well-risen loaves over flat breads because of their resemblance to the sacramental bread 68   Călători străini, vol. 5, 233. 69  Robert Bargrave, writing in 1652, in Ibid., 486. 70  Ibid., 82, 449; Paul de Alep, Jurnal, 176, 317. 71  Meteş, Domni, 22–82. 72  Bandini, Codex, 376. 73  Rodica Popovici, “Câteva date despre o pâine din secolul al XVII-lea, descoperită la Negreşti-Neamţ,” Memoria Antiquitatis 21 (1997): 266–7; Rodica Popovici, “Quelques données sur un pain du XVIIe siècle, découvert à Negreşti-Neamţ,” Arheologia Moldovei 20 (1997): 207–8.

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taken by Orthodox Christians and as such were deemed more appropriate for a church fresco. In poorer areas, where wheat flour was too costly, bread was made with buckwheat or millet flour, without yeast, and was baked directly on an ember bed or in the oven. Dimitrie Cantemir noted that the Moldavians used to eat their millet bread with butter on top.74 Millet flour could also be used boiled to make mămăliga, the native polenta, a cheap staple food enjoyed by the locals, but abhorred by some of the foreign visitors who left accounts of it.75 There were other foodstuffs and dishes—both hot and cold—which foreigners, used to different gastronomic cultures, tended to avoid. From among the cereal-based dishes, the Turkish traveller Evliya Çelebi mentioned what was most probably a soup-like dish (Rom. ciorba, Tr. çorba),76 made of hulled wheat grains, similar to what later became the sour borscht of ground maize kernels (Rom. crupe).77 Another variety of borscht78 was made with the addition of pieces of meat or fish, and is most probably the dish represented in the Suceviţa murals (Figs. 7.1, 7.2, 7.5). Judging from the utensils found in domestic inventories and from some visual sources (for example the miniatures in the Suceviţa Tetraevangelion),79 it would appear that 17th-century Moldavians used to prepare meat not only by boiling it, but also by roasting it on skewers over charcoal flames.80 Geese would also be cooked by roasting.81 In the run-up to Christmas, pork was made into sausages and other charcuterie products. In a letter dated December—probably in the year 1680—and using a delightfully allusive language, the Moldavian boyar Ioan Hăbăşescul asked one of his peers, Nicolae Buhuş, to send him a pig in exchange for the young breeding fish he had sent. Using a small and hilarious visual symbol for

74  Cantemir, Descrierea, 109. 75   Călători străini, vol. 5, 275; Călători străini, vol. 7, 100, 107; Lupescu, Din bucătăria, 126– 31; Eva Giosanu, “Diete tradiţionale: Prepararea şi conservarea alimentelor,” Anuarul Muzeului Etnografic al Moldovei 2 (2002): 180. 76  Evliya Çelebi, Seyahatname (1659), Rom. trans. in Călători străini, vol. 6, 730. 77  Lupescu, Din bucătăria, 97; Giosanu, “Diete,” 181; Ciocanu, “Alimentaţia,” 240. 78  Bandini, Codex, 376; Lupescu, Din bucătăria, 95–103; Ciocanu, “Alimentaţia,” 238, 239. 79   Tetraevanghelion Suceviţa 24, dated 1607, manuscript text of the Gospel kept at the National Museum of Art in Bucharest. 80  G. Popescu-Vîlcea, Un manuscris al voievodului Ieremia Movilă (Bucharest: 1984), pl. 33; Lupescu, Din bucătăria, 118; Ciocanu, “Alimentaţia,” 238. 81   Călători străini, vol. 7, 397; Ciocanu, “Alimentaţia,” 239.

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“sausage,” the boyar explained that he could not possibly have sausages made out of pike’s guts.82 Pork fat was used to make slănină (rendered lard), much valued as a food product to be purchased or bartered. Examples from the period include the sale of a vineyard for 17 lei, two cows and their calves, some flour and a piece of slănină,83 or in times of scarcity, the sale of half of an entire village for 12 lei and half a portion of lard.84 Beef and mutton were used for making pastrami (Rom. pastramă, Tr. pastırma), a variety of smoked sausage dried in the sun and seasoned, probably with garlic. Pastrami was a much-valued food item in Moldavia itself,85 and the expertise of the Wallachians and Moldavians in this field was recognized as far as Istanbul, where they formed the majority of the guild of pastrami producers (Tr. pastırmacı). Every autumn on the feast day of Saint Demetrius (26 October), they took thousands of cattle to Istanbul, slaughtered them and prepared the pastrami by the roadside, just outside the Tower Gate. A group of pastırmacı could comprise as many as six hundred individuals.86 Desserts as such were served on special occasions, especially at elite level: written sources for the period under consideration mention cakes and marzipan (as served, for example, at the wedding of Maria, daughter of Prince Vasile Lupu, to Janusz Radziwiłł in 1645),87 tasty peach, plum, or cherry jams (as offered to Patriarch Makarios of Antioch)88 as well as sweets, candied fruit, sweetmeats89 and sherbet90 (served at banquets to foreign envoys). A range of culinary terms originating in Latin [zeamă (juice), moare (briny liquid used for pickling), plăcintă (pie), aluat (dough)], in the native linguistic stock [bulz (food, especially polenta, rolled into a small ball)] or in Old Slavonic [posmagi (crispbread) and scrob (as in scrambled eggs)]91 confirm that these various foodstuffs were prepared and consumed in 17th-century Moldavia.

82  Iorga, Scrisori, 86, no. 61. 83  Chirca (ed.), DRH, A, vol. 19, 175, no. 144. 84   Catalog, vol. 2 (Bucharest: 1959), 426, no. 2211. 85   Călători străini, vol. 4, 501. 86   Călători străini, vol. 6, 347. For further details on pastrami in the Wallachian food trade, see the chapter by Gheorghe Lazăr. 87  Ioan Kemény, Memorii: Scrierea vieţii sale, ed. Ştefan J. Fay, trans. Pap Francisc (ClujNapoca: 2002), 259. 88  Paul de Alep, Jurnal, 207. 89   Călători străini, vol. 4, 500; Călători străini, vol. 7, 353, 362–3; Călători străini, vol. 8, 168, 177. 90   Călători străini, vol. 8, 178. 91  Savin, Universul, 23, 24, 27–9, 34, 45, 83, 86, 87, 89, 93.

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Beverages Meals were accompanied by beverages produced using a fairly wide range of ingredients. Often, they were consumed in quantities which exceeeded the digestive needs of the diners. The most widely documented of the beverages92 available in Moldavia was wine, which is not surprising, given its double role as both a sacred and profane drink. The wine from the Moldavian vineyards at Cotnari93 was certainly the best-known. Visitors to Moldavia left mixed reactions to local wines in their narratives. Some retained their impressions of the good, cheaper, white, golden and green-ish varieties,94 others remembered sampling not-so-good, sour and expensive ones.95 One should, however, keep in mind that each individual’s native habits, knowledge and tastes contributed largely to their enjoyment of wine. For instance, in the summer of 1651, a Moldavian official envoy to Cluj and his entourage were so unhappy with the wine on offer that their reaction was written down in the city’s tax registers: They were not pleased with the food, and especially with the wine. The envoy only had mead. [On the margin:] I was not able to find any wine that was to their liking and the commissioner was revolted, so, in front of everyone present, I had to give money to one of their halberdiers and he went to purchase wine. But this one was not to their liking either, and neither the envoy nor the other officials would have it, so I had to purchase mead instead.96 According to Dimitrie Cantemir, Moldavian wines chiefly attracted Russian, Polish, Cossack, Transylvanian and Hungarian merchants who made bulk purchases of wine, not necessarily of the highest quality.97 92  Olivia Senciuc, “Consumul de alcool şi beţia în Moldova şi Ţara Românească, secolul al XVI-lea-începutul secolului al XIX-lea: Semnalări documentare,” Cercetări istorice 34 (2015): 137–159; Răzvan Voncu, O istorie literară a vinului în România (Bucharest: 2013). 93  Cantemir, Descrierea, 81, 109. For the history of this wine-producing centre see: Gh. Ungureanu, Gh. Anghel and Const. Botez, Cronica Cotnarilor (Bucharest: 1971); Valeriu D. Cotea et al., Podgoria Cotnari (Bucharest: 2006), 9–226. 94   Călători străini, vol. 5, 237, 275, 281, 449; Călători străini, vol. 7, 298; Călători străini, vol. 4, 501; Cantemir, Descrierea, 109; Bandini, Codex, 210. 95   Călători străini, vol. 5, 232–3. 96  Meteş, Domni, 69 (4 July 1651). 97  Cantemir, Descrierea, 111; I. Nistor, “Contribuţii la relaţiunile dintre Moldova şi Ucraina în veacul al XVII-lea,” Academia Română, Memoriile Secțiunii Istorice 13 (1932–1933): 221, no. 69; Călători străini, vol. 4, 384.

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Although most monasteries had their own vineyards, the prince allocated certain amounts of wine to some of these establishments, especially when they were about to celebrate the days of their patron saints. Whereas food theft was understandable and perhaps even justified in times of crisis, the same could not be said of the theft of wine. Such cases were surprisingly frequent, but one case in particular illustrates the mentality of those who committed the theft. Villagers from Oleşeşti broke into a vintners’ barn (Rom. căsoaie) adjacent to a vicarage, drank as much wine as they could and, in a state of extreme inebriation, proceeded to smash a large wine casket of 130 vedre mari (c. 1,674 litres) spilling the contents. They then attempted to break into yet another barn, but were caught in the act and arrested.98 Alongside wine—with which they were sometimes known to drink themselves into a stupor99—, the Moldavians had a wide range of beverages available to them: grape must, mead (fermented with honey), beer, brandy, various types of raki, braha, “apple water”100 (perhaps the equivalent of apple must), “barley juice”, “oat juice” and “rye juice”101 (probably alcoholic drinks distilled from cereals). These choices are confirmed in the tax registers of the various Transylvanian towns where all the expenses were entered, not only for the old and new wine offered to Moldavian envoys, but also for mead, beer and brandy.102 Raki was more a soldiers’ drink, of which the rest of the Moldavians would partake frugally by having just a small cupful before their midday meal.103 The seven aforementioned Russian labourers hired for six weeks to build a pond, received two barrels of braha.104 When business transactions were concluded, there was a tradition for the sides and the witnesses to have a celebratory drink called, with a Magyar-derived term, aldămaş, which would normally consist of an amount of wine—or plum brandy in areas with no vineyards.105 Details of this ritual have been preserved in written documents, but without references to the type of drink used for toasting the success of

98  Chelcu, Pedeapsa, 199, no. 12. Căsoaia was a barn where grape pickers and vintners took shelter when they harvested and processed the grapes, and where the wine was temporarily stored. See Constantin C. Giurescu, Istoricul podgoriei Odobeştilor din cele mai vechi timpuri până la 1918 (cu 124 de documente inedite—1626–1864—şi 3 reproduceri) (Bucharest: 1969), 111. Vedre mari were old units for measuring volume. 99  Cantemir, Descrierea, 309. 100  Paul de Alep, Jurnal, 199 and note 287. 101   Călători străini, vol. 6, 484. 102  Meteş, Domni, 22–82. 103  Cantemir, Descrierea, 309. 104  Ciocan et al. (eds.), DRH, A, vol. 25, 275, no. 280. 105  DIR, A, vol. 17 (4), 505, no. 640; Giurescu, Istoricul, 17, 267, no. 15.

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the transaction. The aldămaş could sometimes consist of cattle or meat: one document mentions two rams and half a cow used for this purpose.106 Most households brewed their own drinks. However, the harvesting of the hop plant—used for making beer—on monastery-owned land was subject to restrictions. Brewing, for domestic consumption and for commercial purposes, was also documented indirectly via references to the equipment and spaces used: basic rustic installations (Rom. povarne, velniţe) for raki-brewing, spaces (Rom. sladniţe) for storing malt, wineries (Rom. crame). Many of these were owned by churches and monasteries. Prince Gheorghe Duca107 is known to have possessed distilleries and breweries for raki and beer and to have purchased honey for the commercial production of mead.108 Raki was also imported, with monasteries being exempt from tax. Taverns, sometimes located in stone cellars, were the venues where alcoholic beverages were primarily sold. They existed in significant numbers, which explains why observers noted that “the locals drink until themselves into a stupor and then walk about in a daze, doing nothing,”109 that priests “go into taverns as soon as they wake up in the morning, before everyone else,”110 and some women “drink copiously in their own homes, but you would rarely see a drunken woman in the streets.”111 The sale of alcoholic drinks was a lucrative business for the authorities, who levied various taxes. It was equally profitable for the Catholic churches, the Moldavian Metropolitanate and the monasteries which owned tax-exempt taverns. Some monasteries farmed out tax-exempt breweries and alcohol retail businesses. The revenue thus obtained served to make necessary purchases, such as candles, oil and incense. Taverns were run by inn-keepers, men and women, and their employees. Wine sellers in monastery-owned cellars enjoyed certain privileges, such as tax exemptions. They sometimes had other means of topping up their gains. For example, a villager from Vlădiceni, who had been hired to sell mead and wine from the cellars of a merchant from Iaşi, ran away with the forty-one lei he had obtained from sales. The merchant lodged a complaint and the ruling 106  N. Iorga, Studii şi documente cu privire la istoria românilor, vol. 7 (Bucharest: 1904), 60, no. 7. 107  Gheorghe Duca ruled in the following periods: 1665–6, 1668–72, 1678–83. 108  Nicolae Costin, Leatopiseţul Ţerei Moldovei de la Stefan, sin Vasile vodă, in Cronicele României sau Letopiseţele Moldaviei şi Valahiei, ed. Mihail Kogălniceanu, vol. 2, 2nd ed. (Bucharest: 1872), 22. 109   Călători străini, vol. 6, 484. For the Moldavians’ inclination to drink, see also Călători străini, vol. 5, 279, 597–8; Bandini, Codex, 406, 416; Cantemir, Descrierea, 309. 110  Paul de Alep, Jurnal, 199. 111  Cantemir, Descrierea, 311.

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prince decided that the owner of the cellar was entitled to all the assets of his former employee up to the value of the money stolen, pending the latter’s arrest and sentence, when the stolen money or goods were to be returned.112 The beginnings of coffee-drinking in Moldavia are documented for the late 17th century.113

Conviviality and Hospitality

Although we do not have descriptions, taverns and inns must have been spaces of conviviality which could turn, however, into sites of corruption. These venues were frequented by women of easy virtue, provocatively dressed, but with their hair let loose and uncovered.114 The Moldavians were hospitable115—perhaps more so than the rest of the Romanians.116 Each house could become, if needed, a place of hospitality.117 They enjoyed sociability, and shared their food, no matter how modest, with locals and foreigners alike, without asking for payment. They did ask for money, however, for wine and beer. Some of the wealthier ones used to delay their dinner and send their servants down the road to invite travellers to share their accommodation and food.118 Monasteries, too, invited travellers in and treated them well, irrespective of faith.119 Consequently, any person with a friendly, quiet demeanour, no matter how poor or wealthy, could travel with the assurance that food and provisions would be available.120 Conversely, a reserved,

112  Caproşu (ed.), Documente, vol. 2, 431, no. 475. 113   Călători străini, vol. 8, 178; Lupescu, Din bucătăria, 157; Olivia Senciuc, “Cafeaua şi ceaiul, la noi,” Magazin istoric 8 (2015): 47–8. For the consumption of coffee in Transylvania: Benda, “Obiceiuri,” 49–50, and, more generally in the Balkans: Valeria Heuberger, “Zur Kulturgeschichte des Kaffeegenusses im Osmanischen Reich sowie im Balkanraum,” in Culinaria balcanica, eds. Kahl et al., 97–110. See also Olivia Senciuc’s chapter in the present volume. 114   Călători străini, vol. 6, 485. 115  Cantemir, Descrierea, 309, 313; Ofelia Văduva, Paşi spre sacru: Din etnologia alimentaţiei româneşti (Bucharest: 1996), 136–8. 116  Bandini, Codex, 376. 117   Călători străini, vol. 5, 279. 118  Cantemir, Descrierea, 313. 119  Ibid., 359. 120   Călători străini, vol. 5, 76, 279, 485, 494; Bandini, Codex, 376.

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unfriendly reception, especially when foreign envoys were involved, could cause real tension and awkwardness between host and guest.121

Maladies, Remedies and Superstitions

We have very little direct information on the level of medical knowledge among 17th-century Romanians. Data on food- and drink-related conditions and the remedies used for them are even more elusive. Eating too many fruits was known to cause many illnesses122 and cooking in copper pots and pans with a verdigris patina could contaminate food and render it toxic to humans. When Prince Gaşpar Graţiani (r. 1619–1620) wanted to eliminate his vornic, Costea Bucioc, he had his food poisoned. Having expected such an attempt, the suffering boyar rose from the table and went home, where a doctor friend of his gave him an antidote (a “herbal remedy against poison”), which worked as an emetic and saved him. The next day at court, Prince Gaşpar claimed to be feeling unwell and blamed the toxic food and verdigris-coated vessels.123 With direct information scarce, ethnographic sources come again to the historian’s rescue with better data on levels of empirical medical knowledge in the period. Age-old beliefs, some with a pre-Christian origin, combined with empirical culinary information to give a mythical and mystical aura to foodstuffs. Malevolent spirits stood ready to enter humans’ bodies when they opened their mouth. People, therefore, had to be very cautious when deciding when, how, where and especially what they ate and drank.124 Hence the many traditions and superstitions linked to food and drink.125 Drunkenness was considered an illness126 recognizable from symptoms such as particular physiognomic 121   Călători străini, vol. 5, 115, 192. On conviviality and commensality in the Romanian Principalities in the 19th century, see Angela Jianu’s chapter in the present volume. 122  Cantemir, Descrierea, 109. 123  Costin, Opere, 68. 124  I.-Aurel Candrea, Folclorul medical român comparat: Privire generală. Medicina magică, ed. Lucia Berdan (Iaşi: 1999), 101–8. 125  Elena Niculiţă-Voronca, Datinele şi credinţele poporului român adunate şi aşezate în ordine mitologică, vol. 1, eds. Victor Durnea and Lucia Berdan (Iaşi: 1998), 111–9, 145–51, 152–5, 156–65, 183–215, 216–329, 462–74; Artur Gorovei, Credinţi şi superstiţii ale poporului român, ed. Iordan Datcu (Bucharest: 2003), 17–9, no. 50; 132–6, no. 369; Lupescu, Din bucătăria, 161–74. 126  Varlaam, mitropolitul de Ţara Moldovei (Metropolitan of Moldavia), Carte romănească de învăţătură: Dumenecile preste an şi la praznice împărăteşti şi la svenţi mari, eds. Stela Toma and Dan Zamfirescu, vol. 2 (Bucharest: 2011), 46.

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features (a red nose, a protruding Adam’s apple) or a taste for certain foods, spicy ones for example. To “cure” someone of drunkenness, one used a whole arsenal of “remedies”, often accompanied by magic spells.127 Medical folklore comprised recipes to be used for poisoning, nausea, vomiting, stomach conditions, intestinal parasites and diarrhoea, recipes which consisted of a mix of plant remedies, ritual gestures and incantations.128 There was a whole range of foodstuffs deemed to have therapeutic effects and used as medication. They included wheat, garlic, bones, blood and innards from chicken or cattle, fat from fowls and pigs, milk, cream, butter, eggs, honey, salt, vinegar, borscht, lemons, and even wine and raki.129 These ingredients were used on their own or in poultices, teas, bath oils, in massage and dressings, inhalations and infusions.130

Ritual Foods and Alimentary Rituals

In earlier historical periods and in traditional societies, daily food was distinct from food prepared for festivals, religious or secular. Ceremonial, or banquet food was equally distinct from ritual food.131 The range of ritual foods was so encompassing that their mere enumeration leaves the impression that practically all foodstuffs could be used in ritual. However, the ritual food par excellence was bread, “an obligatory attribute of many festivities.”132 It was made exclusively from fine, white flour ground from wheat harvested in the autumn.133 Bread was distributed to the hungry,134 offered to the poor135 or to travellers,136

127  Tudor Pamfile, Boli şi leacuri la oameni, vite şi păsări după datinele şi credinţele poporului român, ed. Petre Florea (Bucharest: 1999), 24–5, no. 6; 98–9, no. 9. 128  Ibid., 23, no. 1; 94, no. 1; 24, no. 5; 96, no. 3; 26, no. 9; 48, no. 50; 130, no. 46; 50–1, no. 56; 132, no. 50; 54, no. 63; 137, no. 56; 69, no. 103; 177, no. 127. 129  Silvia Ciubotaru, Folclorul medical din Moldova: Tipologie şi corpus de texte (Iaşi: 2005), 41, 43, 45; Văduva, Paşi, 35, 39; Ciocanu, “Alimentaţia,” 260, 265; Lupescu, Din bucătăria, 87–89, 94, 159; Ion Blăjan, “Sarea, aliment şi substanţă rituală,” Caiete de antropologie istorică 8–9 (2006): 98. 130  Ciubotaru, Folclorul, 41. 131  Văduva, Paşi, 15, 19–28. 132  Ibid., 16. 133  Varvara Buzilă, Pâinea, aliment şi simbol: Experienţa sacrului (Chişinău: 1999), 61–2. 134  Varlaam, mitropolitul de Ţara Moldovei, Carte, 262. 135   Călători străini, vol. 6, 730; Neculce, Opere, 196. 136  Bandini, Codex, 376.

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but ruling princes themselves were given offerings of bread.137 Freshly-baked bread played an important role in thanksgiving rituals on harvest days.138 Although linked to age-old traditions and used in magic,139 bread was equally important in Christian ritual and was central to mass. The Archdeacon Paul of Aleppo saw platters full of bread and rolls at a church in Iaşi on the feast day of the Forty Martyrs (9 March).140 The rolls were in fact small, baked ritual cakes moulded in different shapes, the most common of which was the figure eight, and were called mucenici (martyrs) or sfinţişori (little saints).141 In 17th-century church discourse, admonitions to frugality and even austerity were frequent. Gluttony and drunkenness, as well as other excesses were sins—a source of great satisfaction to the Devil.142 Consequently, a true Christian had to preserve his body from worldly temptations143 and observe the prescribed periods of fasting, because the Angel of the Lord entered the names of those who fasted in God’s big heavenly register.144 Penitence in the form of abstention from certain foods was necessary both for the cleansing of the body and for keeping the mind on the path of moral rectitude. But because there were no explicit bans on certain foods and there was no way of enforcing them, the path from theory to practice was not straightforward. It seems quite clear, however, that a great part of Moldavia’s population, across classes, was careful to observe fasts.145 During these periods, the Eastern Orthodox faithful could eat some of the following: bread, vegetables, the meat and roe of ­sturgeon—which they did not consider to be a fish146—, dried octopus, rice, vermicelli, chicory and fruit.147 There was an absolute interdiction on meat and milk, even for pregnant women and the dying.148 Even princes had to submit to the rules. Prince Dumitraşco Cantacuzino, who had not observed the

137  Paul de Alep, Jurnal, 174. 138   Călători străini, vol. 5, 595; Buzilă, Pâinea, 245–246. 139  Buzilă, Pâinea, 65–72. 140  Paul de Alep, Jurnal, 208. 141  Văduva, Paşi, 87–8; Buzilă, Pâinea, 234–5, 265, 267, 274; Ciocanu, “Alimentaţia,” 254. 142  Varlaam, mitropolitul de Ţara Moldovei, Carte, 300, 340, 351, 372, 379. 143  Ibid., 357. 144  Ibid., 25. 145  Cantemir, Descrierea, 341; Văduva, Paşi, 101–17; Constantinescu and Cazacu (eds.), O lume, 27–30; Olivia Senciuc, “Postul odinioară,” Magazin istoric 3 (2015): 56–9. 146   Călători străini, vol. 5, 79. 147  Paul de Alep, Jurnal, 202. 148  Bandini, Codex, 416.

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fast, was castigated by the chronicler Ion Neculce, because eating meat during the fast was a sin.149 Fish was also on the prohibited list.150 The most common food items allowed during fasting were vegetables, cooked very simply, without oil, and cabbage pickled in brine, which kept from one year to the other.151 On Saturdays and Sundays, there were allowances for oil and wine. Drinks which were not prohibited were apple must and, in some situations, beer and mead. During fasting periods, taverns were closed and drinking raki in public was a punishable offence.152 Monks and hermits who, according to the canons of Saint Basil the Great, were supposed never to eat meat, to eat vegetables only during fasting, and fish and cheeses during the rest of the year.153 Under the influence of the majority Eastern Orthodox population, some of the Moldavian Catholics started abstaining from meat and even from milk154 and adopted the habit of consuming meat on the Friday after Easter.155 In other areas, however, where the Lutheran influence ran deeper, Catholics used to eat meat during fasting periods as well.156 At Easter, people brought to church vessels and platters with food prepared especially for the occasion: eggs painted “in all manners and colours”, roast meats and brioche loaves, over which the priest uttered special prayers for eggs and cheese, as well as a separate benediction of the meat.157 Traditional foods included a special Easter cake called in Romanian pască, a name which, of course, comes from the Latin stratum of the language.158 At Easter court festivities, the prince offered a banquet where the clergy had fish, and the other guests partook of a wide array of meats.159 Wedding banquets are well-documented.160 Unfortunately, those who left descriptions only mentioned various ceremonial aspects and the drinking of

149  Neculce, Opere, 291–3. 150   Călători străini, vol. 5, 79. 151  Paul de Alep, Jurnal, 199; Lupescu, Din bucătăria, 153; Ciocanu, “Alimentaţia,” 241. 152  Paul de Alep, Jurnal, 197, 199. 153   Călători străini, vol. 5, 278; Cantemir, Descrierea, 231, 359. 154  Bandini, Codex, 416. 155   Călători străini, vol. 5, 79. 156   Călători străini, vol. 7, 80. 157  Paul de Alep, Jurnal, 221; Văduva, Paşi, 167–8. 158  Savin, Universul, 23, 86; Văduva, Paşi, 85–6; Buzilă, Pâinea, 242–3; Ciocanu, “Alimentaţia,” 254. 159   Călători străini, vol. 7, 267–8. 160   Călători străini, vol. 5, 76; Călători străini, vol. 7, 266; Kemény, Memorii, 259; Văduva, Paşi, 189–91.

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wine,161 with almost no detail on the dishes themselves. The reason for this was, as observed earlier, that the “emphasis was on quantity rather than quality. The specifics of the cooked dishes mattered less than their abundance.”162 There is only one exception: Dimitrie Cantemir talks about a cockerel roasted whole in its own plumage, and this only because it was involved in a ritual.163 We have some information on the aforementioned wedding of Maria, daughter of Prince Vasile Lupu, where “there was much leisurely drinking,” the displays on the “tables were wide and rich” and the “freshly cooked food” was made in the Polish fashion,164 which corresponds to the testimony of chronicler Miron Costin who wrote that “the masters of food” had been hired from outside Moldavia’s borders.165 Funeral feasts are equally well-documented.166 Offerings were made for the soul of the dead, which consisted of roast meat, fish, wine, beer and colivă, a kind of wheat porridge sweetened with honey, which was made exclusively for funerals and was thus laden with ritual symbolism. Lists of expenses for funerals and for commemoration services held at twenty or forty days, half a year and a year from death mention a number of items, such as: a sackful of flour, a block of salt, wheat and beer,167 two sackfuls of wheat flour, three okka (3.864 litres) of raki168 or wine.169 Some people pre-planned their own funerals and made lists of the foods and beverages to be offered. Available lists include items such as: a cow, five sackfuls of flour and 30 vedre of mead (c. 386 l).170 Wheat and flour were undoubtedly needed for making the ritual colivă and certain types of funeral bread loaves, better known from ethnographic sources.171

161  Cantemir, Descrierea, 323, 325. 162  Izabella Krizsanovszki, Fascinaţia enogastronomică în literatura română (Iaşi: 2010), 81. 163  Cantemir, Descrierea, 325. 164  Kemény, Memorii, 259. 165  Costin, Opere, 121. 166  Văduva, Paşi, 191–196; Lucian-Valeriu Lefter, “Ospăţul funerar în Moldova: Mărturii istorice şi etnologice,” Anuarul Muzeului Etnografic al Moldovei 10 (2010): 475–500. 167  Petronel Zahariuc et al. (eds.), DRH, A, vol. 28 (Bucharest: 2006), 4, no. 6. 168  Ioan Caproşu and Elena Chiaburu (eds.), Însemnări de pe manuscrise şi cărţi vechi din Ţara Moldovei: Un corpus, vol. 1 (Iaşi: 2008), 308. 169  Ghibănescu (ed.), Ispisoace, vol. 2/1, 37, no. 23; Văduva, Paşi, 47–8. 170  Zahariuc et al. (eds.), DRH, A, vol. 28, 162, no. 205. 171  Văduva, Paşi, 72–4; Buzilă, Pâinea, 179–218.

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The Table as System of Social Representation

The banquets at the princely courts of the Romanian Principalities have ­attracted the interest of historians in recent times. The focus of recent investigations has been both on conspicuous consumption as a way of displaying wealth and prestige, and on banqueting as a manifestation of power.172 Less attention has been devoted to the study of the objects and utensils used on princely and elite tables, both of those with practical functions and of those used for mere decoration.173 The frescoes at Suceviţa show tables covered with tablecloths and runners, either entirely white or bordered in red. Often they have embroideries on their overhangs (Figs. 7.1–7.5, 7.9). The use of these textiles is confirmed in written sources, which include references to tablecloths and napkins made of basic fabrics or to more elaborate pieces made of silk—sometimes red silk—or taffeta, as well as to Polish tablecloths.174 Only one such piece has been preserved. Made of white silk, it dates from the period of Prince Simion Movilă (r. 1606–1607) and was part of the wealth of the aforementioned Monastery of Suceviţa.175 It is not possible to tell whether it was meant to be used on an ordinary table or to cover the table in front of the Holy Altar. On its overhangs, embroidered in gold, silver and silk threads, is the coat of arms of Moldavia,

172  Constantinescu and Cazacu (eds.), O lume, 7–25; Cazacu, The Story, 44–65; Lucian-Valeriu Lefter, “Ospăţul în Moldova: Ritual de comuniune şi gest al puterii,” Opţiuni istoriografice 2–6 (2001–2005): 81–93; Dorina Tomescu, “Ceremonia ospeţelor la curtea domnească în secolul al XVIII-lea,” Muzeul Naţional 15 (2003): 111–19; Claudia Tiţa, “De la diversa cibaria la hrana Raiului: Ospeţe voievodale şi coduri alimentare în Ungrovlahia secolului al XVI-lea,” Caiete de antropologie istorică 8–9 (2006): 13–22; Sorin Iftimi, “Ceremoniile Curţii domneşti: la Crăciun, Anul Nou şi Bobotează (secolele XVII–XIX),” in Spectacolul public între tradiţie şi modernitate: Sărbători, ceremonialuri, pelerinaje şi suplicii, eds. Constanţa Vintilă-Ghiţulescu and Mária Pakucs-Willcocks (Bucharest: 2007), 51, 54–5, 59–61, 69; Maria Magdalena Székely, “La célébration de la victoire en Moldavie à 1518,” Classica & Christiana 10 (2015): 329–51. 173  Constantinescu and Cazacu (eds.), O lume, 26. 174  Iorga, Documente, vol. 2, 95, no. 355; Călători străini, vol. 5, 595; Călători străini, vol. 4, 501; Corfus, “Odoarele,” 304, no. 25; Iorga, Studii, vol. 7, 179; Zahariuc, “Două catastife,” 192, no. 2; Zahariuc et al. (eds.), DRH, A, vol. 27, 49, 50, no. 43. 175  Ştefan S. Gorovei, “Patrimoniul nostru istoric. Studiu de caz: Mănăstirea Dragomirna,” in Dragomirna: Ctitori şi restauratori (Sfânta Mănăstire Dragomirna: 2015), 123–4, and figs. 9, 10.

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the sun, the moon, and two military saints, George and Dimitrie (Demetrius), or perhaps Mercurius (Fig. 7.11). Sources also mention napkins embroidered with metal thread as well as Turkish napkins, worked with silk thread.176 Napkins could be laid out on the table in napkin rings “decorated in the Hungarian fashion.”177 And when diners washed their hands during the meal, they were given hand towels, embroidered in the same manner.178 In the scenes depicted at Suceviţa, the tables are laid out with flat stemmed dishes, mugs with handles, goblets, basins for handwashing and cutlery (spoons and knives) (Figs. 7.1–7.9). The use of items such as these in the 17th century is documented in written and material sources. Kaolin-made dishes, imported from the Ottoman Empire, were used for serving out the food: plates, mugs and cups of various sizes, painted with floral and geometrical motifs in blue, green, red and black against a white background, with a transparent glaze. Also available were large bowls and plates of light blue Delftware.179 The chronicler Ion Neculce noted that Prince Eustratie Dabija (r. 1661–1665) chose to drink wine from a red earthenware mug—a native variety of pottery—because, he said, wine tasted sweeter than when served in a crystal goblet.180 Examples of dinnerware made of pure gold appear only in the house inventories of the Movilǎ ruling family and in descriptions of princely banquets: plates, kept in their own boxes, platters, trays, four-litre pots and handwashing basins worked in the Augsburg style, small stemless glasses, finely-wrought cups, spoons made of gold or mother-of-pearl with gems mounted in gold, jugs and pewter tankards.181 The diversity of dining and kitchenware made of silver or gold-plated silver is impressive: tureens, plates and platters, mugs (some with a “fish scale” pattern), balloon glasses and goblets, lidded tankards, cutlery (some with handles made of amber), gem-encrusted knives, pestle and mortars from Braşov, small buckets, tongs, jugs and basins. The household inventory of the Movilǎ family shows that silverware was kept in a gilt-edged dresser.182 176  Zahariuc et al. (eds.), DRH, A, vol. 27, 49, no. 43; Zahariuc, “Două catastife,” 192, no. 2; Iorga, Studii, vol. 7, 179. 177  Corfus, “Odoarele,” 296, no. 41. 178  Cantemir, Descrierea, 233; Zahariuc, “Două catastife,” 192, no. 2. 179  Andronic et al., “Săpăturile,” 228–32; E. Neamţu et al., Oraşul, vol. 1, 127; eidem, Oraşul, vol. 2, 228; Andronic, Iaşii, 68–9; Paul de Alep, Jurnal, 183. 180  Neculce, Opere, 197. 181  Corfus, “Odoarele,” 292, no. 22; 293, nos. 23–4; 296, no. 53; 297, nos. 56–7; Paul de Alep, Jurnal, 182. 182  Corfus, “Odoarele,” 292, no. 21.

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The amount of dining silverware ordered by the elites from workshops in Moldavia, Transylvania and the German-speaking world must have been substantial. Only very few of these items have survived, but they do flesh out the impressions we have been able to obtain from inventories, which are not as a rule very generous with details.183 Equally important in elite households were lighting devices such as candle-holders, ranging from those made of unspecified materials to those worked in copper or gold-plated silver in the Augsburg style. Some information on decorative items used on dining tables or in dining areas has survived: we have a reference to a large silver-made elephant184— possibly a centrepiece—and to a large, Dutch salt mill.185 Conclusions As a conclusion to our tentative reconstruction of the kitchens, cellars, taverns, workshops and stores of 17th-century Moldavia, it is possible to venture a few general observations. Both the ingredients and the methods used for their preparation remained largely traditional in the period considered. Eastern influences gradually crept into the eating habits of the elites, chiefly in the form of sweetmeats, sherbet, coffee and some spices. But the major shift in the Moldavians’ culinary culture came in the 18th century,186 when, under Ottoman influence, they opted for a number of radical choices such as, for instance, the previously unimaginable elimination of wine consumption.187 The key ingredients for dishes continued to be sourced locally and prepared in the familiar ways by boiling, roasting, baking and frying. In 17th-century Moldavia, as well as in Transylvania in the same period,188 three staple foods remained at the core of the daily eating patterns: bread, meat and wine. Because of the high cost involved, imported delicacies were affordable only to the well-to-do. 183  Corina Nicolescu, Argintăria laică şi religioasă în Ţările Române (sec. XIV–XIX) (Bucharest: 1968). 184  Corfus, “Odoarele,” 293, no. 27. 185   Călători străini, vol. 7, 355. 186  Simona Nicoară, “De la modelul creştin al cumpătării la dieta alimentară modernă: Marile mutaţii ale structurilor gustului şi consumului (secolele XVI–XX),” Caiete de antropologie istorică 8–9 (2006): 117–29. 187  Voncu, O istorie, 75–6. 188  Enikő Rüsz-Fogarasi, “Nivele de alimentaţie în Clujul din epoca Principatului,” Caiete de antropologie istorică 8–9 (2006): 65.

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Food-related trades and an increase in the numbers of those employed in them responded to a gradual culinary diversification and to the need for a wider range of vessels and utensils. Here, too, the imports of kitchenware and the use of dining ware made of precious metals remained the preserve of a very restricted social group. The pattern of daily meals is not easy to establish. Ethnographic sources and the surviving eating patterns from later periods would suggest that there were three principal meals per day.189 However, the number of meals depended on circumstances such as wealth and poverty, seasons, the impact of wars, travelling, periods of scarcity and famine, fasting days, festivities, celebrations, etc. Alongside their nutritional values, foods had an important symbolic weight. Most were used, in equal measure and without any apparent contradiction, in church services (bread and wine, for example), in magic ritual and in traditional medical practices. In terms of types of food, their consumers and their social status, foodstuffs and meals were quite clearly differentiated: certain foods were appropriate to fasting, others were not; there were foods fit for princes,190 meals prepared for elite (boyar) tables,191 for merchants,192 for monks193 and peasants; there were foods which only the rich could afford, and foods which were available to the middling strata and the poor.194 Throughout our period, the emphasis was on the amount rather than the quality of food. However, while one cannot yet speak of a ‘civilization of taste’ in 17th-century Moldavia, the kind of foods one ate and the ways in which food was presented was a marker of social prestige and wealth.

189  Ciocanu, “Alimentaţia,” 236. 190  Cazacu, The Story, 43–65. 191  Ibid., 65–83. 192  Ibid., 91–105. 193  Ibid., 83–91. 194  See, for comparison, the situation in Cluj: Rüsz-Fogarasi, “Nivele,” 55–66.

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Figure 7.1 The supper at Mamre (the Holy Trinity of the Old Testament). The church of Suceviţa monastery. Courtesy of Petru Palamar.

Figure 7.2 The supper at Mamre (the Holy Trinity of the Old Testament). The church of Suceviţa monastery. Courtesy of Petru Palamar.

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Figure 7.3 The supper at Mamre (the Holy Trinity of the Old Testament). The church of Suceviţa monastery. Courtesy of Petru Palamar.

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Figure 7.4 The Last Supper. The church of Suceviţa monastery. Courtesy of Petru Palamar.

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Figure 7.5 “Wisdom has built her house”. The church of Suceviţa monastery. Courtesy of Petru Palamar.

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Figure 7.6 The nativity of Saint Anne. The Church of Suceviţa monastery. Courtesy of Petru Palamar.

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Figure 7.7 The nativity of Saint John the Baptist. The church of Suceviţa monastery. Courtesy of Petru Palamar.

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Figure 7.8 The nativity of Saint George. The church of Suceviţa monastery. Courtesy of the “Stephen the Great” Research and Documentation Centre of Putna Monastery.

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Figure 7.9 The miracles of Saint Nicholas. The church of Suceviţa monastery. Courtesy of the “Stephen the Great” Research and Documentation Centre of Putna Monastery.

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Figure 7.10

Bread loaf discovered at Negreşti-Neamţ. Courtesy of Rodica Popovici.

Figure 7.11

Tablecloth from Suceviţa monastery, currently at Dragomirna monastery. Courtesy of the “Stephen the Great” Research and Documentation Centre of Putna Monastery.

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Ichim, Dorinel, “Exploatarea sării în Moldova medievală” [Salt-mining in mediaeval Moldavia], in Sarea, timpul şi omul [Salt, time and man], eds. Valeriu Cavruc and Andrea Chiricescu (Sfântu Gheorghe: 2006), 125–31. Iftimi, Sorin, “Ceremoniile Curţii domneşti: la Crăciun, Anul Nou şi Bobotează (secolele XVII–XIX)” [Court ceremonies: Christmas, New Year, St. John—17th– 19th centuries], in Spectacolul public între tradiţie şi modernitate: Sărbători, ceremonialuri, pelerinaje şi suplicii [The public spectacle between tradition and modernity: festivities, ceremonials, pilgrimages, executions], eds. Constanţa Vintilă-Ghiţulescu and Mária Pakucs-Willcocks (Bucharest: 2007), 43–78. Krizsanovszki, Izabella, Fascinaţia enogastronomică în literatura română [The fascination with wine and food in Romanian literature] (Iaşi: 2010). Laurioux, Bruno, Les livres de cuisine médiévaux (Turnhout: 1997). Lefter, Lucian-Valeriu, “Ospăţul funerar în Moldova: Mărturii istorice şi etnologice” [Funeral banquets in Moldavia: historical and ethnological sources], Anuarul Muzeului Etnografic al Moldovei 10 (2010): 475–500. Lefter, Lucian-Valeriu, “Ospăţul în Moldova: Ritual de comuniune şi gest al puterii” [Banqueting in Moldavia: conviviality and display of power], Opţiuni istoriografice 2–6 (2001–2005): 81–93. Lupescu, Mihai, Din bucătăria ţăranului român [The cuisine of the Romanian peasant], eds. Radu Anton Roman, Maria Rafailă and Antoaneta Olteanu (Bucharest: 2000). Lupu, Gheorghe Gh., “Cetăţuia din Iaşi” [The monastery of Cetǎţuia, Iaşi], Buletinul Comisiunii Monumentelor Istorice 8 (1915): 97–121. Meteş, Ştefan, Domni şi boieri din Ţările Române în oraşul Cluj şi Românii din Cluj [Princes and boyars from the Romanian lands and the Romanians of Cluj] (Cluj: 1935). Monah, Felicia, “Noi determinări arheobotanice pentru Moldova” [New archaeobotanical data for Moldavia], Arheologia Moldovei 12 (1988): 303–9. Munteanu, Victor, “Obiecte folosite în practicarea vânătorii tradiţionale aflate în patrimoniul Muzeului Etnografic al Moldovei” [Items used in traditional hunting in the Moldavian Museum of Ethnography], Anuarul Muzeului Etnografic al Moldovei 7 (2007): 363–72. Munteanu, Victor, “Recipiente din corn pentru praf de puşcă aflate în colecţiile Muzeului Etnografic al Moldovei” [Powder horns in the collections of the Moldavian Museum of Ethnography], Anuarul Muzeului Etnografic al Moldovei 10 (2010): 585–92. Nania, Ion, Istoria vânătorii în România: Din cele mai vechi timpuri până la instituirea legii de vânătoare—1891 [The history of hunting in Romania from ancient times to the hunting act of 1891] (Bucharest: 1977). Neamţu, Eugenia, Vasile Neamţu and Stela Cheptea (eds.), Oraşul medieval Baia în secolele XIV–XVII [The mediaeval city of Baia in the 14th–17th centuries], vol. 1 (Iaşi: 1980).

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Neamţu, Eugenia, Oraşul medieval Baia în secolele XIV–XVII [The mediaeval city of Baia in the 14th–17th centuries], vol. 2 (Iaşi: 1984). Neamţu, Vasile, La technique de la production céréalière en Valachie et en Moldavie jusqu’au XVIII e siècle (Bucharest: 1975). Nedici, Gheorghe, Istoria vânătoarei: Vânătoarea în România [A history of hunting in Romania] (Bucharest: 2003). Neţ, Mariana, Cărţile de bucate româneşti: Un studiu de mentalităţi [Romanian Cookbooks: a study of mentalities] (Bucharest: 1998). Nicoară, Simona, “De la modelul creştin al cumpătării la dieta alimentară modernă: Marile mutaţii ale structurilor gustului şi consumului (secolele XVI–XX)” [From Christian models of frugality to modern diets: the major shifts in taste and consumption, 16th–20th centuries], Caiete de antropologie istorică 8–9 (2006): 117–29. Nicoară, Toader, “Din distracţiile societăţii de curte în Ţările Române: Vânători şi plimbări domneşti în sec. XVII şi XVIII” [Court entertainment in the Romanian lands: princely hunts and progresses in the 17th and 18th centuries], Caiete de antropologie istorică 10–11 (2007): 57–78. Nicolescu, Corina, Argintăria laică şi religioasă în Ţările Române (sec. XIV–XIX) [Secular and religious silverware in the Romanian lands, 14th–19th centuries] (Bucharest: 1968). Niculiţă-Voronca, Elena, Datinele şi credinţele poporului român adunate şi aşezate în ordine mitologică [The traditions and beliefs of the Romanian people] vol. 1, eds. Victor Durnea and Lucia Berdan (Iaşi: 1998). Nistor, Ion, “Contribuţii la relaţiunile dintre Moldova şi Ucraina în veacul al XVII-lea” [Contributions to the study of Moldavian-Ukrainian relations in the 17th century], Academia Română, Memoriile Secțiunii Istorice 13 (1932–1933): 185–221. Olteanu, Ştefan, “Meşteşugurile din Moldova în secolul al XVII-lea” [Crafts in 17thcentury Moldavia], Studii și materiale de istorie medie 3 (1959): 101–232. Olteanu, Ştefan, and Constantin Şerban, Meşteşugurile din Ţara Românească şi Moldova în Evul Mediu [Crafts in Wallachia and Moldavia in the Middle Ages] (Bucharest: 1969). Pamfile, Tudor, Boli şi leacuri la oameni, vite şi păsări după datinele şi credinţele poporului român [Traditional Romanian remedies for illness in humans, cattle and poultry] ed. Petre Florea (Bucharest: 1999). Pavlescu, Eugen, Economia breslelor în Moldova [The guild economy in Moldavia] (Bucharest: 1939). Petrică, Virginia, Identitate culinară românească din perspectiva călătorilor străini [Foreign travellers’ narratives and Romanian culinary identities] (Bucharest: 2013). Popescu-Vîlcea, Gheorghe, Un manuscris al voievodului Ieremia Movilă [A manuscript of Prince Ieremia Movilǎ] (Bucharest: 1984).

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Popovici, Rodica, “Câteva date despre o pâine din secolul al XVII-lea, descoperită la Negreşti-Neamţ” [A 17th-century bread loaf discovered at Negreşti-Neamţ], Memoria Antiquitatis 21 (1997): 265–72. Popovici, Rodica, “Cercetări arheologice în aşezarea rurală medievală Măleşti (secolele XIV–XVII)” [Archaeological searches in the mediaeval rural settlement of Măleşti, 14th–17th centuries], Arheologia Moldovei 11 (1987): 169–90. Popovici, Rodica, “Negoeşti, un sat din zona Neamţ în secolele XIV–XVII” [Negoeşti, a village from the Neamţ area in the 14th–17th centuries], Arheologia medievală 4 (2002): 27–45. Popovici, Rodica, “Negoeşti, un village de la zone de Neamţ dans les XIVe–XVIIe siècles,” Arheologia Moldovei 25 (2002): 237–51. Popovici, Rodica, “Quelques données sur un pain du XVIIe siècle, découvert à NegreştiNeamţ,” Arheologia Moldovei 20 (1997): 207–211. Puşcaşu, Voica Maria, Mănăstirea Probota: Arheologie şi istorie [The monastery of Probota: archaeology and history] (Suceava: 2013). Rüsz-Fogarasi, Enikő, “Nivele de alimentaţie în Clujul din epoca Principatului” [Levels of food consumption in Cluj (1541–1691) in the period of the Transylvanian Principality], Caiete de antropologie istorică, 8–9 (2006): 55–66. Sachelarie, Ovid, and Nicolae Stoicescu (eds.), Instituţii feudale din Ţările Române: Dicţionar [Feudal institutions in the Romanian Principalities: a dictionary] (Bucharest: 1988). Savin, Petronela, Universul din lingură: Despre terminologia alimentară românească [A universe in a spoon: the vocabulary of the Romanian cuisine] (Iaşi: 2012). Scherf, Ioana, “ ʼDie Sprache bittet zu Tisch‘: Zu lebensmittelbegriffen in rumänischen redewendungen,” in Culinaria balcanica, eds. Thede Kahl, Peter Mario Kreuter and Christina Vogel (Berlin: 2015), 113–30. Senciuc, Olivia, “Cafeaua şi ceaiul, la noi” [Coffee and tea in Romanian history], Magazin istoric 8 (2015): 47–50. Senciuc, Olivia, “Consumul de alcool şi beţia în Moldova şi Ţara Românească, secolul al XVI-lea—începutul secolului al XIX-lea: Semnalări documentare” [The consumption of alcohol and drunkenness in Moldavia and Wallachia, 16th-early 19th century: documentary evidence], Cercetări istorice 34 (2015): 137–59. Senciuc, Olivia, “Istoriografia românească a alimentaţiei: Geneză, surse documentare, direcţii şi metode de cercetare” [Foodways in Romanian historiography: documentary sources, research methods], Cercetări istorice 30–1 (2011–2012): 65–81. Senciuc, Olivia, “Postul odinioară” [Fasting in the old days], Magazin istoric 3 (2015): 56–9. Spinei, Victor, and Elena Gherman, “Şantierul arheologic Siret (1993)” [The archaeological digs at Siret, 1993], Arheologia Moldovei 18 (1995): 229–50.

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Stoicescu, Nicolae, Sfatul domnesc şi marii dregători din Ţara Românească şi Moldova (sec. XIV–XVII) [The Princely Council and the high dignitaries in Wallachia and Moldavia, 14th–17th centuries] (Bucharest: 1968). Székely, Maria Magdalena, “Bucate şi leacuri de altădată” [Foods and remedies of the past], Revista de istorie socială 8–9 (2003–2004): 205–36. Székely, Maria Magdalena, “La célébration de la victoire en Moldavie à 1518,” Classica & Christiana 10 (2015): 329–51. Tiţa, Claudia, “De la diversa cibaria la hrana Raiului: Ospeţe voievodale şi coduri alimentare în Ungrovlahia secolului al XVI-lea” [From diversa cibaria to heavenly food—princely banquets and alimentary codes in 16th-century Ungrovlachia], Caiete de antropologie istorică 8–9 (2006): 13–22. Tomescu, Dorina, “Ceremonia ospeţelor la curtea domnească în secolul al XVIII-lea” [Banqueting at the princely court in the 18th century], Muzeul Naţional 15 (2003): 111– 19. Turcu, Constantin, Ştiri noi despre pretendentul Alexandru Davidel [New information on the pretender Alexandru Davidel] (Iaşi: 1948). Ţurcanu, Rodica-Cristina, “Erlebtes, Erzähltes, Erforschtes: Eine kulinarischlinguistische Reise durch Rumänien mit zeitlichen und räumlichen Abstechern,” in Culinaria balcanica, eds. Thede Kahl, Peter Mario Kreuter and Christina Vogel (Berlin: 2015), 253–74. Ungureanu, Gheorghe, Gheorghe Anghel and Constantin Botez, Cronica Cotnarilor [A chronicle of Cotnari] (Bucharest: 1971). Văduva, Ofelia, Paşi spre sacru: Din etnologia alimentaţiei româneşti [Heavenwards: the ethnology of Romanian food] (Bucharest: 1996). Voncu, Răzvan, O istorie literară a vinului în România [A literary history of wine in Romania] (Bucharest: 2013).

Chapter 8

The “Emperor’s Pantry”: Food, Fasting and Feasting in Wallachia (17th–18th Centuries) Violeta Barbu From the basic nourishment of poorer people to the most refined meals of the elites, the ingredients and cooking methods used in old-regime Romania (17th and 18th centuries) had very specific features. The salient feature is contextual and relates to the paradoxical contrast between the country’s bountiful land and the economic inefficiency of local agricultural practices. Secondly, as a peripheral colony of the Ottoman Empire, Wallachia was located at the crossroads of different culinary traditions, both Western and Eastern. Finally, the typical diet of commoners and elites alike was moulded by religious practices of fasting and feasting inherited from Byzantium. This chapter explores these three inter-connected features from the perspective of historical and religious anthropology. It does not focus on the various techniques of cooking food, but rather on the ways in which the preparation and consumption of food reflects facts of regional climate, realities of the social and political order, as well as collective representations and attitudes in old-regime Romania. This research aims to address questions that are still relevant today. What are the reasons why the abundance of natural resources failed to stimulate culinary creativity and diversity, and why was food left to serve basic needs of nourishment rather than more refined requirements of the palate? Why was it that hospitality, apparently the most praised virtue of the Romanians, did not engender a culture of culinary sophistication? Which were the traditions, both inherited and imported, which mingled to create the culinary culture of Wallachia in the 17th and 18th centuries? The research draws on a variety of sources, some of which are only indirectly related to food and culinary practices: ­travellers’ accounts, testaments, commercial registers, chronicles and religious literature.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi 10.1163/9789004367548_010

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A Poor Rich Country

In the “Emperor’s Pantry”1 there are few humans but plenty of land.2 The natives do not work hard, the land is fertile and would be even more productive if people actually farmed it.3 Foreigners visiting the Romanian lands often made such comments, which were reiterated so often across two centuries that they almost became stereotypical representations of the areas. The lands appeared to possess an endless wealth of pastures and forests,4 honey and salt, sheep and cattle.5 “This country may be called indeed a jewel ill set, what would it be under the hands of taste and industry.”6 And elsewhere: “the country’s soil is so bountiful, that its inhabitants would not lack in anything, if only they could work with care and skill.”7 The soil is left uncultivated in many areas of the country, but if there were more people here like there are elsewhere, there “would not be another country like her.”8 The Romanians do not till the soil 1  Tr. kiler, kilâr = granary, pantry. 2  Giovanni Botero, Relazioni universali (1611), in Călători străini despre Ţările Române, vol. 4 (Bucharest: 1972), eds. Maria Holban et al., 374–5. [Hereafter Călători străini]. 3  Bartolomeo Locadello, Descriere anonimă atribuită lui ~ (1641), Rom. trans. in Călători străini, vol. 5, 34. Compared to the productive land in Wallachia, terrains in Balkan areas such as the Peloponnese and Anatolia only had 20 to 30 per cent of arable land. See Michel Kaplan, Les hommes et la terre à Byzance du VIe au XIe siècle: Propriété et exploitation du sol (Paris: 1992); Johannes Koder, Der Lebensraum der Byzantiner: Historisch-geografischen Abriss ihres mittelälterlichen Staates im östlichen Mittelmeerraum (Vienna: 2001), 55. 4  Anonymous, A Prospect of Hungary and Transylvania (London: 1664), 44–5; Edmund Chishull, Travels in Turkey and back to England (London: 1747), 82, 85. For more on Edmund Chishull, see Paul Cernovodeanu, “Ţările române în viziunea călătorilor englezi (a doua jumătate a secolului al XVII-lea şi primele decenii ale celui de-al XVIII-lea,” Studii şi materiale de istorie medie 6 (1973): 111–44, 116; Alexander Drace-Francis, “‘Like a Member of a Free Nation, He Wrote Without Shame’: Foreign travelers as a trope in Romanian cultural tradition,” in Travel and Ethics: Theory and practice, eds. Corinne Fowler, Charles Forsdick and Ludmilla Kostova (New York, Abingdon: 2014), 186–7. 5  Naima Efendi, Turkish historian (18th c), Naima Tarih-i, ed. Zuhuri Danişman, vol. 1 (Istanbul: 1967), 102. 6  Lady Elisabeth Craven (1750–1828), Journey through the Crimea to Constantinople in a series of letters, (London: 1789), 319. For comments on the “jewel ill set” metaphor see Larry Wolff, Inventing Eastern Europe (Stanford: 1994), 121. 7  Johann Filstich (1684–1743), Tentamen historiae valachicae, eds. Adolf Armbruster and Radu Constantinescu, (Bucharest: 1979), 46: “Iam faecunda est terra provinciae hujus, ut cultoribus nihil denegaret, modo eamdem diligentius et prudentius tractarent.” 8  O descripţie anonimă a Ţării Româneşti (sfârşitul sec. al XVIII-lea), in Studii şi documente cu privire la istoria românilor, ed. Nicolae Iorga, vol. 3 (Bucharest: 1901), 57.

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two or three times a year,9 but only once, and they produce only what they need over the year. They place the seed in the soil and it is enough for the grain to be under a thin layer of earth for it to give a plentiful harvest. Such observations may seem superficial. Some of the visitors go beyond the obvious and probe the causes of the perceived economic backwardness of Wallachia. One of them was the Venetian diplomat Pietro Businello (1705–1765), who wrote: Because the land is but little cultivated and rivers not readied for navigation, because the population is decreasing and people do not have a desire to change their habits, in a country where anyone who possesses wealth is deemed a felon, every individual is content with earning what he needs for a modest living. Fear and the malevolence of men cause the gifts of nature to seem idle.10 These are some of the comments made by foreigners when transiting the Romanian lands or when they came to govern parts of them, as was the case with the Austrian officials when the Habsburg Empire had temporary control of the south-eastern part of the country (Oltenia) between 1718 (the Treaty of Passarowitz) and 1739 (the Treaty of Belgrade).11 The most fertile areas of the country remained unaerated and desolate, because the peasants lacked clear agreements with the landowners and remained idle most of the time. Even when such agreements existed, and peasants were bound to till the land and sow in the spring and autumn, many preferred to flee from one village and one

9  This observation, made by a few foreign travellers, is not correct: the Romanians practised crop rotation, with which they had been familiar since the Byzantine period. See Koder, Der Lebensraum, 56. The Florentine secretary of Prince Constantin Brâncoveanu (1688–1714), Anton Maria del Chiaro (1660?–post 1726?), noted that in the autumn the land was tilled twice and the autumn wheat was sown, whereas millet and maize were sown in the spring for harvesting in late summer: Anton Maria del Chiaro, Istoria delle moderne rivoluzioni della Valachia (1718), ed. Nicolae Iorga (Bucharest: 1914), 31. 10  Pietro Businello, Historische Nachrichten von der Regierungsart, den Sitten und Gewohnheiten der osmanischen Monarchie, ed. Christoph Wilhelm Lüdecke (Leipzig: 1778), in Scarlat Callimachi, Din cărţi vechi: Pagini privitoare la istoria românilor (Bucharest: 1946), 167–8. 11  Report of the Austrian administration of Oltenia to General Etienne de Steinville, military governor of Transylvania (20 October 1719), in Relaţiile agrare în Ţara Românească în secolul al XVIII-lea, vol. 1, eds. Florin Constantiniu and Şerban Papacostea (Bucharest: 1972), 280–7.

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county to another, so that they could evade paying their dues to the state or to the Austrian administration.12 But if the land was not efficiently farmed, what was the explanation for its perceived bounty? First of all, natural fertility is a feature which creates a striking first impression. Upon first gazing on the rich pastures on which large herds of cattle grazed peacefully, Paul Strassbourg, a German-born Swedish Aulic councillor, noted in 1632: “I would say that in the entire Christian world there is no land more fertile than that of Wallachia.”13 The pastures, waterways and forests were either communally owned by the villages, or were part of the landed estates of private individuals and major monasteries. In the 17th and 18th centuries these domains underwent processes of unprecedented concentration, at the expense of the small peasant landholding, processes seen by March Bloch as the end of the agrarian community and the start of agrarian individualism.14 However, one cannot speak yet of an industrial revolution in the Romanian lands in this period. Such an important change in the countryside only became possible later, after the secularisation of monastic lands (1863) and the achievement of independence from the Ottoman Empire (1877). Secondly, the immense agricultural potential of these regions was heightened by the contrast with the poor exploitation of the land, a contrast which the foreign observers, “prisoners of their official status, collectors of impressions from the carriage window and the guesthouse table,”15 captured in transit through the unstable lens of the travelling gaze. Many blamed the indolence of the natives, for whom work was deemed to be the greatest enemy.16 Others were perceptive enough to realise that the residents’ reluctance to exploit the natural richness given to them by the Creator was a type of cultural resistance to Ottoman colonialism or to any other form of tributary exploitation. As long 12  Report of the imperial administration of Oltenia (14 February 1736), in Relaţiile agrare, eds. Constantiniu and Papacostea, vol. 1, 358. The flight of peasants was common in other areas of the Balkan Peninsula. Cf. Heleni Antoniadis-Bibicou, “Villages désertés en Grèce: Un bilan provisoire,” in Villages désertés et histoire économique (Les hommes et la terre, 11), eds. Fernand Braudel et al. (Paris: 1965), 343–417. 13  Sandor Szilágiy, Georg Rakoczi I im dreissigjärigen Krieg 1630–1640 mit Urkunden aus schwedischen und ungarischen Archiven (Buda-Pest: 1883), 104. 14  Marc Bloch, “La lutte pour l’individualisme agraire,” Annales d’histoire économique et sociale 2 (1930): 329–83. 15  Alexandru Duţu, “Le rythme des contacts culturels et l’évolution des mentalités,” in Actes du VIIe Congrès de l’Association Internationale de Littérature Comparée, Budapest, 1976 (Stuttgart: 1980), 109. 16  Daniel Barbu, Bizanţ contra Bizanţ: Explorări în cultura politică românească (Bucharest: 2001), 89–134.

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as all surplus became taxable, why attempt to produce? “Poverty and, if need be, the simulation of poverty could be a form of self-defense,” wrote a well-known Romanian sociologist in a classic study of the delayed transformation of the Romanian peasant into farmer.17 Harvesting was minimal and calibrated on the subsistence needs of the family over a year, irrespective of the risk of famine in case of an always possible natural calamity. The cereal yield was called “bread,” an almost mystical way of designating a treasure which was stored not in barns or granaries, but in “holes” carved underground and lined with clay or stones, where it was supposed to be safe from the Tatars’ punitive raids. But what gap is there between these, more or less superficial, representations based on transient impressions and the reality of Wallachia’s agrarian economy in the pre-modern period? The population was, indeed, sparse. On the European demographic map of 1620, according to Pierre Chaunu, the two Romanian provinces, Moldavia and Wallachia, were among areas with a density of between 5 and 20 inhabitants per km2, areas covering the Balkans, Poland, Russia and the Ottoman Empire, and demographic growth did not improve in the next century.18 Underpopulation, unlaboured land, settlements of around 50 families (= 200 inhabitants)19 scattered at great distances from each other, these are some of the negative long-term trends in the demographic geography of early modern Eastern Europe in the early modern period. Generally speaking, the observations of foreign travellers in the period do not reflect, as one would expect, efforts to organize territories, patterns of land ownership or farming and grazing techniques. The ‘open fields’ aspect of the landscape described by travellers was largely due to that fact that the normal route would take them from the old capital of the province, Târgovişte, to the new one, Bucharest, across a wide expanse of fertile fields—“una vasta e 17  Henri H. Stahl, Teorii şi ipoteze privind sociologia orânduirii tributale (Bucharest: 1980), 131. For similar views, see Matei Cazacu, The Story of Romanian Gastronomy (Bucharest: 1999), 33. 18  Pierre Chaunu, La civilisation de l’Europe à l’âge classique (Paris: 1966), 245; Lia Lehr, “Factori determinanţi în evoluţia demografică a Ţării Româneşti în secolul al XVII-lea,” Studii şi materiale de istorie medie 7 (1974): 162–204. In 1600, the estimated population stood at c. 300,000 inhabitants and reached c. 650,000 towards the end of the century. 19  Henri H. Stahl, Contribuţii la studiul satelor devălmaşe româneşti, vol. 1 (Bucharest: 1958), 36. Using as a source records of the conscription ordered in Oltenia by General Count Damian von Virmond in 1722, the average calculated by Henri H. Stahl is 44 families which, at 5 members per family, amounts to c. 200 inhabitants. For comparison, villages in Byzantine Macedonia had 500 inhabitants; see Angeliki E. Laiou, “The Agrarian Economy, Thirteenth–Fifteenth Centuries,” in The Economic History of Byzantium: From the seventh through the fifteenth century, ed. Angeliki E. Laiou (Washington DC: 2002), 317–8.

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deliziosa pianura, in cui non trovasi ne pur una piccola pietra,”20—with very few villages, scattered here and there. The majority of human settlements, with complex systems of communal ownership and division of the land, were concentrated, however, in the sub-Carpathian and mountainous areas, where some of the patterns of autonomous organization survived until the installation of the communist regime in the mid-20th century.21 These regions were dominated by the “eternal order” of individual land plots with “oblong” borders22 which allowed access to the river and its fish, the pasture with the meat and the milk, the fields which yielded some cereals, albeit less than in the plains, and the forest with the timber and game. Another characteristic feature of agriculture in Wallachia was the seasonal migration of the mountain villagers down to the plains to farm large areas of arable land which did not belong to anybody. They paid their taxes, and then loaded the harvest onto their carts and returned home.23 What the representations of endless, uncultivated, yet fertile fields and the data on communal ownership of resources in some mountainous areas have in common is the fact that they were governed by the rule of custom and oral tradition. Like the Byzantines, the Wallachians tilled, sowed and harvested using the same tools and methods for centuries, with little awareness of technical experimentation or revolutions which might have led to more efficient farming.24 In these regions, human intervention on the environment remained minimal, with the exception of the complex management of mills and fish ponds, which was similar to other Balkan areas such as Macedonia, for instance.25 The widespread practice of allowing the soil to go fallow for three consecutive years26 was bound to contribute to the observers’ impression of fields left unattended and desolate. The region’s agrarian-pastoral occupations seem to have been governed by a certain technical immutability at least until the intervention of 20  “a vast and delightful flatland without the smallest stone in sight.” Del Chiaro, Istoria, 21. 21  The most enlightening example is the area around Vrancea, right outside the eastern arc of the Carpathians, which in the inter-war period was the object of an in-depth and comprehensive sociological study by Henri H. Stahl: Nerej, un village d’une région archaïque, 3 vols. (Bucharest: 1939). 22  Stahl, Contribuţii, 90–8. 23  Ilie Corfus, Agricultura Țării Românești în prima jumătate a secolului al XIX-lea (Bucharest: 1969), 60–6. 24  Alain Ducellier, Byzance et le monde orthodoxe (Paris: 1986), 181–7. 25  Jacques Lefort, Paysages de Macédoine: Leur caractères, leur évolution à travers les documents et les récits des voyageurs (Paris: 1986), 228. 26  For this method, which involved letting the land ‘rest’ for three years without cultivation, see Corfus, Agricultura, 68.

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the Russian administration in 1830, which exposed the backwardness of the system: the amount and quality of the wheat were inadequate because of the failure to have two separate crops in the spring and autumn, fields were cleared with rudimentary rakes, and seeds were not threshed.27 Hence, presumably, the idyllic, almost paradisal, aspect of the natural landscape which struck foreigners for centuries. Neither foreigners nor natives had any doubt that the fertility of the earth was a given, a natural, as well as a divine, gift, granted freely and for eternity. However, the Wallachians retained a sense of vulnerability and impotence in the face of nature, as calamities struck unpredictably and uncontrollably. Life could be effortlessly good when the rains came at the right time, when snow covered the cultures in winter and the sun warmed them for long periods in the summer,28 as suggested by many private notations on the margins of books and manuscripts. It was, of course, still God who sent rains, droughts, floods, invasions of locusts and cattle epidemics. But divine intervention, on which depended today’s bread and tomorrow’s harvest, remained within a moral and prophetic order of things, which had nothing to do with labouring the land or looking after the livestock. When natural calamities struck,29 it was deemed to be a potent sign of God’s wrath, a punishment for sins or a cautionary tale that nature as a whole only obeys the divine will. An unexpected climatic change could be a harbinger of enemy invasions, war, and plunder. Conversely, wellfilled barns and yards teeming with cattle were signs of divine protection for the elect. This pervasive faith in a supreme, omniscient and unfathomable providence was so powerfully embedded in the collective mentality that even princes’ reigns were often judged in terms of the wealth or poverty they created for the country as a whole. When a prince ruled under providential grace, the earth was bountiful, harvests were collected without fear of Tatars’ plundering attacks, livestock was cheap, and apiaries overflowed with honey, because, the saying went, “the prince was fortunate in every food that his land yielded.”30 Agricultural labour in Wallachia remained entrenched in a cosmic, 27  Ibid., 199–205. 28  Daniel Barbu, Scrisoare pe nisip: Timpul şi privirea în civilizaţia românească (Bucharest: 1996), 17–18; Paul Cernovodeanu and Paul Binder, Cavalerii apocalipsului: Calamităţile naturale din trecutul României (până la 1800) (Bucharest: 1993), 13–7. 29  For a chronology of famines in the Romanian lands in the 17th and 18th centuries, see Toader Nicoară, Sentimentul de insecuritate în societatea românească la începuturile timpurilor moderne (1600–1830) (Cluj-Napoca: 2002), 32–73. 30  Ion Neculce, Opere. Letopiseţul Ţării Moldovei şi O samă de cuvinte, ed. Gabriel Ştrempel (Bucharest: 1982), 378; D. Barbu, Scrisoare, 18.

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natural cycle with biblical overtones throughout what one might call the long Middle Ages.

The Daily Bread

The petition in the Lord’s Prayer with its reiteration of the words “day, daily” (Give us this day our daily bread) is a reminder of the precarious lives of the humble multitudes in the early modern period. The daily portion of bread, called in some Romanian versions of the prayer “pâinea noastrǎ cea spre fiinţǎ” (our life-giving bread) is a symbol of life, and the petition itself was not simply an expression of piety. In the 17th and 18th centuries people everywhere in Europe were trying to survive under the threat of famine31 and wars, of which the Thirty Years’ war was perhaps the worst. A few months after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, a terrible famine broke out in the region of Cevennes, amidst a shortage of wheat and chestnuts, the period’s regional staples. Many peasants survived on roots and herbs.32 Estimates show that around a third of Germany’s population in towns and villages alike starved in periods of harvest failure or high prices.33 Against this European backdrop, West-European visitors perceived Wallachia as a land of wheat and wine, a recurring image which, by dint of repetition, became almost a stereotype. According to Wallachia’s Metropolitan, Antim Ivireanul,34 good governance was determined first and foremost by prioritising a plentiful supply of bread on the market, with justice and safety following in second place. The Romanians valued, even venerated, bread, to which they devoted many sacred and secular rituals. And although in the collective imaginary bread was primarily linked to salt as a joint emblem of hospitality and sharing, it retained its Eucharistic aura. In modest, ordinary households, making the sign of the cross on the back of a loaf before cutting and serving it echoed the Eucharistic ritual of the breaking of the liturgical bread. As 31  Jean Delumeau listed the “fear of starvation” as one of the most oppressive forms of fear in old-regime societies. La peur en Occident (Paris: 1978), 162–7. 32  Ibid., 179. 33  Richard van Dulmen, Kultur und Alltag in der Frühen Neuzeit, vol. 1, 3rd ed. (Munich: 1999), 68. 34  Antim Ivireanul (Anthimos of Iviria), “Sfaturi creştine-politice către Io Ştefan Cantacuzino voievod de Antim din Ivir,” trans. Constantin Erbiceanu, Biserica Ortodoxă Română, 14 (1891), 339; Ligia Livadă-Cadeschi, De la milă la filantropie: Instituţii de asistare a săracilor din Ţara Românească şi Moldova în secolul al XVIII-lea (Bucharest: 2001), 120.

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they were induced into a sacred space, in ways which recalled Judaic and early Christian rituals, bread, flour and wheat itself, received a blessing which transfigured their basic alimentary function. The popularity which these rituals of blessing enjoyed among the faithful from the Middle Ages to the modern age, sprang from a deep need for protection and safety. Because the rural population in Europe relied on good harvests and healthy livestock, these had to be subjected to apotropaic rituals, expressed in open-air processions and litanies, held in the period ahead of Ascension.35 Prayers for the blessing of grains and fruit were part of the Roman liturgy and Missal (Benedictio novorum fructuum, In conserendis agris, Post collectos fructus terrae)36 as well as of the Eastern Orthodox Molitvelnic [Prayer Book]37 and were insistently demanded by the Catholic faithful in Moldavia, as shown in Bartolomeo Bassetti’s Spaeculum ordinis, a collection of decisions by the local Catholic Synod of Cotnari (1642) (Iaşi county), sent to Rome as an annex to the minutes of the Synod’s debates.38 Such blessings (Rogationes) were prescribed in the Rituale Romanum (1614) of Pope Paul V as “blessings of fruits, vineyards and fields,” beside blessings over foods to be consumed during Easter: eggs, lamb, bread, etc. Parishioners would bring these offerings to be blessed in church on patron saints’ days and major religious festivals. The blessing rituals were popular among the Eastern Orthodox and Catholic faithful of the Romanian Principalities, judging from the written testimonies of the Catholic Bishop Petru Bogdan Baksić and the Orthodox deacon Paul of Aleppo.39 In the first printed translation into Romanian of the Molitvelnic (Râmnic, 1706), based on Nicolae Glykis’ Greek edition (Venice, 1691),40 the Metropolitan of Wallachia Antim Ivireanul selected the following prayers, for the same 35  Jean Delumeau, Rassurer et protéger (Paris: 1989), 52–6. 36   Missale Romanum (Rome: 1975), 830–2. 37  Cf. Nelu Zugravu, “Mărturii despre ʻcreştinismul popularʼ în epoca lui Vasile Lupu,” Anuarul Institutului de Istorie A. D. Xenopol 31 (1994): 33. Zugravu believes that these prayers were prohibited by the synods. Such blessings as well as other prayers to be used “for various needs,” are part of a legacy of paganism which the Church attempted to convert and manage, as evidenced by their official standardization in the post-tridentine ritual. A blessing of the fields, included in both the Molitvelnics and in the Roman rite, was practised in Poland, for which see Violeta Barbu, Purgatoriul misionarilor: Contrareforma în ţările române în secolul al XVII-lea (Bucharest: 2008), 497–8. 38   Călători străini, vol. 7, 46. 39  Petru Bogdan Baksić (Petrus Deodatus Baksić), “Vizitaţie canonică” (1640), Rom. trans. in Călători străini, vol. 5, 236; Paul de Alep, Jurnal (1653), vol. 6, 36, 64, 66, 69, 80, 85, 86, 96, 97, 290. Zugravu, Mărturii, 33. 40  Daniela Poenaru, Contribuţii la bibliografia românească veche (Târgovişte: 1973), 173–84.

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considerations as the Catholic missionary Bartolomeo Bassetti: “Prayer for the tasting of grapes on the 6th day of August”41 (p. 398), “Prayer for the ripening of fruit” (p. 347), “A ceremonial for fields, vineyards and gardens” (p. 352). Then, as today, the faithful carried baskets of bread, rolls, ears of wheat, grapes, and fruit into church for the blessing. In Wallachia, like in the Byzantine world, bread had a central role in gifting rituals in which it was offered to officials, among other offerings, as an anticipation of favours or promotions or as an expression of gratitude for them.42 It was often the principal, or even the only, food item offered in such circumstances. In April 1654, an incoming ruler, Prince Constantin Șerban, was welcomed by his new subjects with gifts of fruit, flowers, green branches, as well as kids, geese, ducks and ears of wheat, as recorded by the deacon Paul of Aleppo.43 When complainants went to the ruling prince or to the Metro­ politan to seek justice, they offered platters with freshly-baked loaves of bread covered by hand-embroidered napkins.44 Eastern Orthodox Patriarchs (of Constantinople, Jerusalem, Alexandria, or Antioch) who transited Wallachia or resided as guests at the courts of Bucharest and Târgoviște received similar gifts from the local boyars. At Easter, foreign visitors valued by the ruling prince received copious gifts of food (lambs, pigs, kids, game, wine, live poultry, etc) which, according to Anton Maria Del Chiaro,45 could have kept them eating in style even without other resources. Alongside bread, fish and wine—all symbolically-laden gifts—the rich members of the local nobility and their wives vied with each other in offering exotic imports from the Ottoman Empire (lemons, oranges, raisins, figs and nuts). Court servants, who were under the jurisdiction of the High Pitar (Fr. Grand Panetier), received ears of wheat from the prince, which was then baked into bread for them.46 Bread also featured prominently in gift exchanges occasioned by rites of passage such as marriages and commemorations for the dead. At commemoration 41  Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord. 42  Anthoullis Demosthenous, “The Scholars and the Partridge: Attitudes related to nutritional goods in the twelfth century from the letters of the scholar John Tzetzes,” in Feast, Fast or Famine: Food and drink in Byzantium, eds. Wendy Mayer and Silke Trzcionka (Brisbane: 2005), 25–31. Daniel Barbu, “Iertarea şi dreptatea sau despre economia socială a darului,” in idem, ed. O arheologie constituţională românească (Bucharest: 2000), 61–2. 43  Paul de Alep, Jurnal de călătorie în Moldova şi Valahia, ed. Ioana Feodorov (Bucharest: 2014), 274. 44  Paul de Alep, Jurnal, 255; Nicolae Iorga, Opere economice, ed. Georgeta Penelea (Bucharest: 1982), 597. 45  Del Chiaro, Istoria, 49. 46  Nicolae Iorga, “Vechimea culturii porumbului la noi,” Revista istorică 6 (7–9) (1920): 173.

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banquets bread served as food, plate, spoon and napkin at the same time.47 Metamorphosized as a Venetian-style panettone,48 bread was brought by the peasants of the landed estates as a gift for the weddings of their masters’ sons and daughters, alongside live animals, wine, and fruit baskets covered with hand-embroidered napkins (Rom. mahramǎ, from Tr. mahrama/makrama, meaning kerchief).

Leavened Dough, Blessed Bread, Easter Bread

The types of bread used in church depended on the liturgical roles assigned to it in the Eastern Orthodox rite: consecrated bread or blessed bread.49 During the 17th century, the Wallachian elites and the Greek Church hierarchs in Constantinople engaged in a passionate dialogue with the Catholics about the contested roles of bread in the liturgy: should one use leavened or unleavened bread (Rom. azimă, from the neo-Greek azimitis) for the Eucharist?50 The debate might possess the appearance of theoretical sophistication, but ultimately, I believe that it had a major and enduring impact on the manner in which bread was generally prepared in Wallachia in the latter half of the 17th century. The sudden transition from the unrisen bread of the galette type, baked right over the embers, to the fluffy, well-risen loaf, made of white wheat, offered on the table of the affluent cannot be dissociated from the inter-confessional dispute over the host. During the Counter-Reformation, the Romanian theologians’ contribution to the debate started with the letter of Matthew, Metropolitan of Lycian Myra, to Necula from Ioannina, treasurer of Wallachia,51 preserved in a Greek

47  Bridget Ann Henisch, Fast and Feast: Food in medieval society (London: 1976), 155; at commemoration feasts the poor received bread and roast meat on a napkin. See Paul de Alep, Jurnal, 259, 335, 367. 48  Del Chiaro, Istoria, 70; Violeta Barbu, Ordo Amoris: O istorie a instituției căsătoriei în Țara Românească în secolul al XVII-lea (Bucharest: 2011), 174. 49  Albert Failler, “Pain consacré et pain béni dans la liturgie byzantine: Les ambiguités de la terminologie,” Revue d’études Byzantines 70 (2014): 351–64. 50  Reginald Maxwell Wooley, The Bread of the Eucharist (London: 1913), 23–9. 51  On this Greek official, see Nicolae Iorga, “Fundaţiuni religioase ale domnilor români în Orient,” Analele Academiei Române. Memoriile Secţiunii Istorice, 2nd series, 36 (1914): 871, 874; Nicolae Stoicescu, Dicţionar al marilor dregători din Ţara Românească şi Moldova (Bucharest: 1971), 217–8.

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manuscript52 at the Monastery of Iviron (Greece). In this letter, addressed to the Greek-born Necula Catargi, High Treasurer of Wallachia, on 7 March 1621, the Metropolitan of Lycian Myra rejects the Latin ‘innovation’ of the unleavened bread. The question of the Eucharist bread re-emerged in the late 17th century in the Enchiridion [Manual] by Maxim of Peloponnese,53 printed in Bucharest in 1690, and subsequently published in Romanian at Snagov in 1699 under the title Carte sau lumină asupra dezghinării papistaşilor [A book of enlightenment on the schism of the papists]. The short treatise enclosed in the volume and entitled Pentru azime [On liturgical bread] (fols. 77v–85v) claims that when Jesus invited his disciples to the Last Supper, unleavened bread was not yet in use. In a demonstration drawing on Aristotelian analogies, Maxim of Peloponnese shows that the distinction between the two types of bread can better be understood if one thinks of differences between other types of matter: the bodies of animals and the bodies of humans. While the matter is the same, the properties differ. In the third section of the treatise, the author turns to considerations of a spiritual nature as he argues that what was old, i.e. the unleavened bread, was jettisoned alongside the old “shadows and forms,” in other words the prefigurations of the Old Testament. The difference between unleavened and leavened bread should not be dismissed as being caused by tradition and habit, because tradition and habit can change, Maxim argues. An argument such as this had allowed the Latins to commit another, even more serious, abuse, according to Maxim: the administration of the sacrament under both species only to consecrated individuals, not to laymen, which contravened the word of the Redeemer. A statement such as this was a direct attack against the Council of Trent. The Romanian elites had another writing available in their intellectual arsenal: a treatise on the Eucharist, published for the first time at Târgovişte in 1710 in Greek, the Panoplia dogmatike by Euthymios Zygabenos,54 a work of polemical theology written in the 12th century and directed against the Armenians. In chapter 23, the theologian castigates the Armenians for using unleavened 52  Biblioteca Academiei Române [Romanian Academy Library, hereafter BAR], Greek MS. 1437 (fols. 58r–64v). The manuscript, an Archieratikon (collection of religious services), and the letter on the dispute over bread were first mentioned by Petre Ş. Năsturel in “Mélanges romano-athonites (2),” Anuarul Institutului de istorie A.D. Xenopol 28 (1991): 57–9. The author announced the forthcoming publication of the text which he had transcribed, but that never happened. 53  A disciple of Meletios Pegas, Patriarch of Alexandria. 54  Nadia Miladinova, The Panoplia Dogmatike by Euthymios Zygabenos: A study on the first edition published in Greek in 1710 (Leiden-Boston: 2014).

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bread for the sacrament. To support his position, Euthymios Zygabenos made a very audacious declaration, saying that in the course of time, the church can change its rites according to the changing needs of its flock. This echoed the message of the Decretum 692 (Pro graecis) of the Council of Florence (1438– 1439). In addition, Zygabenos argues, the use of unleavened bread as sacrament was part of the Judaic tradition. It was a very specious debate, which invited, probably in the interval from 1707 to 1715, the intervention of no less a figure than the Wallachian ruling prince, Constantin Brâncoveanu (1688–1714). In the late 19th century, Constantin Erbiceanu published a collection of Greek documents, in Romanian translation, among which was an undated epistle from the Wallachian prince to the Patriarch of Jerusalem, Chrysanthos Notaras, which was in fact a “short treatise” on the use of unleavened bread as sacrament.55 Prince Constantin Brâncoveanu was no stranger to theological disputations, but in this case the booklet was probably the work of a court scholar, subsequently endorsed by the prince. This epistle made it clear that, in the conception of the Wallachian Eastern Orthodox, the Latin innovation of the unleavened bread amounted to a profanation of the Eucharist. This view became so widespread, that an Italian missionary called Benedetto da Cortona, a priest in the port of Galaţi, was denounced at Christmas 1670 to the Catholic Bishop Vitto Piluzzi by his parishioners for having offered a “pizza” instead of the sacramental host.56 Because of rumours that he had threatened to become a “schismatic,” one can assume that, like the Eastern Orthodox, he had used leavened bread for the sacrament. The Eucharist debate in the Romanian lands was joined by Dositheos, Patriarch of Jerusalem, who made an important disciplinary contribution in his Instructions of 1698 sent to Athanasie Anghel,57 Metropolitan of Transylvania, who was about to accept the Union with the Church of Rome. Concerned to preserve Eastern traditions safe from Catholic influence, the Patriarch recommended that the liturgical bread should be made exclusively of “pure, well-risen wheat dough.” Towards the end of the 17th century, the social elites had adopted leavened day for daily consumption, whereas the poor continued to consume the unleavened variety. As a consequence, in Wallachia,

55  Constantin Erbiceanu, “Documente istorice inedite,” Biserica Ortodoxă Română 15 (1891): 487–9. 56   Moldvai csángó-magyar okmánytár, vol. 2, ed. Kálmán Benda (Budapest: 1989), 624. 57  Timotei Cipariu, Acte şi fragmente (Blaj: 1855), 240–51; Mihail Săsăujan, “Die Instruktion des Patriarchen Dositheos für Athanasie,” in Die Union der Rumänen Siebenbürgens mit der Kirche von Rom, vol. 1, eds. Johann Marte et al. (Bucharest: 2010), 196–214.

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the Romanian fluffy, tasty white bread became not only an emblem of confessional identity, but also of social distinction between the affluent and the poor. Beside the unleavened liturgical bread (Rom. azima), the issue of the blessed bread (Gr. antidoron, Rom. anafura) caused some confusion for the foreign observers of other confessions visiting the Romanian lands in the 17th and 18th centuries. In the main, the bewilderment was caused by the importance which individuals of the Eastern Orthodox rite accorded to the antidoron/anafura, the blessed bread, and to the preparation of the sacramental bread (Gr. prosphoron, Rom. prescura).58 Some details on this “anafura,” given by the priest at the end of the liturgical service to the faithful who had not taken the Eucharist, but had observed the period of fasting, were offered to the European reading public by the Flemish doctor and historian Nicolaos Blancardus (Nikolaas Blankaart) in his book Chronicon Ecclesiae Grecae. This writing, edited by Philip of Cyprus, a protonotary at the Patriarchal Church in Istanbul, appeared in two versions, in Latin and Greek, both published in 1619 at the printing house of the University of Cambridge, and re-printed in 1678 by the printer Ioannis Gyselaer,59 in a volume which also included Christophoros Angelos’ De statu hodiernorum Graecorum enchiridion. Chapter fourteen in Blancardus’ volume, “De pane sacro, Peri tou agiou artou,” is entirely devoted to the preparation of the artos, the bread to be taken by the Greek Christians to church to be blessed.60 The dough which the priest will later cut into small sections (Rom. miride, from the Gr. merida) for the consecration is made, very piously, by the faithful in their own home and taken to church as an offering. The couple in whose house the dough is made had to abstain from conjugal intercourse starting with Friday. The bread bears the sign of the cross on the crust and is taken into church and offered in honour of the Virgin Mary. The priest uses the copia (ritual knife) to cut the bread into four sections as he utters a blessing and a prayer over it, as described by Blancardus: “in memory of Christ, in memory of the Virgin, […] these will be used for the Eucharist; the rest is cut into small pieces and is distributed at the end to those who have fasted, to those who have taken communion (communicantibus), as well as

58  A prosphoron is a small loaf of leavened bread used in the Orthodox liturgy. 59  Philippi Cyprii protonotarii Constantinopolitani Chronicon Ecclesiae Graecae Nicolaus Blancardus et manuscripto Byzantino primus vulgavit et latine reddidit; accedit ejusdem cura Christophori Angeli de Statu hodiernorum Graecorum Enchiridion, cum latina interpretatione Georgii Felavii (Franeker: 1678). 60  A loaf of leavened bread with a seal depicting the Resurrection of Christ; the artos is blessed during the Great Vespers and during the Easter Liturgy. See Wooley, Bread, 45.

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those who have not (non communicantibus).”61 This blessed bread, Blancardus explains, is called by the Greeks antidoron or anaphora (instead of the gifts): “Nominant vero panem hunc antidoron hoc est vicemunus […] ut donum aliquod divinum exhibit.” The anafura (Gr. antidoron) is then distributed to all62 the faithful present in church, at the end of the liturgical service, a tradition introduced chiefly in order to replace communion, which was less often practised in the Eastern Orthodox rite than it was in the Catholic church. Another important testimony of the major role of the anaphora (blessed bread) among the Greeks of the Ottoman Empire comes from the writings of Sir Paul Rycaut (1629–1700).63 The diplomat and Orientalist scholar speaks about the spiritual and therapeutic uses of this bread in which the Eastern Christians believed as in a “representation or shadow of the Holy Eucharist”: Panis Benedictus, or Blessed Bread, called in Greek antidoron is an appendage to the Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist. In the Eastern Church it hath been of ancient custom to seal the Bread made for the Communion with the form of a Cross, which is afterwards taken off, consecrated and set apart for the Sacrament. The parts which remain are blessed, and, after the Divine Service is finished, are distributed in small parcels to the People. The original hereof they deduce from the Apostles, interpreting those places in Scripture which mention continuance in Prayer, and breaking Bread, to be no other than the very act and practice of dealing this blessed Bread, as in Acts 2. v. 42. […] And they continued stedfastly in the Apostles Doctrine and Fellowship, and in breaking of Bread, and in Prayers. This Bread they often carry home to the sick, and to such whose employment engages to their Domestical Affairs at home; as containing there in a Virtue and Efficacy to remit all venial sins, and to conserve in a pious Soul a constant devotion to Divine Worship. To this Bread they carry so much respect that they eat it not, unless fasting; for being a representation or shadow of the Holy Eucharist, it ought to have a proportionable reverence in its degree.64 When the bread dipped in wine is distributed at the end of the Easter liturgy, the faithful regard this blessed paschal bread appropriately called paşti 61   Chronicon, 35; V. Barbu, Purgatoriul misionarilor, 417. 62  Canonically, only those who have not taken communion will partake of the anafura. 63  Paul Rycaut, The Present State of the Greek and Armenian Churches, anno Christi 1678 (London: 1679). 64  Rycaut, The Present State, 178–9.

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or paşte (Easter bread in Romanian) as a substitute for communion. There were—futile—attempts at dislodging the use of the Easter bread and wine, for example, in the book Învăţătură despre Şapte Taine ([A teaching about the Seven Mysteries (1702). An admonition in the chapter “Pentru Paştile ce faceţ la Ziua Învierii Domnului Isus Cristos” [For the Easter bread which you use on the day of our Lord’s Resurrection] sheds light on the risk of the new ritual undermining communion and on the ensuing polemics with the Catholic65 and the Protestant world.”66 The title of the chapter announces a pedagogical opposition between the bread and wine called paşti (paşte), which was very popular among the Wallachian faithful, and the event of the Resurrection (the day of the Lord Jesus Christ’s Resurrection, called in Romanian with the same word, Paşti). The church hierarchs ordered all priests to abandon this ritual because of the many abuses it entailed, abuses which only served the critics of the “rightful Orthodox faith.”67 Of the serious abuses listed, the replacement of the annual Easter communion with the offer of bread and wine, which now many of the faithful confused with the Eucharist, was deemed perhaps the most pernicious. Perhaps equally serious was the habit of calling this mixed offering68 by the name paşti: “Therefore, let us not call other offerings Easter bread [paşti], nor give this kind of bread to the flock.”69 Half a century later, the soul-damaging habit had not been dislodged. When Cretan-born Neofit, Metropolitan of Wallachia (c. 1690–1753) arrived in the province, he found the use of the Easter bread (paşti), which he called by the Greek name paximan,70 among a range of “impious and vile habits” which he denounced. As he travelled across the country on his canonical visitation, which none of his predecessors had ever done, the hierarch was appalled by the amorality of the believers, who turned their back on the holy communion

65  V. Barbu, Purgatoriul misionarilor, 419. 66  Filstich, Tentamen, 252: “Quid faciant cum suo Paschate Feriis paschalibus, quibus quilibet de cibo hocce ex tritico cocto facto et […] aliquid sumit, maxima consequendae gratiae divinae spe, notum est omnibus qui cum Valachis commune habent habitaculum.” [All those who live amongt the Romanians know what they do at Easter […] when they all gorge themselves on Easter bread in the hope that they will earn the grace of God.]. 67   Învăţătură despre Şapte Taine (Buzău: 1702), fols. 22r–24v. 68  This is how Anton Maria del Chiaro describes it in his Istoria, 107–8: “In essa copa vi è del vino e alcune fettucce di pan brustolito […]”. [In this goblet there is wine and a few morsels of toasted bread.]. 69   Învăţătură despre Şapte Taine, fol. 24r. 70  Sliced barley bread, Gr. paximadi, see Andrew Dalby, Flavours of Byzantium (Totnes: 2003), 79. The origin of this habit could be the use of the artos.

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for the sake of bread and wine. In a pastoral letter issued at Easter 1739, the Metropolitan vented his anger in these terms: First, many amongst the people do not know what the Holy Communion is, and only go to church on the day of Holy Easter, not to listen to the service of the holy liturgy and partake of the Holy Sacraments, having gone to confession earlier to prepare for the sacraments, but only to take bread and wine, paximan, or what is called Paşti amongst you. Yet others have not gone to confession for years and all their lives, as I can see, they have not known confession and communion, but on Easter Sunday they run to church and take that bread and that wine and the holy water named agheasmǎ, and call it Paşte.71 There is no evidence to support the conclusion that a variant of the Easter bread (paşti) called, with a related term, pasca (a home-made roll filled with sweet soft cheese) which the priests blessed at the end of the Easter midnight service alongside other foods brought in by the faithful, was available in Wallachia before the late 19th century. Even for that period, the evidence is only available for northern Moldavia and Bukovina.72 The tradition of the blessed Easter bread (paşti) was there to stay: it is still practised today, as an expression of a superstitious faith in the “power of sharing bread at a special time”,73 i.e. paschal time.

From Wheat to Bread

Although wheat was cultivated quite regularly on relatively large acreages in the plains, it was chiefly an export item and subject to the Ottoman monopoly for the provisioning of Istanbul (Tr. zahire) and only secondly for preparing bread for domestic consumption. Only once the demands of the suzerain Porte had been met, were the reminders channelled towards the domestic markets

71   Petre Ş. Năsturel, “Le christianisme roumain à l´époque des invasions barbares: Considérations et faits nouveaux,” Buletinul Bibliotecii Române 12 (1984): 257, 251–9; D. Barbu, Scrisoare, 34. 72  Simion Florea Marian, Sărbătorile la români, vol. 2, ed. Iordan Datcu (Bucharest: 1994), 174–81. Conversely, a tradition described as “the giving of the paschal bread” (Rom. darea paştilor) (181–4) corresponds to the custom described by Metropolitan Neofit. 73  D. Barbu, Scrisoare, 35.

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or exported.74 As early as the 16th century, Wallachia and Moldavia contributed substantially with supplies of wheat to Constantinople, with annual amounts estimated at 200,000 tonnes. The amounts of wheat to be sold by the top landowning boyars were negotiated with Turkish middlemen (Tr. madrabaz, var. madrapaz), wholesalers, ship-owners and captains at inferior prices, and were re-sold to the Ottoman state, because the so-called monopoly on exports meant in fact a weak control of the Ottoman state over this trade. Not unlike in other parts of the world, white bread was a luxury only the rich could afford: called “jimblǎ” (from the Magyar zsemble), or “franzelǎ,” from the Turkish francala,75 denoting the white alla franca loaf made for European tastes, it was prepared from fine flour of soft wheat (triticum aestivum). Unleavened dough was baked over the embers.76 Towards the end of the 17th century, the white, fluffy bread made with dough leavened with yeast made from hops gained ground.77 This type of bread appeared more frequently in the refined courses served at court banquets in the next century,78 as a basis for sauces and made dishes. As an accessory, breadcrumbs formed the liaison for gravies and fillings, mixed with ground almonds and nuts, cinnamon, nutmeg, lemon juice, pomegranate juice, and sugar, a recipe which recalls the old Venetian sauce called peverada.79 Meat, fish or venison dishes were served at table on a bed of bread, sometimes toasted, which was also a Venetian-Levantine culinary style. If the dishes were too juicy, a few bread slices were used as a kind of blotting top. Around the latter half of the 18th century, under Russian influence, rye and

74  Iorga, Opere economice, 596; Maria Matilda Alexandrescu Dersca-Bulgaru, “Contribution à l’étude de l’approvisionnement en blé de Constantinople au XVIIIe siècle,” Studia et acta orientalia 1 (1958): 13–37; Rhoads Murphey, “Provisioning Istanbul: The state and subsistence in the Early Modern Middle East,” Food and Foodways, 2 (1988): 217–63; Bogdan Murgescu, “Avatarurile unui concept: Monopolul comercial otoman asupra ţărilor române,” Revista istorică, new series, 1 (1990): 819–45. 75  Evliya Çelebi, Seyahatname, Rom. trans. in Călători străini, vol. 6, 485. 76  Ibid. Paul de Alep, Jurnal, 175: the daily food allocation of Makarios, Patriarch of Antioch, comprised white bread and butter for the hierarch and wholemeal bread and meat for his entourage and servants. 77  A bread recipe of Dr. Constantin Caracaş, chief medic of the city of Bucharest (1804–1828), in O lume într-o carte de bucate, eds. Ioana Constantinescu and Matei Cazacu (Bucharest: 1997), 190. 78  Constantinescu and Cazacu (eds.), O lume, passim. 79  Clifford A. Wright, A Mediterranean Feast: The story of the birth of the celebrated cuisines of the Mediterranean, from the merchants of Venice to the Barbary corsairs (New York: 1999), 516–17.

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wheat were cultivated alongside each other, which resulted in breads made if this mix of grains. Travellers through South-East Europe, such as the English merchant Robert Bargrave in 1650, found the bread they could purchase basic, but very tasty.80 The flavour and texture of the bread depended largely on the type of flour used. Whether white or dark,81 flour was ground by hydraulic mills, of which each village had at least one. As the country’s waterways were rich and fairly evenly distributed, milling can be said to have been possibly the most common occupation on the estates of the great landowners and monasteries, as well as in the villages themselves. Mills with horizontal wheels, of the Greek type, as well as Roman-style, vertical mills with undershot wheels82 were operating in almost every hamlet and village in Wallachia, as evidenced by the numerous legal disputes over the floodings they triggered. The operation and legal disputes linked to the watermills were governed by the prescriptions of the Byzantine legal code Nomos georgikos (The farmer’s law), adopted and translated by the Balkan Slavs, the Russians and the Wallachians in 1652.83 Bread was moulded on a special table or in a wooden trough (Rom. moldǎ), in which it was allowed to rise at length, especially for larger amounts of dough.84 Flour had to be sifted carefully, then the yeast—made of a mix of hops, bran and onion, named “ţaică”—was added to make the dough rise before it was baked in an oven. However, the majority of the clay-brick or wooden hovels in which the Wallachian peasants lived were not equipped with ‘in-the-wall’ 80  Robert Bargrave, The Travel Diary of Robert Bargrave, Levant Merchant (1647–1656), ed. Michael G. Brennan (London: 1999), 132, Rom. trans. in Călători străini, vol. 5, 486. 81  The use of dark flour was cautiously adopted in the 18th century alongside rye cultures. See Jean Claude Flachat (1705–post 1766), Călătorie prin Ţara Românească, Rom. trans. in Călători străini, vol. 9, 259. 82  Dyonisios Stathakopoulos, “Between the Field and the Plate: How agricultural products were processed into food,” in Eat, Drink, and Be Merry (Luke 12:19): Food and wine in Byzantium. Papers of the 37th annual spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies, in honour of Professor A.A.M. Bryer, eds. Leslie Brubaker and Kallirroe Linardou (Aldershot: 2007), 35–7. Markus Rautman, Daily Life in the Byzantine Empire (Westport-London: 2006), 181–3. 83  Chapter 83 of the Nomos georgikos, in Walter Ashburner, “The Farmer’s Law,” Journal of Hellenic Studies 32 (1912): 94–5. For the Romanian translation see Îndreptarea Legii (Târgovişte, 1652), eds. Andrei Rădulescu et al. (Bucharest: 1962), 291 and Legislaţia agrară a Ţării Româneşti (1775–1782), eds. Valentin Al. Georgescu and Emanuela Popescu (Bucharest: 1970), 23–5. 84  Spiridon Cristocea, Catagrafii din secolele XVIII–XIX ale unor mănăstiri şi schituri din judeţul Argeş (Piteşti: 2013), 274–5.

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ovens (Rom. sg. ţest, pl. ţesturi), and the practice of bakery as a specific occupation is not documented before 1700.85 By the early 18th century, records show a rise in the number of bakeries (Rom. pitǎrii) in urban settings, rather than in the countryside. Also documented is the introduction of kilns (Rom. furnu, from the Gr. furno) in special bakeries called simigerii (from the Tr. simit = bread roll), which produced pretzels and pies, and were often business investments by high-ranking boyars.86 The manner in which they were embedded in the urban environment was founded on the anachronistic rules of Byzantine law. The regulations on the construction of bakeries derived from the section on urban law translated by Toma Carra87 in 1804 from the Byzantine compilation by Constantinos Harmenopoulos88 entitled Hexabiblos (Procheiron nomōn). The ultimate source—which had little in common with the factual realities of old-regime Wallachia—were the Byzantine municipal regulations on bakeries and bakers included in the Book of the Eparch (or Prefect) (865 AD) of Emperor Leo VI the Wise,89 which stipulated, among other things, that bakeries should be built on the outskirts of cities to protect against fires.

From Millet to Corn

In Wallachia, no less than in West-European countries,90 cereals, in the shape of bread, porridges and pita, were the staple food for the majority of the population. Ostensibly, “the country is rich in all varieties of grains,”91 travellers noted, but in the 17th century the most commonly cultivated and used cereal was millet, overtaken in the following century by corn. Here lies the chief difference: whereas in southern Europe, millet was, more or less irreversibly, replaced by all the other cereals which can be turned into bread, in the Romanian lands it maintained its hegemony under the name mǎlai, followed by barley, oats, buckwheat and rye. 85  Ştefan Ciobanu and Constantin Şerban, Meşteşugurile din Ţara Românească şi Moldova în Evul Mediu (Bucharest: 1969), passim. 86   Documente privitoare la istoria oraşului Bucureşti (1594–1821), ed. George Potra (Bucharest: 1961), 355, 475. 87  Cup-bearer and jurist in 18th-century Moldavia. 88  Constantine Harmenopoulos (1320–c.1385), Byzantine jurist. 89  Dalby, Flavours, 64. 90  Chaunu, La civilisation, 292. Cf. a list of weekly ingredients for the three daily meals, including fasting days, of a modest German family from Munich in 1618, see Van Dulmen, Kultur und Alltag, vol. 1, 69–70. 91  Baksić, “Vizitaţie,” in Călători străini, vol. 5, 204.

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Like elsewhere in the Balkans, in the Romanian Principalities millet (Lat. millium) was the staple cereal, which served for making a type of flatbread. In the mid-17th century, the Bosnian Franciscan Ivan Desmanić, who had initiated the construction of a church in the region of Caraşova (Caraş Severin county), found himself abandoned by the day labourers hired as builders because they refused to eat millet bread. The crisis came to an end only when the priest and one of the servants went around the village to collect a bit of wheat.92 In spite of the fertility noted by the foreign observers in Wallachia, the flatbread made of millet flour was the most common foodstuff among the rural population in all Romanian-speaking areas. If it is true that the quality of bread depends on a few factors such as the kind of grain, the making of the dough, the form of the oven and the baking process, the length of time between baking and eating,93 one may presume that millet bread responded best to demands of basic simplicity and availability. Millet thrived in fallow fields (Rom. ţelinǎ), and the timeline of its cultivation and growth overlapped with that of the transhumance and grazing patterns of the herds of sheep, as it was sown in April and harvested in September.94 The unleavened bread made of coarse millet flour was then boiled or baked over the embers or at the top of the oven.95 The baking was performed in the most basic manner, as one observer noted: “[…] ex milii contusi fururacea farina tortam subcinericam sine salis (sic!) condimento in magnis festivitatibus comedant […]”96 Still grown on large acreages in the early 18th century, as evidenced by a special tax levied on it,97 millet was gradually replaced with corn, which became the new staple in the 19th century. Wheat, barley, oats, millet, corn, buckwheat, spelt, were all shipped along the Danube towards Constantinople, along with other key produce demanded 92  Tόth István György, Politique et religion en Hongrie au XVIIe siècle: Lettres des missionaires de la Propaganda Fide (Paris: 2004), 169. 93  Simeon Seth, On the Properties of Foods (Bordeaux: 1939), 137; Dalby, Flavours, 77. 94  Teodor Pamfile, Agricultura la români (Bucharest: 1913), 195–6. Vera Costăchel, Petre P. Panaitescu, and Andrei Cazacu, Viaţa feudală în Ţara Românească şi Moldova (sec. XIV– XVII) (Bucharest: 1957), 31. 95   Călători străini, vol. 8, 315: “most of them do not eat bread,” wrote the Swedish Captain Erasmus Heinrich Schneider von Weismantel. 96  Marco Bandini, Codex. Vizitarea generală a tuturor Bisericilor catolice de rit roman din provincia Moldova 1646–1648, ed. Traian Diaconescu (Iaşi: 2006), 191: “at major festivals they eat a flat bread made of a bran-like flour from ground millet, baked over the fire, and unsalted.” 97  Doc. dated 20 October 1719 referring to the tithe on wheat, barley, oats, millet, corn and buckwheat, in Relaţiile agrare, eds. Constantiniu and Papacostea, vol. 1, 284–7.

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by the suzerain power: honey, butter, wax.98 The grains were processed on the banks of the Danube itself by a curious type of ‘floating’ watermills, as described by the scholar Evliya Çelebi (Tr. tuna değirmenleri). Positioned between two ships, to which they were attached with cables, the Danubian mills could be dragged from one location to another and moored on the banks with large baskets made of trunks of wild vine and filled with stones. Residents on both banks could bring their grains for grounding. Each floating mill—there were seventy or eighty of them—could accommodate two or three families and was equipped with spacious kitchens where bread and pies were baked. In winter they were stored inland. The Wallachian prince Şerban Cantacuzino (1678–1688) is remembered as the ruler who introduced the cultivation of corn in the province.99 The grain was called gran turco in Italian, türkischer Weizen in German and blé de Turquie in French. Over a long period, cornmeal (Rom. mălai), as well as millet flour,100 both used to make polenta (Rom. mămăliga),101 became the food of the poorer peasants across the country. For the next three centuries, the Romanian villages, like the Italian cities, lived in a “civilisation of the polenta” (civilità della polenta).102 The Romanian mămăliga was described as a “coarse porridge of cornmeal boiled in water, which could be cut with a knife when cold”103 and could be kept and consumed over several days.104 Corn was a versatile cereal from which the Romanian peasant uses several derivates. The ripe ear of corn 98   O descripţie anonimă a Ţării Româneşti, 57; Nicolae Iorga, Studii și documente, vol. 13, 53. 99  Del Chiaro mentioned it as “il formentone o sia grano turco” in his book Istoria, 31. In 1770, in a report to the Russian authorities, the Ban Mihai Cantacuzino attributes this merit to his predecessor, Prince Şerban Cantacuzino. See Iorga, Vechimea, 170–5. On recent research on the spread of corn (maize) in Europe and the misleading designation “grano turco”, see note 111 in Margareta Aslan’s chapter in the present volume. 100  On the confusion between the two cereals (often called in Romanian mǎlai, from the name of the flour they yielded), see Lucien Febvre, “Nourritures et boissons: Les gaudes; du coquelicot au cidre,” Mélanges d’histoire sociale 5 (1944): 75–7. 101  Peter Mario Kreuter, “Zuckerwerk und zehn Bouteillen Wein. Oder: Was uns reise- und diplomatische Berichte über das kulinarische Leben in den Donaufürstentümern mitteilen können,” in Culinaria balcanica, eds. Thede Kahl, Peter Mario Kreuter and Christina Vogel (Berlin: 2015), 198. 102  Giovanni Vicentini, La civilità della polenta (Modena: 1980). 103  Friedrich Schwanz von Springfels, Beschreibung der Österreichischen Wallachey (1720– 1723), Rom. trans. in Călători străini, vol. 9, 67. 104  For foreigners’ reactions to mămăliga, see the contributions by Angela Jianu and Andrew Dalby in this volume.

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could be baked over the embers to make corn on the cob. When ground, corn was used to make polenta or thin, baked flatbreads. These replaced bread,105 and were eaten as an accompaniment to milk, cheese, lentils, fish, meat, beans, onions and garlic. Pan-fried mămăliga, cooked with butter, was called the “boyar’s mămăliga,” and was considered by an Italian visitor to have been as tasty as the polenta of Lombardy.106 Whether it came via a Venetian, or a Turkish channel, corn spread rapidly in the Romanian lands, because the Ottomans were not interested in this cereal and the Romanian rulers only started levying a tithe on it after 1750.107 In the early 19th century, the cultivation of corn in Wallachia had overtaken that of wheat, to reach 70 per cent of the total grain cultures,108 before the Russian administration attempted to restore earlier ratios with the reform programs of 1831. Although living next door to the pilau-eating Turks, the Romanians only adopted rice in the 18th century. An expensive item and imported delicacy, rice transited Wallachia on its way to Transylvania from the early 16th century.109 However, the lists of purchases and expenses of the large landed estates of boyars and monasteries only started mentioning it as an item for domestic consumption from the 18th century, when vermicelli (Rom. fidea, from the neoGreek phidés)110 and macaroni111 started being imported via the Transylvanian market town Braşov (Hung. Brassó, Ger. Kronstadt).

105  Johann Friedel, Călătorie pe Dunăre (1769), Rom. trans. in Călători străini, vol. 10I, 35. 106  Domenico Sestini, Viaggio da Costantinopoli a Bukoresti (Rome, 1794), Rom. trans. in Călători străini, vol. 10I, 343. 107  Iorga, Studii și documente, vol. 5, 197. Idem, Vechimea, 172. Georges C. Haupt and Traian Stoianovich, “Le maïs arrive dans les Balkans,” Annales. Économies, sociétés, civilisations 17 (1962): 84–93. 108  Corfus, Agricultura, 201–2. 109  Radu Manolescu, “Schimbul de mărfuri dintre Ţara Românească şi Braşov în prima jumătate a secolului al XVI-lea,” Studii şi materiale de istorie medie 2 (1957): 172. Claudiu Neagoe, “Negustori câmpulungeni din secolele XV–XVII,” in Negustorimea în Ţările Române, între Societas Mercatorum şi individualitatea mercantilă, în secolele XVI–XVIII, ed. Cristian Luca (Galaţi: 2009), 75–9. 110   O descripţie anonimă a Ţării Româneşti, 57. 111   Foletul Novel, calendarul lui Constantin Brâncoveanu 1693–1704, ed. Emil Vârtosu (Bucharest: 1942), 122. Iorga, Studii şi documente, vol. 10, 18.

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Fasting: the “Food of Paradise”

With these enticing words, Saint Ephraim the Syrian hoped that he might make fasting more attractive, as he attempted to build what Ken Perry called a gastronomic soteriology112 which argued that salvation depended to a considerable extent on what we eat. In other words, if you are a hortofagos, that is, a vegetarian, you stand every chance of ending up in heaven, or at least you may find your name in the ledger kept by the Lord’s angel, Saint Gabriel. Similarly, the author of the universal monastic law, as practised in Eastern monasticism, Saint Basil the Great, struck a moderately humanistic chord when he tried to reconcile lay people to fasting, which he recommended as the “foundation of homes, parent of health, counsellor of youth, ornament of old age, agreeable companion to the traveller and friend of the man and wife.”113 When mere rhetoric did not suffice, the Church had a more persuasive arsenal of canonical penalties for those who did not observe the fasting periods, as prescribed in its five commandments.114 But, even if the dominant Eastern Orthodox Church had not prescribed fasting so rigorously, poverty would have fostered vegetarianism naturally in the Romanian lands. It was poverty, rather than ascesis, which precluded from the start the consumption of meat, eggs and dairy among the rural population. The Romanians’ fasting patterns appeared unusually strict, and rather strange, to Catholic missionaries and foreign diplomats, but these patterns were distributed unevenly across the social spectrum. Unsurprisingly, fasting was central to the life of ordinary people, without, however, providing a focus for public mobilization or social policing, in the way that the Ramadan did.115 In their concluding reports after canonical visitations in the Romanian provinces, Catholic Franciscan missionaries such as Petru Bogdan Baksić116 and Giovanni

112  Ken Parry, “Vegetarianism in Late Antiquity and Byzantium: The transmission of a regimen,” in Feast, Fast or Famine, eds. Mayer and Trzcionka, 177. 113  “Jejunium domorum incrementum est, sanitatis mater, juventutis peadagogus, ornamentum senibus, bonus comes viatoribus, tutus contubernalis conjugatis.” De jejunio, Homelia I, in Patrologia Cursus Completus. Series Graeca, ed. Jean-Paul Migne, vol. 31 (Paris: 1857), 173. 114   Învăţături preste toate zilele (Câmpulung: 1642), ed. Willem van Eeden, vol. 2 (Amsterdam: 1985), 619. 115   Ramadan et politique, eds. Fariba Adelkhah and François Georgeon (Paris: 2000), 15–28. 116  Baksić, “Vizitaţie,” Rom. trans. in Călători străini, vol. 5, 344–5.

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Bartolomeo Frontali117 expressed their bewilderment not so much in the face of the intransigence of such dietary strictures, but of the almost fanatical attachment to fasting manifested by all sections of the population, bar the elites. Fasting appeared as the most prominent of the teachings and commandments of the Church. “They believe that not respecting the fasting days is more sinful than killing a man,” wrote Petru Bogdan Baksić.118 Poverty made fasting easier in the homes of poorer peasants, while affluence made it more painless to ignore at the tables of the rich, where it could be moderated with the use of fish, seafood, delicacies and spices. Among ordinary folk, Christian devotion appeared to limit itself to alimentary abstinence, as Erasmus Heinrich Schneider von Weismantel noted: .

[…] [I]n order to show that they are true Christians and, moreover, that they belong to the one true faith, they boast of their fasting and observe it scrupulously by eating only food cooked in vegetable oil, like the Russians and Muscovites. And those who keep to the old observance, fast on Mondays as well, and on Saturdays they have meat. There is a lengthy period of fasting before Christmas, three weeks of strict fasting for the day of Saint Philip, as well as four or six weeks for the days of Saints Peter and Paul; the women, although they heed God’s word very little, are keen to observe the fast and their traditions, although many of them rarely go to church or do not go at all.119 What is the explanation for this exclusive, ritualised, attachment to a meatfree diet and how was it articulated within the belief system of the Eastern Orthodox Church in Wallachia? Although they noticed the entrenchment of fasting in people’s daily lives, foreign visitors, including visiting church hierarchs and missionaries, do not appear to note any rationale of a spiritual or ethical nature, such, as for instance, the expiatory, redeeming function of the fast. The chief reason for this entrenchment seems to be simply the stubborn endurance of an age-old tradition. At this point, the historian must step onto anthropological territory. From this perspective, one may wonder whether 117  Giovanni Bartolomeo Frontali (1714–1763), Fransciscan missionary in Moldavia, “Raport post 1747”: “And with these fasting periods of theirs, they believe that they have attained perfection and therefore do not need to heed God’s teachings.” Călători străini, vol. 9, 357. 118   Călători străini, vol. 5, 345. 119  Erasmus Heinrich Schneider von Weismantel, “Jurnal” (1710), Rom. trans. in Călători străini, vol. 8, 353.

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observing the fast in this period may have ossified into an almost conventional ritual gesture which exempted the individual from a personal—and perhaps problematic—engagement with divinity120 in favour of a submission to the prevalent social norms. Whatever the reason, one thing seems certain: in the daily lives of the Wallachians of the Old Regime, fasting was the most important culinary practice, which encapsulated a high degree of social conformity. “Christians in all places, in towns, and villages and households, are readying themselves for the holy days of fast,” wrote Varlaam, Metropolitan of Moldavia, in his Book of Learning.121 Fasting is good at any time and for anything, wrote Saint Basil the Great.122 However, the Church had an established calendar for interdictions on meat and animal-derived foods. In Wallachia, the prescribed weekly fasts were on Wednesdays and Fridays, holy days called the days of Saint Wednesday and Saint Friday in popular mythology. The Wallachian faithful abstained from meat, dairy and fish on these days across the year,123 as well as before major holidays, observing an age-old practice prescribed in the Apostolic Canons (Pidalion), in the Laws of Saint John the Hermit, as adopted by the Ecumenic Synod of Laodicea (364), a tradition emphatically endorsed by the key Eastern patristic authors.124 The choice of the two days is laden with symbolism, because Friday is the day of the Crucifixion and Wednesday the day of Judas’ betrayal. Likewise, complete fasting, called by the Romanians “black fasting” (post negru),125 which means abstaining from food throughout the day until sunset, was practised on the eve of major holidays such as the Nativity, Epiphany, the 120  On the influence of Islamic fasting on Eastern Christianity, see Jacques Ellul, La subversion du christianisme (Paris: 2001), 165. 121  Mitropolitul Moldovei Varlaam, Carte românească de învățătură la dumenecele preste an și la praznicele împărătești (Iași, 1643), ed. Jacques Byck (Bucharest: 1943), 27–9. 122  Ibid. These medical considerations are clearly stated by Saint Basil the Great in his first epistle. 123  In 1723, a Wallachian father (Stoica Bengescu) sent his son to study at the Jesuit College in Braşov (Ger. Kronstadt, in Transylvania), with instructions that he should be given fleshfree food on Wednesdays and Fridays all year. Iorga, Studii şi documente, vol. 12, 22–3. 124  Tamara Talbot Rice, Everyday Life in Byzantium (New York: 1967), 122–3, 168–70; Athanasios Nicholas J. Louvaris, “Fast and Abstinence in Byzantium,” in Fast, Feast or Famine, eds. Mayer and Trzcionka, 190–1; Veronika E. Grimm, From Feasting to Fasting, the Evolution of a Sin: Attitudes to food in late Antiquity (London and New York: 1996); Ewald Kislinger, “Les chrétiens d’Orient: Règles et réalités alimentaires dans le monde byzantin,” in Histoire de l’alimentation, eds. Jean-Louis Flandrin and Massimo Montanari (Paris: 1996), 325–44. 125  Adolf Adam, The Liturgical Year: Its history and its meaning after the reform of the Liturgy (Collegeville, MN: 1992), 92.

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Beheading of St. John the Baptist (29 August) and the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross (14 September).126 In the section on fasting of his Istoria (“Digiuni e quaresimi de’ Valachi”),127 Prince Constantin Brâncoveanu’s secretary, Anton Maria Del Chiaro, detailed the four major annual fasts: two of them lasted forty days (Lent, also called Great Lent, before Easter, and before Christmas) and two short ones of two weeks each (the fast for the holy day of the Apostles Peter and Paul, and the fast for the Dormition of the Virgin). If one adds the two one-day weekly fasts, the annual total of flesh-free days amounted to around 200 days.128 Perhaps even more surprising than the length and severity of the fasting was what it entailed in terms of food prohibitions. All the foreign travellers and missionaries noted the contrast between the wealth of cattle and fish available at comparatively cheap prices in the Romanian Principalities and the bewildering frugality of the Romanian peasant. Meat was only served on the tables of modest households on major feast days and special occasions, which means, as mentioned above, that fasting itself did not stand out as a severe ascesis. The fasting periods, therefore, did not mean abstaining from meat, but from all animal derivates such as dairy and eggs, except on the days in which the Church prescribed special allowances. Records show that the fast observed by the peasants of the Ancien Regime was extreme, involving the abandonment of even the most rudimentary forms of cooking: “They observe these fasts strictly, and eat only garlic, onions and other such things with their bread, without touching cheese, eggs, and least of all meat.”129 Such extremes forms of abstinence were also observed among fasting Turks, who were content with bread, garlic, onions and chillies in part because maintaining a kitchen where cooked dishes could be prepared would have been costly.130 The many fasting periods ‘condemned’ the Romanians to a diet based largely on garlic, onions, bread, cabbage soup, and vegetables, especially legumes such as beans and peas.131 In monasteries, meat was prohibited throughout the year, with the exception of fish, crabs, mussels, oysters, sea urchins, octopus, cuttlefish, and crustaceans (shrimps, langoustines, lobster), which had been traditionally included among 126  Del Chiaro, Istoria, 94. Constantinescu and Cazacu (eds.), O lume, 28–9. 127  Del Chiaro, Istoria, 94–6. 128  Cf. with the flesh-free Catholic fasting, which amounts to around 150 days. Wright, The Mediterranean Feast, 410. 129   Curiose Beschreibung von der Moldau und Wallachey 1699, in Călători străini, vol. 8, 634. 130  Stéphane Yerasimos, A la table du Grand Turc (Arles: 2001), 17. 131  Francesco Griselini, Încercare de istorie politică şi naturală a Banatului Timişoarei, ed. Costin Feneşan (Timişoara: 1984), 177.

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acceptable fasting foods on the basis of the old Byzantine typika (rules for the management of monastic life).132 Our sources show that the consumption of foods such as fish roe, octopus, snails, mussels, crabs and fish entrails (liver and milt)133 during fasting was allowed in monasteries as well as in ordinary households in Wallachia. The allowance in fasting of foods generically called ‘sea fruit’—which has a quasi-vegetarian ring to it—was rooted in the Byzantine belief that, unlike fish, these were undefiled (Gr. hagna, ἁγνά), because they lacked blood.134 Recipe collections from the period included many guidelines on how to prepare “sea fruit”, also much appreciated by the Venetians and the Levantines, alongside vegetables and herbs.135 On the days of allowance for fish, such as the Annunciation during Lent, Romanians queued to buy frozen fish which they carried home like bundles of rigid firewood.136 While this is in line with the Byzantine use of sea fruit, the consumption of snails (escargots) was an innovation which added a touch of distinctive elegance to the tables of the Wallachian elites in the late 17th century. These delicacies were much appreciated by the boyars and even by the ruling princes, as evidenced in one episode when soldiers of the princely guard were sent to collect escargots in the gardens of the Franciscan monks in Târgovişte.137 The early 18th-century cookery book of the Cantacuzino family, which was inspired by a Levantine recipe collection, included no fewer that six recipes for escargots, including instructions on how to clean them. In one recipe, snails were breaded and fried in oil (the pané method), seasoned with fried parsley, garlic and orange juice, and dipped in a light sauce of ground almonds and vinegar. Another, equally refined, way of preparing them was by filling the shells with a mince made of the flesh, with finely chopped onions, parsley, salt, pepper and cinnamon, and baking them on a barbecue. In spite of exceptions, such as those cited above, according to the regulations and guidelines for monastic life relayed from Mount Athos, monastic fasting, as well as that of ordinary people, was based on vegetables and herbs, boiled or cooked in oil. If the latter was made from olives, it was an expensive 132  Hyppolite Delehaye, Deux typica byzantins de l’époque des Paléologues (Brussels: 1921), 81–2; Louvaris, Fast, 196; Dalby, Flavours, 61. 133  Frontali, “Raport,” Rom. trans. in Călători străini, vol. 9, 357; Virginia Petrică, Identitate culinară românească din perspectiva călătorilor străini (Bucharest: 2013), 169. 134  Louvaris, Fast, 197. 135  “Carte întru care să scriu mâncările de peşte i raci, stridii, melci, legume, ierburi şi alte mâncări de sec şi de dulce, după orânduiala lor,” in O lume, eds. Constantinescu and Cazacu, 101–27. 136  Paul de Alep, Jurnal, 257; Petrică, Identitate, 168. 137  Del Chiaro, Istoria, 45.

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item, imported by sea all the way from Trabzon.138 In monasteries, there were two variants of fasting. The extreme form, the so-called post negru (‘black fast’) allowed one meal after sunset. A traditional Romanian saying refers to periods of time and delays as “lengthy as fast days” (Rom. lung ca o zi de post). The less strict version involved two daily meals. Both were based on minimal methods of procuring and preparing ingredients. Key foodstuffs were dried fruit and nut, fresh fruit, bread and wine, which at the time was nothing more than a daily drink accompanying a meal. Nature was the best provider and people scavenged for food on the edge of roads and fields and in forests. Many of the vegetables and herbs sourced in this way have disappeared from today’s Romanian culinary culture. Wild herbs were there waiting to be picked in the spring and summer, and they were to be found abundantly around the fasting periods of Lent and the day of the Apostles. Angelica, wild vine, artichoke, sage, mint, chicory, borage, salad burnet, basil, nettles, lovage and sorrel were all available in the wild. For a more refined salad,139 one could add a number of edible flowers. Records show that people maintained small and large kitchen gardens which gave even capital cities like Bucharest and Târgovişte an aspect of extended ‘green village,’ as noted by travellers.140 Lists of expenses and letters from the period show that legumes and roots vegetables (onions, garlic, leeks, scallions, carrots, turnips, lentils, beetroot, peas and beans, black radishes) were favourites, largely because they could be preserved over winter.141 The uncontested queen of vegetables was cabbage, cultivated on large acreages around Târgovişte,142 and pickled in brine for winter, in the Transylvanian manner, which crossed the Carpathians into Wallachia in the latter half of the 17th century. The tall cellars of the monasteries were often modified to make room for sections, called vărzărie or “small cellar”,143 which accommodated the barrels of pickled cabbage separately from the wine. Evliya Çelebi wrote a ‘hymn’ to the tasty Wallachian celery, kept over winter in the spacious, domed cellars of elite manors, alongside carrots, radishes, kohlrabis, parsley, and beetroot. Over the winter, these vegetables were kept buried in sand in the 138  Baksić, “Vizitaţie,” Rom. trans. in Călători străini, vol. 5, 204. 139  Antim Ivireanul, Opere, ed. Gabriel Ştempel (Bucharest: 1972), 155–6. 140  Simion Câlţia, Aşezări urbane sau rurale? Oraşele din ţările române de la sfârşitul secolului al 17-lea la începutul secolului al 19-lea (Bucharest: 2011). 141  Cf. Johannes Koder, Gemüse in Byzanz: Die versorgung Konstantinopels mit frischgemüse im lichte der Geoponika (Vienna: 1993), 23–8. Idem, Der Lebensraum, 57. 142  Paul de Alep, Jurnal, 255. 143  Catagrafia mănăstirii Aninoasa (1823), in Cârstocea, Catagrafii, 302.

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cellars, using a method which is still practised today, which made the Turkish scholar believe that cellars were essentially places for “growing seedlings and planting.”144 Monasteries had large gardens for growing vegetables and smaller one for flowers, which turned them into “monastic villages” or “monastic farms.”145 They owned large terrains of arable land, vineyards, as well as Gypsy slaves providing free labour. The monks themselves were often skilled farmers. The monastic compounds were, thus, largely self-sufficient and the only foodstuffs purchased or imported were the ones not produced in situ: seeds, salted fish, chickpeas, lentils, rice and pepper, oil, octopus, coffee, olives, jams,146 sherbet and lemons.147 It was not unusual for boyar manors in the countryside to have Italian-style gardens, with fishponds, water features and kitchen gardens irrigated in the Roman way, with semi-cylindrical irrigation pipes made of clay.148 Such gardens grew the choice vegetables which ended up on the tables of the elites: endives, aubergines, turnips, lettuce, hops, courgettes, and kohlrabis as large as a “man’s head”. Imports from the Ottoman Empire included garden peas, chicory, black olives (from Roumelia) and green olives (from Constantinople), small black raisins almond in or without their shell. Capers and rock candy came from Egypt and Venice, and coffee from Yemen.149 Because the basic principle of dishes was the sweet-sour mix, sugar (for sweets and sauces), lemon juice, rose water (Gr. rozoli) were also imported.150 Sweet and juicy watermelons, grown 144  Çelebi, Seyahatname, 371. Paul Cernovodeanu, Societatea feudală văzută de călătorii străini (secolele XV–XVIII) (Bucharest: 1973), 198. Cf. Michael Grünbart, “Store in a Cool and Dry Place: Perishable goods and their preservation in Byzantium,” in Eat, Drink and Be Merry (Luke 12:19): Food and wine in Byzantium. Papers of the 37th annual spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies, in honour of Professor A.A.M. Bryer, eds. Leslie Brubaker and Kallirroe Linardou (Aldershot: 2007), 39–49. 145  The buildings dedicated to the preparation or storage of food included: the kitchen (Rom. cuhnia), the bakery (Rom. magopia), the dairy, the pantry (Rom. chelăria), the large cellar, the small cellar, the wine cellar and the granary (Rom. jicniţa). See also Sherri Olson, Daily Life in a Medieval Monastery (Santa Barbara, California-Oxford: 2013), 179. 146  Account register, 1739–1740, of Cotroceni Monastery (Bucharest), BAR, Rom. MS. 377, fols. 26r–v. 147  Account register, 1739–1740, of Bradu, Hanu Greci, Codreni Monastery (Buzău county) BAR, Rom. MS. 377, fols. 127r–v. 148  Iolanda Ţighiliu, “Omul fizic şi omul psihic în societatea românească (secolele XV–XVII),” Studii şi materiale de istorie medie 13 (1995): 110–1. 149  George Potra, Din Bucureştii de ieri (Bucharest: 1990), 341–2. 150  Iorga, Studii şi documente, vol. 12, 83.

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in the nearby sancak of Dobrudja, and often “as large as water jugs”, were gifts exchanged among elite friends and family.151 Intensively cultivated on sandy terrains by the Romanians in the 18th century, watermelons were traded with the Turkish population in the town of Silistria on the opposite bank of the Danube, and it was a lucrative trade.152 The richness of orchards compensated for the monotony of the two hundred fasting days of the year. Plums and apples were dried in open air by the sun and the wind153 or placed in wooden contraptions called lojnițe to be aired or smoked. Peaches and cherries were turned into compotes, while lemons, oranges and bitter oranges (Rom. năramze; Lat. Citrus aurantium), imported from Roumelia, were preserved in the cool cellars, wrapped in paper.154 In the Romanian Old Regime, fasting was part of a complex system which included another type of devotional practice, the commemoration of the dead (Rom. parastas, from the Gr. parástasis) and the cult of the ancestors. The start of the fasting periods was the signal for a number of alimentary rituals linked to popular pre-Christian conceptions on the connection between the living and the dead that could not be dislodged. Known under the traditional name Moşi (ancestors),155 it represented the input of Romanian popular religion to the Christian calendar of commemorative rituals and was widespread in Wallachia, as well as in all Romanian-speaking territories in Moldavia, Bucovina, Banat and Transylvania. On the Saturday before the start of the Christmas fast (Moşii de iarnǎ) and before the fast for the Apostle Saints Peter and Paul (Moşii de varǎ), the tradition involved distributing food to the poor and to neighbours: wheat bread rolls, pork in aspic, cheeses, pies, fruit (cherries), creamed rice, were typical foods offered on these occasions together with the dishes and cutlery.156 However, even within the area of entrenched traditional practices such as this one, we can notice gradual shifts towards modernity in the period under consideration. Towards the end of the 17th century, the elites’ lack of interest

151  The testimony of the Polish envoy Maciej Strykowsky (1574–75), Rom. trans. in Călători străini, vol. 2, 451. 152  Document dated 11 June 1745, in Relaţiile agrare, eds. Constantiniu and Papacostea, vol. 1, 437. 153  The techniques for dehydrating fruit were known to the Byzantines. See Michael Grünbart, “Store in a Cool and Dry Place,” 41. 154  Koder, Der Lebensraum, 57; Ţighiliu, Omul fizic, 119. 155  Marian, Sărbătorile, vol. 1, 199–201. 156  Ibid.

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in fasting was more or less generalized,157 prompting a strong reaction from Metropolitan Antim Ivireanul. In his “Cuvântul de învăţătură la Duminica Lăsatului sec de brânză” [Sermon on the Sunday before Lent], on the Sunday when there was an allowance for cheese before Lent, the hierarch wrote in praise of the three Christian practices of confession, fasting and charity. Antim admonished his listeners, presumably members of the elites known to him for their lapses: […] do not be sad like the children taken to school in the morning; do not grumble against the clean days; do not seek summer at the end of the week like you would seek it at the end of winter; on Saturdays, do not crave drink, like the Jews; do not count the days of the fast like the lazy servant counts his wages; and do not feel sad that your kitchen stove is cold and your cook sits idly.158 The preacher paints an ironic picture of the hypocrites who fasted without conviction, claimed to be too ill to be fasting or naively cheated by mixing their drink with millet beer (Rom. braga),159 ale, sherbet, syrup or mead. One hundred years later, a Bucharest artisan with a passion for history, Ion Dobrescu, deplored the lack of observance of the “holy fast,” a sure sign that secularization was gaining ground in the Romanian society.160 The range of vegetables—the “accursed” food for the fast-breaking boyars ridiculed by Antim Ivireanul—was far from being as rich as it is today. To compensate for this, on the days when fish was allowed, all types of fish, snails, shellfish, crustaceans, octopus161 and roe could be consumed provided they were cooked in oil rather than in animal fat.

157  D. Barbu, Scrisoare, 32–3. The Moldavian chronicler Ion Neculce noted that the only person to observe the fast for the Apostle Saints Peter and Paul at a banquet given in 1711 by Prince Dimitrie Cantemir in honour of Peter the Great was the Russian envoy, Prince Golovtsin. 158  Antim Ivireanul, Opere, 102. 159  For the consumption of braga (var. braha), see also the chapters by Margareta Aslan and Maria Magdalena Székely in the present volume. 160  D. Barbu, Scrisoare, 32. 161  Mercurialul de preţuri din 1793, in Potra, Bucureştii, 341–2.

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Banquets and Rites of Passage: Ciambella and Coliva

If the weather was mild, the fields rich in grass and the Ottoman Porte at peace, one could live modestly on a day-to-day basis and enjoy plenty and mirth on holidays and festivals. Abstemious if needed, the Romanians were generous and enjoyed revelry on special occasions, whether these were joyful or sad. The major social events which engaged the entire community were the banquets organized at weddings and funerals, which amounted to carefully orchestrated public performances. Aside from the assemblage of an appropriate dowry for the bride, the wedding itself was a statement of power, wealth, and refinement which had to reflect the status of the families involved in the eyes of a wider audience, beyond the narrow circles of close kin. The key purchases as they appear in correspondence and lists of purchases were diningware and cutlery. Silverware was reserved for the court. Generally, dinnerware in boyar households was made of tin or china.162 These items were ordered from specialist artisans in Braşov (Ger. Kronstadt, in Transylvania) or from Constantinople.163 In the wedding ritual, as it has come down to us in descriptions from the 17th and 18th centuries, food served several functions. It was laden with symbolism meant to ensure the prosperity, fertility, long and peaceful life for the young couple. The moment when the wedding procession left for church—led by soldiers on horseback in elite circles—was punctuated by a ritual gesture: as the bride sat in the carriage on the left of the naşa (female witness, or matron of honour), the latter broke a sweet, round roll made of egg, flour and sugar164 into two pieces which she then threw down on both sides, before pouring out a glassful of wine. As the ritual crowns were placed on the heads of the bride and groom, those present scattered small coins, if the wedding was a more modest one, or silver coins, nuts, and bonbons (Rom. pl. cofeturi) in boyar circles.165 The second function of wedding food was related to the ritualistic exchange of gifts, a tradition inherited from Byzantium. The gifts of food offered and received during the week preceding the Sunday, when the ceremony took place, 162  Paul Strassbourg (1632), Rom. trans. in Călători străini, vol. 4, 64. 163  Iorga, Studii şi documente, vol. 9, 63. 164  Anton Maria del Chiaro, who left a description of a wedding, called this cake ciambella, noting the resemblance between the Wallachian wedding roll and its Italian counterpart, a ring-shaped sponge cake. Istoria, 74. 165  Thus, at the point in the wedding service called “Isaiah’s dance,” those who attended threw bonbons, nuts and coins towards the princely couple: Prince Constantin Şerban (1654–1657) and his bride, Nedelea, Călători străini, vol. 6, 236.

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symbolized an exchange of favours which cemented the alliance between three families: that of the bride, the groom and the wedding witnesses. A grand boyar wedding started on the Thursday with two tables laid out, one for women at the bride’s home, and one for men at the groom’s. This early moment in the festivities, which was accompanied by flourishes of trumpets and the beating of drums, was not related to an Oriental-style ritual sex segregation but served to mark a rite of passage towards adulthood for both sexes. Relatives and friends then left the two households in processions, carrying the wedding gifts, most of which were of the edible kind. These included presents from the villages on the boyar or princely estates. On the Saturday, the banquet table was laid out in the groom’s house. Carriages arrived, preceded by servants carrying gifts, in a precise order which recalled the rich weddings of the Old Testament: a live calf was carried by a servant over his shoulders, other servants would follow carrying lambs and kids, cages full of geese, hens and quails, barrels of red wine, and baskets full of sweet brioche rolls of the panettone type, which del Chiaro described as “pane fatto con fior di farina, latte, zucchero e torli di uova, che e gustosissimo.”166 The procession closed with fruit baskets,167 covered with embroidered silk kerchiefs. The rest of the edible gifts which were supposed to ensure the necessary supplies for the four days of banqueting, arrived separately, and with less publicity. The table was laid out in one of the great halls of the manor or, weather permitting, under a canopy in the garden. As trumpets announced the start of the banquet, water was brought for the diners to wash their hands and sweets were offered. The guests were seated according to rank, with the top of the table being reserved for a high-ranking court or church figure. On Thursday and Friday, dinner lasted around three hours. On Fridays, the courses included varieties of fish and crustaceans. On the Sunday, once the wedding service was concluded, the bride was accompanied to the groom’s house, where the guests partook of a lavish banquet, not attended by the newlyweds. The same author, Anton Maria Del Chiaro, noted that the banquet was set out for sixty to seventy diners. The wedding ceremonies did not end with Sunday’s church service and banquet. On the Monday, at around ten in the morning, the groom went on foot to the house of the best man, with a retinue of servants carrying bottles of red 166  “bread made with flour, milk, sugar and egg yolks, which is delicious.” Del Chiaro, “Solennità delle nozze presso de’ Valachi,” Istoria, 72–6; V. Barbu, Ordo amoris, 181–3. 167  In 1640, the Catholic Bishop Petru Bogdan Baksić noted the wealth of exotic fruit (chiefly oranges and lemons) at the court of Prince Matei Basarab and on boyar tables. See Călători străini, vol. 4, 204.

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wine and platters with small porcelain cups and saucers filled with sweets. The groom kissed the best man’s hand, and the entire household partook of the foods brought as gifts. With the same retinue, the groom retraced his steps to his own home, where the table had already been laid out, and where the inlaws were all invited. Wearing for the first time the veil only worn by married women, the bride presided at the top of the table. Trumpets and other instruments announced the arrival of a group of servants sent by the bride’s father with silver or tin platters of all sizes, on top of which were piled crystal carafes and goblets, foodstuffs and fruit, as well as caskets of silverware, embroidered kerchiefs and napkins, representing the bride’s trousseau. The Romanians gathered around dining table in sadness, as well as in joy. Like all the peoples of the East, they were passionately committed to all the rituals involved in the commemoration of the dead, including feasts. The period’s testaments show the importance of the commemoration feasts, where relatives, all members of the community, and especially the poor, were invited to share food offered by the family of the deceased. According to canonical prescriptions, one third of an individual’s wealth was left to the Church and to the family to ensure the funds necessary for the commemorative rituals. Catholic missionaries were almost scandalized to see that poorer Catholic families, under the influence of the Eastern Orthodox population among whom they lived, sacrificed their last cattle, so necessary for survival, in order to pay for the commemorative parastas. Sometimes, due perhaps to some residual belief that the departed might still be able to enjoy food and drink in the other world, feasts would be laid out on top of the graves at Easter or at other points in the church calendar set aside for commemorations.168 Records show that important sums of money were sacrificed by families to purchase food for the poor—and the not so poor—: a glass of wine, ale or raki, a loaf of bread, a piece of roast.169 Nothing was spared in organizing the public show in memory of the deceased. The deacon Paul of Aleppo was a witness to one such parastas in a village of Oltenia, where the 150 guests partook of four cattle, fifty sheep and 100 loaves of bread.170 The Metropolitanate of Ungrovlachia spent a large budget on purchasing bread, wheat, rice, meat (calves, rams), wine, raki, vegetables and fruit, and other food items for use

168  Sestini, Viaggio, 178. See also the report of the Jesuit missionary Gergely Lonczay (1645), in V. Barbu, Purgatoriul misionarilor, 548, and Livadă-Cadeschi, De la milă la filantropie, 126–8. 169  Paul de Alep, Jurnal, 335; Sestini, Viaggio, 178. 170  Paul de Alep, Jurnal, 335, 367.

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at charitable feasts for the city’s poor in the period 1770–1790.171 Some of the typical commemorative foods included ring-shaped wheat breads (Rom. colaci), pies, and especially the earthenware bowls with coliva, a porridge-like sweet, which were often distributed to bystanders in cemeteries. Food offerings to the priest and to those attending funerals and commemorations were a common feature in the Balkans and in the Romanian lands,172 but the coliva, the quintessentially funerary cake, is not documented, for example, for Russia in the 17th century.173 The recipe of this peculiar type of “cake of the dead” was recorded by the same scholar who discovered the beauty of the Eastern Orthodox service for the dead, the French Dominican and Hellenist Jacques Goar (1601–1653). In the notes accompanying the liturgical text for the consecration of the coliva, Goar offers details on various customs related to this ritual and to its evolvement in the Byzantine areas and in the Greek communities of his time, in the mid-17th century. He refers to the pagan origins of the cake, and cites Bishop Simeon of Thessaloniki and Gabriel Severus, Metropolitan of Philadelphia (Venice)174 as his sources on the mystical meaning of coliva. Thus, according to Goar, laying flowers and distributing food (bread, eggs, lettuce, peas) at the graveside would appear to be of Greco-Roman origin, while the coliva was invented in ancient Greece. We have another mid-17th century Western source available on the preparation of the coliva in the Greek-speaking world. Unsurprisingly, coliva was devised as food for fast days, and its preparation, which extended over several days, was in itself a ritual. The wheat was left to soak in water overnight, after which it was boiled until then grains “blossomed,” and was left to rest for another ay. The boiled wheat was then mixed with honey, almonds, ground nuts and raising.175 This recipe, with its origins in antiquity176 and the pre-Christian periods, is perhaps one of the oldest available for coliva. Later, the ingredients 171  BAR, Rom. MS. 619, fols. 123–236. 172  In 1696, a nobleman’s son, Şerban Cantacuzino (II) Măgureanu, ordered a silver platter for coliva from a workshop in Augsburg. Corina Nicolescu, Argintăria laică şi cultă din Ţările Române, sec. XIV–XIX (Bucharest: 1968), 54; Antim Ivireanul, Opere, 26. See also V. Barbu, Purgatoriul misionarilor, 549. 173  John Glen King, The Rites and Ceremonies of the Greek Church of Russia (London: 1772), 326–9. 174  Jacques Goar, Enchiridion sive Rituale graecorum (Lutaetiae Parisiorum: 1647), 541–642, and 661: “In colyborum orationem notae”. 175  “Peri tōn kollybōn” in Fides Ecclesiae Orientalis, ed. Riccardus Simon (Parisiis: 1671), 23–30. 176  See Sf. Simeon al Tesalonicului, “Despre rânduiala îngropării,” in Kata pason ton aireseon, ed. Dositheos Nottara (Iaşi: 1683), repr. with Latin translation as Symeon, Archbishop of

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were supplemented with breadcrumbs, pomegranate seeds, chicory, cinnamon, lemon peel, etc. The wheat itself was replaced in the 19th century with bulgur. The Greeks, Bulgarians, Serbs and Romanians valued it highly and shared it with the priest and the poor once a prayer had been said over it.

Alla tedesca, Alla turca, Alla romana

There were many joyous occasion, celebrated lavishly with rich food and rivers of wine: the reception of important official visitors, or the major religious festivals (Christmas, Saint Basil, the Circumcision, the Annunciation, Palm Sunday, Easter, Whitsun, Saints Peter and Paul, the Dormition of the Virgin, and the Exaltation of the Cross, when vines were harvested). Court banquets were accompanied by a “concerto di trombe e timpani alla tedesca,” as Del Chiaro noted.177 Others made observations on what they perceived as the dissonant music produced by Turkish instruments (Tr. mehterhane = military band; nakare = kettledrum), by Gypsy fiddlers and even on traditional music (Tr. șenlik), accompanied by gun salvoes if the guests were important dignitaries. The climax of the musical side of banqueting was provided by a psaltic choir singing hymns in honour of the day’s patron saint, in Byzantine style. ‘Fusion’ is the key term for interpreting the syncretism of both the elite gastronomic culture and court entertainment over a period of two centuries. Native and Byzantine traditions mixed with Levantine, Turkish and European (French, German, Italian)178 influences to produce the peculiar mix which often bewildered, but was appropriate for regions straddling West and East. There were perhaps other aspects more bewildering than the amalgam of cultures. Dinners and banquets were extremely long, observed the foreigners with either delight or tedium. It was not uncommon for dinners at court with the ruling prince to last six, seven hours, or even an entire day, until “the candles were lit.” “The feast was protracted at least seven hours, during which passed a great variety of courses, consisting of excellent and costly dishes with plenty of exquisite wine and many ceremonious healths […],” wrote Edmund Chishull, the chaplain of the English factory at Smyrna, received at court in Thessaloniki, “De ordine sepultura,” in Jean-Paul Migne (ed.), Patrologiae Cursus completus. Series graeca, vol. 155 (Paris: 1866), 688–92. 177  Del Chiaro, Istoria, 62. 178  Nicolae Gheorghiţă, “Secular Music at the Romanian Princely Courts during the Phanariot Epoch (1711–1821),” New Europe College Yearbook (2008–2009): 12–70.

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Bucharest in 1702.179 The libations and orations, according to the “mores of [Byzantine] Emperors,”180 were equally long and complex and were offered to God, the Ottoman Sultan, the Great Power rulers whose envoys were in attendance, the native ruling prince, and visiting Eastern patriarchs.181 The endless hours were paralleled by the endless number of courses, brought to the table on platters, which were piled up on top of each other during the entire course of the feast.182 Some Western travel narratives speak of hundreds of courses at such events, which may be an exaggeration, but sixty or seventy courses is a distinct possibility. Without the ‘surprise’ pies with written messages inside them to enliven the atmosphere, the growing piles of dishes would have been enough to dampen the sociability of the event. Rank was important, and this was reflected in the seating pattern and in the type of dinnerware one was entitled to: top-ranking officials or church hierarchs, like the ruling prince himself, ate from silverware. Lesser diners had to be content with dinnerware made of tin,183 brightly coloured china or, at the lower end, beautifully carved wooden platters and plates. The seating plan at banquet tables reflected and reinforced status, political power and social hierarchies.184 Whether he sat alone at a separate table or at the top of a communal table, around which the diners sat on benches,185 the ruling prince was served and attended to by court boyars with specific functions and titles (Rom. postelnic, paharnic, medelnicer, sufragiu). Bishops and monastery abbots were grouped together. The princess consort and her ladies had their own separate dining room, in the Ottoman style, a tradition retained until the last decades of the 18th century, when the Romanians opened up to European manners and the court itself emulated the more democratic gender policies already adopted in elite households.

179  Chishull, Travels, 79. 180  Paul de Alep, Jurnal, 248; Dan Simonescu, Literatura românească de ceremonial: Condica lui Gheorgachi (1762) (Bucharest: 1939), 282. 181  Paul de Alep, Jurnal, 322. See also the 1657 testimony of the Swedish diplomat Claes Brorson Rålamb (1622–1698), (1657), Rom. trans. in Călători străini, vol. 5, 611. 182  Paul de Alep, Jurnal, 369; Paul Strassbourg, Călători străini, vol. 5, 45. 183  Claes Brorson Rålamb (1657), in Călători străini, vol. 5, 611. 184  Jack Goody, Cuisine, Cooking and Class: A study in comparative sociology (Cambridge: 1982), 11–2. Michael Dietler, “Feasts and commensal politics in the political economy: Food, power and status in prehistoric Europe,” in Food and the Status Quest: An interdisciplinary perspective, eds. Pauline Wilson Wiessner and Wulf Schiefenhövel (Providence: 1996), 92–98. 185  Constantinescu and Cazacu (eds.), O lume, 25.

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Table manners did not necessarily follow a smooth, progressive path from primitive roughness to polished civilisation, something which often alarmed foreign visitors. A ruling prince such as Constantin Brâncoveanu, who had a predilection for the Italian culinary culture and table manners, adopted the use of forks at his table186 in the late 17th century, which was a pleasant surprise for visiting West-Europeans. However, half a century later, the Austrian merchant Jenne Leprecht was shocked by the rough manner in which his fellow diners used their hands to partake of a boiled fowl served in a communal tureen.187 Spoons and two-pronged forks remained a rare refinement and were often carried by members of the elites in small holsters, sometimes alongside silver toothpicks,188 which suggests that they were portable belongings used for personal use rather than as cutlery. Older dowry papers of middling families list such items in small numbers of two or three, which suggests that they were luxuries rather than meant for general, daily use.189 In top elite circles, however, children of both sexes were given by their parents complete sets of silverware, often comprising twelve or twenty-four items: knives, spoons, forks and salt mills.190 The sons and daughters of the aforementioned Prince Constantin Brâncoveanu each received in addition “a silver-polished washbasin and a brazier”, two items used in the dining ritual: servants would bring wash-basins filled with rosewater for the diners to wash their hand and beards after dinner, while the heater was used for burning fragranced incense in the room.191 Elements of a civilization of the table and of table manners thus started to make slow, tentative inroads into the local culture of Wallachia. At least twice a year, on the major occasions of Christmas and Easter, the modest, wooden tables in peasant homes were laid out with the hens, geese, turkeys, and ducks which the family had reared in their own backyards.192 Such 186  Ibid., 26. For the Italian influences at Brâncoveanu’s court, see Castilia Manea-Grgin’s chapter in the present volume. 187  Ibid., 186. 188  Andrei Veress, Documente privitoare la istoria Ardealului, Moldovei şi Ţării Româneşti, 1637–1660, vol. 10 (Bucharest: 1938), 99. 189  See items in the dowry of Călina, daughter of the merchant Dumitru from Târgşor (1636), in Documenta Romaniae Historica, B, vol. 25, eds. Damaschin Mioc et al. (Bucharest: 1985) 297. 190  See Ştefan Grecianu, Viaţa lui Constantin voievod Brâncoveanu de Radu Greceanu vel logofăt, 280–1, 285–9: dowry lists for Ştefan Brâncoveanu, married in 1706, and Stanca, married on 1 November 1692. 191  Veress, Documente, vol. 10, 26. 192  Cazacu, The Story, 26. The census for 1848 shows that the annual rate of meat consumption per individual was under twenty kilograms. Ibid., 27.

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modest meat-fests remained simple in terms of preparation, as cooking methods had practically remained unchanged from the early mediaeval centuries: calves, pigs, geese would be roasted whole on the spit, or cooked lightly in oil and vinegar, ingredients which were available, for instance, to day labourers on princely or noble estates.193 Easter had its own culinary traditions, notably the embellished eggs, common to Eastern Orthodox communities and documented for Wallachia from the early 18th century. At Christmas, the slaughter of pigs on the day of Saint Ignatius (20 December) and the ritual of its preparation by leaving the carcass to dry in the open air was in use by the mid-17th century,194 as testified by Paul of Aleppo who, as resident in a Muslim community, was struck by this unusual tradition. At court it was not pork, but game meat and venison which were traditionally served at Christmas and Easter feasts.195 At the end of lavish princely hunts, which involved hundreds of peasants as beaters, the carts returned laden with wild boar, deer, bears, wild goats, cockerels, lynxes.196 In Wallachia, unlike in Transylvania where hunting and all other feudal rights were traditionally limited by ancient laws,197 anybody could enjoy a hare or deer on their table. The favourites were wild fowls such as pigeons, wild cockerel, pheasants, and even the curious and rare bustard (Rom. dropia) with its “magnificent flesh,”198 a large, turkey-like bird which lived in the Romanian plains to the south of the country. At the court of Prince Matei Basarab, deer were reared at the princely deer park (Rom. ciutǎrie) in the country’s old capital, Târgoviște, an enclosed space adjacent to the princely pond.199 In Bucharest, too, a deer park200 and a fruit orchard were built next to the palace to cater for the princely table and banquets. A few years later, in 1657, at a banquet in honour of the Swedish 193  See the purchases of daily food allowances for labourers working on the building of a pond in 1652: wheat, millet, bread, lentils and peas, with additional items for non-fast days (cheese, a pig, a ram, a calf), in Documenta Romaniae Historica, B, vol. 37, eds. Violeta Barbu et al. (Bucharest: 2006), 226–7. 194  Paul de Alep, Jurnal, 243–4. 195  Ibid., 244. 196  Cazacu, The Story, 37. 197  See, for example, the Hunting Act of 1504, in Otto Witting, Istoria dreptului de vânătoare în Transilvania (Bucharest: 1936), 68–9; Gheorghe Nedici, Istoria vânătoarei (Bucharest: 2003), 115–9. 198  Bargrave, Travel Diary, 131–2, Rom. trans. in Călători străini, vol. 5, 483. 199  Arhivele Naţionale Istorice Centrale, Mitrop. Ţ. Rom., 180/2, document dated 29 October 1671. It is known that deer herds roamed freely in the parks of Byzantine emperors. See Dalby, Flavours, 63. 200  Laurenţiu Rădvan, Oraşele din Ţările Române în Evul Mediu (Iaşi: 2011), 260.

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envoy Claes Brorson Rålamb, Prince Constantin Şerban (1654–1657) rewarded two of the court hunters, who had brought two large bears as an offering for the occasion.201 The Romanians, like their Roman ancestors, were thrifty and did not waste anything which could be cooked and used. Far from being relegated to the poor man’s pantry, the legs, head, tongue, eyes and entrails (liver, kidneys, lungs, spleen) of calves, pigs and lambs were much valued, and were often used as delicacies and in the composition of festive dishes. Thus, lambs’ guts served as a casing for a much-loved terrine (Rom. drob) served at Easter, while calves’ stomachs (tripes) were cooked as a seasoned soup, known in Italy as the poor Roman’s soup (trippa), but tasty and rich in flavour. At Christmas, pigs’ heads went into the making of aspic and terrines, or the meat could be boiled, seasoned and served as such with mustard.202 Pork and calf intestines, carefully cleaned, were also boiled, sprinkled with garlic and lemon juice, fried in egg yolk and rosewater, and served with a garnish of minced bacon and aromatic herbs.203 Also from the ancient Roman cuisine came the use of the udder of cows, which also left the term ţâţa in demotic Romanian (from the Latin titia and related to the Italian zizza). A rustic dish consumed by the Romanian lower classes, the cows’ udder became a noble dish in the recipe collection of the Cantacuzino family, which listed dishes related to the ancient Roman busecchia, but also mentioned other ways of preparing this organ: breaded (pané), roasted or stewed in white wine, or as an ingredient in thick à la Grecque soups, with an egg yolk and lemon juice seasoning.204 “Getting to work on a cow’s head” (Rom. să te apuci de cap de vacă) is an old Romanian expression meaning to tackle a complex and laborious task. It may sound mystifying, until one reads the recipes in the Cantacuzino collection, which shows how difficult it was to cook using this primary material and how refined some of the resulting dishes could be. Here are some of the dishes which have been handed down to us: calf’s head filled with minced brain, thigh, butter, bone marrow and urdǎ (a soft, ricotta-style cheese), served on a bed of bread after an ancient Italian recipe (testa di vittelo alla Sorrentina) presented in L’Arte di ben cucinare of Bartolomeo Stefani;205 aspic made from head cleansed with oil (which was poured through the nostrils), served with a 201   Călători străini, vol. 5, 611. 202  Constantinescu and Cazacu (eds.), O lume, 159. 203  Ibid. 131–2. 204  Ibid., 138–9. 205  The 2nd edition, published in Venice in 1666, 12–14. The identifications and comparisons were made by Matei Cazacu in O lume, eds. Constantinescu and Cazacu, 65–6. The

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boiled calf’s leg and served with decorations of edible borage (Lat. Borago officinalis); calf boiled with spices and fruit (plums, dried Morello cherries, pine kernels); calf’s head filled with minced brain cooked with egg yolk, sugar, marjoram and parsley, and seasoned with rose vinegar.206 Conclusions The “Emperor’s Pantry” fed everybody: its denizens, the Ottoman suzerain to whom a tribute was paid, and the foreign visitors, received with generous hospitality, a character trait which, according to the first “European Romanian,” the scholar and Prince Dimitrie Cantemir,207 was the natives’ second key virtue, after their observance of the Eastern Orthodox faith. But the real master of this land was bountiful nature, proffering gifts which were often left unused, largely because the Romanian cuisine of the pre-modern age was born out of the basic need to nourish, rarely reaching the ambitious heights of a culture of pleasure or the refinements of a gastronomic art. In its turn, the alimentary needs of the Wallachian residents of the 17th and 18th centuries, with all the desires and temptations which might have been around, conformed strictly to the religious calendar and prescribed practices. This resulted in a popular culinary system dominated by the demands and restrictions of fasting and punctuated by the rhythm of holy days. Foodstuffs were everyday, mundane realities, but at the same time they were signs of a system of representations of the world and the cosmos, with which the people of Wallachia engaged in respect and humble dependence. The ways in which they harvested, processed and consumed their food reflect a religious worldview which was collective, not a matter of individual choice. We have tried to decipher this native semantics in contradistinction to comments made by bewildered visiting foreigners. But such comments on the baffling ‘strangeness of things’ in the host country have their own value as items in a textual Schatzkammer (cabinet of curiosities), so fashionable in the periods considered here. This has been a gratifying experience, because the intersecting discourses on the Other, using tropes familiar to the European or the “Oriental,” shed light on the fertile fluidity of areas, such as Wallachia, located on the periphery of empires. In a period such as the 17th century, when Romanian translator replaced the parmesan in the original recipe with the soft cheese (ricotta). 206  Ibid., 128–30. 207  Dimitrie Cantemir, Descriptio Moldaviae, eds. Gheorghe Guţu et al. (Bucharest: 1973), 309.

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Kaplan, Michel, Les hommes et la terre à Byzance du VIe au XIe siècle: Propriété et exploitation du sol (Paris: 1992). Kazhdan, Alexander, and Ann Wharton-Eppstein, Change in Byzantine Culture in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries (Berkeley: 1985). Kislinger, Ewald, “Les chrétiens d’Orient: Règles et réalités alimentaires dans le monde byzantin,” in Histoire de l’alimentation, eds. Jean-Louis Flandrin and Massimo Montanari (Paris: 1996), 325–44. Koder, Johannes, Gemüse in Byzanz: Die Versorgung Konstantinoples mit Frischgemüse im Lichte der Geoponika (Vienna: 1993). Koder, Johannes, Der Lebensraum der Byzantiner: Historisch-geografischen Abriss ihres mittelalterlichen Staates im östlichen Mittelmeerraum (Vienna: 2001). Koder, Johannes, “Stew and salted meat: Opulent normality in the diet of every day,” in Eat, Drink and Be Merry (Luke 12:19): Food and wine in Byzantium. Papers of the 37th annual spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies, in honour of Professor A.A.M. Bryer, eds. Leslie Brubaker and Kallirroe Linardou (Aldershot: 2007), 59–72. Laiou, Angeliki, “The Agrarian Economy, Thirteenth–Fifteenth Centuries” in The Economic History of Byzantium: From the seventh through the fifteenth century, ed. Angeliki Laiou (Washington D. C.: 2002), 311–75. Lazăr, Gheorghe, Les marchands en Valachie, XVIIe–XVIIIe siècle (Bucharest: 2006). Lefort, Jacques, Paysages de Macédoine: Leur caractères, leur évolution à travers les documents et les récits des voyageurs (Paris: 1986). Lehr, Lia, “Factori determinanţi în evoluţia demografică a Ţării Româneşti în secolul al XVII-lea” [Determinant agencies in the demographic evolution of Wallachia in the 17th century], Studii şi materiale de istorie medie 7 (1974): 162–204. Litzica, Constantin, Catalogul manuscriptelor greceşti [The catalogue of Greek manuscripts] (Bucharest: 1909). Livadă-Cadeschi, Ligia, De la milă la filantropie: Instituţii de asistare a săracilor din Ţara Românească şi Moldova în secolul al XVIII-lea [From mercy to philanthropy: institutions of poor relief in Wallachia and Moldavia in the 18th century] (Bucharest: 2001). Louvaris, Athanasios Nicholas John’s, “Fast and Abstinence in Byzantium,” in Feast, Fast or Famine: Food and drink in Byzantium, eds. Wendy Mayer and Silke Trzcionka (Brisbane: 2005), 189–98. Luca, Cristian, Țările Române și Veneția în secolul al XVII-lea [The Romanian lands and Venice in the 17th century] (Bucharest: 2007). Marian, Simion Florea, Sărbătorile la români [The festivals of the Romanians], vol. 1I, ed. Iordan Datcu (Bucharest: 1994). Maxim, Mihai, “Le statut des Pays Roumains envers la Porte Ottomane aux XVI–XVIIIe siècle,” Revue roumaine d’histoire 24 (1–2) (1985): 29–50. Mayer, Wendy and SilkeTrzcionka (eds.), Feast, Fast or Famine: Food and drink in Byzantium (Brisbane: 2005).

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Murgescu, Bogdan, “Avatarurile unui concept: Monopolul comercial otoman asupra ţărilor române” [The avatars of a concept: the Ottoman commercial monopoly in the Romanian Lands], Revista istorică, new series, 1 (1990): 819–45. Murphey, Rhoads, “Provisioning Istanbul: The state and subsistence in the early modern Middle East,” Food and Foodways 2 (1988): 217–63. Năsturel, Petre Ş., “Le christianisme roumain à l´époque des invasions barbares. Considérations et faits nouveaux,” Buletinul Bibliotecii Române 12 (1984): 251–59. Neagoe, Claudiu, “Negustori câmpulungeni din secolele XV–XVII” [Merchants from Câmpulung in the 15th–17th centuries], in Negustorimea în Ţările Române, între Societas Mercatorum şi individualitatea mercantilă, în secolele XVI–XVIII [The merchants of the Romanian Lands between Societas Mercatorum and mercantile individualism in the 16th–17th centuries] ed. Cristian Luca (Galaţi: 2009), 63–87. Nedici, Gheorghe, Istoria vânătoarei [A history of hunting in Romania] (Bucharest: 2003). Nicoară, Toader, Sentimentul de insecuritate în societatea românească la începuturile timpurilor moderne (1600–1830) [The feeling of insecurity in Romanian society in the early modern period (1600–1830)] (Cluj-Napoca: 2002). Nicolescu, Corina, Argintăria laică şi cultă din Ţările Române, sec. XIV–XIX [Secular and religious silverware in the Romanian lands, 14th–19th centuries] (Bucharest: 1968). Olson, Sherri, Daily life in a Medieval Monastery (Santa Barbara-Oxford: 2013). Pamfile, Teodor, Agricultura la români [Agriculture and the Romanians] (Bucharest: 1913). Parry, Ken, “Vegetarianism in Late Antiquity and Byzantium: The transmission of a regimen,” in Feast, Fast or Famine: Food and drink in Byzantium, eds. Wendy Mayer and Silke Trzcionka (Brisbane: 2005), 171–87. Petrică, Virginia, Identitate culinară românească din perspectiva călătorilor străini [Foreign travellers’ narratives and Romanian culinary identities] (Bucharest: 2013). Poenaru, Daniela, Contribuţii la bibliografia românească veche [Contributions to early Romanian bibliography] (Târgovişte: 1973). Rautman, Markus, Daily Life in the Byzantine Empire (Westport-London: 2006). Rădvan, Laurenţiu, Oraşele din Ţările Române în Evul Mediu [Towns in the Romanian Lands in the Middle Ages] (Iaşi: 2011). Săsăujan, Mihail, “Die Instruktion des Patriarchen Dositheos für Athanasie,” in Die Union der Rumänen Siebenbürgens mit der Kirche von Rom, vol. 1, eds. Johann Marte, Viorel Ioniță, Iacob Mârza, Laura Stanciu and Ernst Cristopher Suttner (Bucharest: 2010), 196–214. Seth, Simeon, On the Properties of Foods (Bordeaux: 1939). Stahl, Henri H., Nerej, un village d’une région archaïque (Bucharest: 1939).

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Stahl, Henri H., Teorii şi ipoteze privind sociologia orânduirii tributale [Theories and hypotheses on tribute-paying states] (Bucharest: 1980). Stahl, Henri H., Contribuţii la studiul satelor devălmaşe româneşti [Contributions to the study of the coparcenary Romanian villages], vol. 1 (Bucharest: 1958). Stoicescu, Nicolae, Dicţionar al marilor dregători din Ţara Românească şi Moldova [A dictionary of the high officials at the courts of Wallachia and Moldavia] (Bucharest: 1971). Stathakopoulos, Dyonisios, “Between the field and the plate: How agricultural products were processed into food,” in Eat, Drink, and Be Merry (Luke 12:19): Food and wine in Byzantium. Papers of the 37th annual spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies, in honour of Professor A.A.M. Bryer, eds. Leslie Brubaker and Kallirroe Linardou (Aldershot: 2007), 27–38. Szilágiy, Sandor, Georg Rakoczi I im dreissigjärigen Krieg 1630–1640 mit Urkunden aus Schwedischen und Ungarischen Archiven (Buda-Pest: 1883). Talbot Rice, Tamara, Everyday life in Byzantium (New York: 1967). Ţighiliu, Iolanda, “Omul fizic şi omul psihic în societatea românească (secolele XV– XVII),” [The body and soul of man in Romanian society (15th–17th centuries)], Studii şi materiale de istorie medie 13 (1995): 103–30. Vicentini, Giovanni, La civilità della polenta (Modena: 1980). Wiessner, Pauline Wilson and Wulf Schiefenhövel (eds.), Food and the Status Quest: An interdisciplinary perspective (Providence: 1996). Witting, Otto, Istoria dreptului de vânătoare în Transilvania [The history of hunting rights in Transylvania] (Bucharest: 1936). Wooley, Reginald Maxwell, The Bread of the Eucharist (London: 1913). Wright, Clifford A., A Mediterranean Feast: The story of the birth of the celebrated cuisines of the Mediterranean, from the merchants of Venice to the Barbary corsairs (New York: 1999). Yerasimos, Stéphane, À la table du Grand Turc (Arles: 2001). Zugravu, Nelu, “Mărturii despre ʻcreştinismul popularʼ în epoca lui Vasile Lupu” [Testimonies on popular Christianity in the age of Vasile Lupu], Anuarul Institutului de istorie A.D. Xenopol 31 (1994): 25–34.

Part 3 Food and Cities: Supply, Mobility, Trade

∵

Chapter 9

Food Supply and Distribution in Early Modern Transylvania (1541–1640): The Case of Cluj Enikő Rüsz-Fogarasi Basic foodstuffs such as bread and meat keep a city alive and, to a large extent, determine its appearance. If located in a fertile area with cheap labour, a city will prosper and will be unlikely to know hunger, especially under an enterprising, enlightened government. A medium-sized city in Central Europe, Cluj (Hung. Kolozsvár, Ger. Klausenburg) enjoyed a sustained rise and development in the 16th and early 17th century. Drawing on published documents1 and unpublished primary sources produced by the City Council and other institutions (account books of merchants, almshouses, mills and bakeries, urban planning and taxation records, inventories, guilds’ and municipal councils’ registers), our study aims to reconstruct the system of provisioning used in Cluj, the networks of production and distribution of bread and meat, the regulations governing this system, as well as its impact on the city’s social and urban fabric. An important vector in this process was religion, more specifically the adoption of the Reformation in the mid-16th century. The charitable activities of the Catholic church were replaced by new forms of public and private initiatives of social assistance and poverty relief. This shift strengthened the autonomy of the city’s elected representatives and urban elites, who gained increased control over the city’s provisioning with basic foodstuffs. This study aims to ana­ lyse the dynamics of relations between the municipality and mediaeval-type bodies such as the guilds, increasingly subjected to the modernizing pressures 1  See: Annamária Jeney-Tóth, “Asztalok rendelése és a fejedelmi konyha Bethlen Gábor erdélyi udvarában,” in Emlékkönyv Egyed Ákos születésének nyolcvanadik évfordulójára, eds. Judit Pál and Gábor Sipos (Cluj-Napoca: 2010), 155–162; József Lukács, “Interferenţe în gastronomie: Câteva aspecte ale influenţelor reciproce întâlnite în gastronomia lumii italieneşti şi în cea a teritoriilor Regatului Maghiar medieval în perioada secolelor al XIV-lea şi al XVI-lea,” Anuarul Institutului de Studii Italo-Român 9 (2012): 93–100; Emőke Csapó, “Festine luculliene: Secretele bucătăriei elitei clujene în a doua jumătate a secolului XIX,” Annales Universitatis Apulensis. Series Historica 14 (2010): 179–88; Borbála Benda, “Obiceiuri alimentare pe domeniile aristocratice şi evoluţia lor în secolul al XVII-lea,” Caiete de antropologie istorică 5 (2006): 31–54.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi 10.1163/9789004367548_011

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of cooperation and competition. While the butchers’ corporations prospered, there were no bakers’ guilds, an intriguing disparity which needs elucidation. Located in the heart of Transylvania on a fertile plateau, protected by a natural fortress of forested hills and traversed by the river Someş, the city of Cluj rose rapidly in the first century of the Principality of Transylvania (1541–1640). Until the mid-16th century the city maintained important juridical, constitutional and political ties with the Transylvanian Saxon cities as well as to the Hungarian capital, Buda, which made it a multi-faceted, multi-cultural site of relationships and influences.2 After the dissolution of the Hungarian Kingdom and the creation of a semi-autonomous Principality of Transylvania (under Ottoman control), these ties diversified and Cluj acquired links with cities such as Krakow, Lwow, Košice, Vienna, Debrecen, Nuremberg and others. As already mentioned, adherence to the Reformation in 1544 gave a significant impetus to the economic and demographic rise of Cluj. Nearly 7,000 souls, in their majority Hungarians and Saxons, lived in the citadel and in its suburbia at the end of the 16th century,3 making Cluj the second city of Transylvania after the Saxon town of Braşov (Ger. Kronstadt). Two decades later, as it rose through the ranks of Europe’s major cities, Cluj secured the topmost position among the urban settlements of the Principality of Transylvania (“Transilvaniae civitas primaria”), as shown in a topographic veduta of 1617.4 In the context of significant demographic rise, the municipal authorities made provisioning the city with basic supplies such as bread and meat a priority. Even though Transylvanian cities did not lose their agrarian character in the early modern period, there is no evidence that the citizens of Cluj were significantly engaged in growing their own food produce. Irrespective of their wealth or land assets, private homes as well as the city’s institutions depended on the market to a considerable extent.

2  Buda város jogkönyve, eds. László Blazovich and József Schmidt (Szeged: 2001), 18. László Blazovich, “A budai jog és Kolozsvár egy 1488-as oklevél alapján,” in Orașe și orășeni/ Városok és városlakók, eds. Enikő Rüsz-Fogarasi et al. (Cluj-Napoca: 2006), 342–9. 3  Samuel Goldenberg, Clujul în secolul al XVI-lea (Cluj: 1958), 42. 4  The print appeared in volume 6, no. 41 of Civitates Orbis Terrarum, ed. Georg Braun (Cologne: 1617). The author was the Belgian painter Aegid or Egidius van der Rye (ca 1555–1605). The annotator was Joris Hoefnagel or Georg Hoefnagel (1542/1545–1600/1601), famous Flemish painter, printmaker and manuscript illuminator. See Irina Băldescu, “The image of Cluj/ Klausenburg (1617): Historical context and topographical comments,” Historia urbana 10 (1–2) (2002): 65–74.

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Grinding the Grain in the City’s Mills

Like everywhere else in Europe by the 16–17th centuries, the essential food item in early modern Cluj was bread. Its preparation and quality were important both for households and institutions. The analysis of the available sources suggests that only wheat flour processed in the city’s mills was used, regardless of the ultimate origin of the grains. Drawing on Jean Gimpel’s classic study of the first industrial revolution5 and on Marc Bloch’s study on European mediaeval watermills,6 a number of historians have studied the operation of mills in a Hungarian context. Milestones in the Hungarian historiography on the topic include Walter Endrei’s and Sándor Takáts’s classic study,7 István Tringli’s detailed study on mills in the Middle Ages,8 and Judit Benda’s recent study on mills and bakeries in Buda.9 Data on the economic status and operation of mills10 in the early modern period are even more scattered than for the mediaeval period, and we still do not have a cumulative study for premodern Transylvania. Technically speaking, most of the grain mills in and near Cluj were water mills, but we have data on the availability of dry mills as well. In terms of ownership patterns, the evidence shows that Cluj had mills owned by the city community, by some religious and social welfare institutions, and some privately-owned mills. All functioned according to customary legislation, under the supervision of the municipal Council.11 The latter had the authority 5  Jean Gimpel, Revoluția industrială în evul mediu, trans. Constanţa Oancea (Bucharest: 1983), 9–32. 6  Marc Bloch, “Avènement et conquête du moulin à eau,” Annales d’histoire économique et sociale 7 (36) (Nov. 1935): 538–63. 7  Walter Endrei, A középkori technikai forradalom (Budapest: 1978). Sándor Takáts, “Művelődéstörténeti közlemények: A magyar malom,” Századok 41 (1907): 143, 236. 8   István Tringli, “A magyar szokásjog a malomépítésről,” in Analecta Medievalia I. Tanulmányok a középkorról, ed. Tibor Neumann (Budapest: 2001), 251–69. Tringli focuses on the issue of mill use and mill laws in mediaeval Hungary, especially on customary law prescriptions and degrees of observance of this legislation. 9  Judit Benda, “Malmok, pékek és kenyérszékek a késő-középkori Budán,” Tanulmányok Budapest múltjából 38 (2013): 7–30. 10  For information about the structure and functioning of mills in this period see: Enikő Bitay, László Márton and János Talpas, Technikatörténeti örökség Magyar-Gyerőmonostoron (Cluj-Napoca: 2010), 76–86. 11  The City Council was the highest legislative body of the city, headed by the prime judge (Lat. judex civitatis) and a second judge (Lat. judex regis). The twelve members of the Council were elected by centumviri (Council of the one hundred), an elected body of a

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required for issuing norms and regulations regarding the operation of mills, taxation and the quality of the flour produced. Whether they were the property of the Cluj municipality or not, the mills used toll dishes and scales as prescribed in the City Council’s norms and regulations. The Cluj municipality passed legislation which required people to pay their taxes to the mill masters and ensure the continuing operation of mills.12 The Council also dealt with the inspections of mills and with citizens’a complaints about their functioning.13 For instance, we know that in 1595 the City Council decided to send two inspectors to collect information on the operation of mills in the region, but we do not have any records of the outcome of this inspection.14 In Cluj mill sluices played an important role, because they protected mills from the turbulent whims of the river Someş (Hung. Szamos, Ger. Somesch). The City Council began building sluice gates following a decision taken on 18 April 1558.15 This process must have taken a long time, and the damage caused by ice in 1580 suggests that not all mills had the race channelled by sluices. By the end of 16th century, there were two grain mills under city administration in Cluj, the Alparéth16 and the Váralja17 mills. We do not know when the mills in the area became the possession of the people of Cluj. We know with certainty that issues relating to the supervision of the region’s mills were settled in the agreement between the Saxon and Hungarian nations in the 16th century. It was ultimately left to the Cluj City Council to make decisions about repairs and maintenance, as Council records show, starting with 1578. hundred men drawn from a broader section of the population, representatives of the city’s districts and members of the guilds. 12  Erdélyi Magyar Szótörténeti Tár (EMST), ed. Attila T. Szabó, vol. 8 (Bucharest-Budapest: 1996), 117. 13  In 1575, all scales had to be brought in and inspected following a complaint regarding the weighing of the miller’s toll and the weighing of grain in bakeries. See Arhivele Naţionale, Filiala Cluj, Fond Primăria Cluj, Hotărâri ale Consiliului Orăşenesc [The National Archives, Cluj county archives, Fonds City Hall, City council decisions, hereafter SJAN Cluj, KvTanJk], 5/III, fol. 114r. 14  Arhivele Naţionale, Filiala Cluj, Fond Primǎria Cluj, Socoteli [The National Archives, Cluj county archives, Fonds City Hall, Accounts, hereafter SJAN Cluj, KvSzám], 6/XVIIa, fols. 121–2. 15  Kolozsvári emlékírók, eds. József Bálint and József Pataki (Bucharest: 1990), 497. 16  The Alparéth mill is on the Someș river in the western part of the village. The latter should not be confused with the village Bobâlna (Hung. Alparéth, Ger. Alberecht) in Cluj county. 17  The Váralja mill is on the Someș river north of Cluj under the hill at Cetățuie. The earliest extant records refer to Gál Szabó’s mill in Váralja and date from 1578. See SJAN Cluj, KvSzám, 2/XV, 1578.

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The cumulative accounts for the following year, the only ones available to us,18 show the costs of maintenance, rebuilding, and enlargement of the mills, and includes inventories of the tools and utensils. The existing accounts list expenses incurred for the maintenance of the mill’s residential areas as well. In 1581 and in 1599, the mill house in the citadel of Alparéth was completely renovated on the initiative of the City mayor Ferenc Csanádi.19 The City initiated radical repairs, renovations and even reconstructions in the early decades of the 17th century, which suggests the importance accorded the mills by the authorities. For example, in 1624, no less than 133 florins20 were spent for this purpose.21 Following the Ottoman Porte’s retaliation, in the aftermath of the failed Polish campaign, in which Prince György Rákóczi I (1630–1648) participated, the mills had to be rebuilt again. The account ledgers kept in the archives of the Unitarian Church in Cluj list the costs of the reconstruction as well as maintenance costs over the next few years.22 How often a millstone was changed depended on the stone’s quality, the skills of the miller and the traffic of the mill. The quality of the hand-carved ridges was important for ensuring high-quality grist. The mills of the city of Cluj appear to have had the means for buying millstones of the highest quality, and quite often, from great distances.23 Records show that in 1590 millstones were purchased and brought over from Cornești (Hung. Magyarszarvaskend, Cluj county),24 and in 1603 from Șinteu (Hung. Sólyomkövár, Bihor county). Further transports of millstones are recorded for 1619.25 In 1621, millstones were purchased in Ciceu-Mihăiești (Hung. Csicsómihályfalva, Cluj county).26 Further repairs and additions are recorded for 159027 and 1610.28 18  Ibid., 2/XX, 1579, 1580. 19  SJAN Cluj, KvSzám, 3/III, fol. 5. Five carts of clay and 400 roof shingles were purchased for repairs to the walls and roof on that occasion. Further repairs to the mill house at Alparéth are recorded for 1599, on the initiative of the same Ferenc Csanádi (8/XII, fol. 3). In 1601, the municipality bought 200 shingle nails for fixing the mill’s tile roof. Ibid., 9/XV, fol. 33. 20  Silver coin issued by the Habsburg Empire, which also circulated in Transylvania. 21  SJAN Cluj, KvSzám, 22/ I, 1624, Parcialae, fols. 327–70. 22  Kolozsvári Unitárius Egyházközség Levéltára, Vegyes iratok [Archives of the Unitarian Church of Cluj, Miscellanea]. 23  Szent Erzsébet ispotály számadáskönyvei 1601–1650, ed. Tünde Mária Márton (Budapest: 2010), 68. 24  SJAN Cluj, KvSzám, 4/XIX, fols. 13–4. 25  Szent Erzsébet ispotály, 188. 26  SJAN Cluj, KvSzám, 15/b/V. 27  SJAN Cluj, KvSzám, 4/XIX, fols. 13–4. 28  Szent Erzsébet ispotály, 141.

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Apart from the municipality of Cluj, records show that some religious establishments in and around the city had their own mills as early as the mediaeval period. The revenue generated by the mills funded the charitable activities of these establishments. We know about one three-wheeled mill belonging to the Saint Elisabeth almshouse29 in the city of Cluj on the Someş river30 and one two-wheeled mill31 owned by the same institution in Mera (Hung. Méra), on the Nadăș river (Cluj county). The mill in Mera and all its assets became the property of the Saint Elisabeth almshouse when the Dezső family bequeathed its wealth to the institution in 1525.32 The mill in Cluj was the earliest source of revenue for the Saint Elisabeth almshouse that we know about. The first documentary mention of the almshouse itself is linked to the conversion of the oak-crushing mill into a flour mill, as recorded for 1366.33 As usual, there are interesting data in the account ledgers of the Saint Elisabeth almshouse regarding the costs, repairs and general maintenance of the mills: money spent on dam construction,34 for example, or for the purchase of tallow35 and soap.36 The inventory also lists in some detail other pieces and tools,37 such as stonecutting axes, buckets, tubs, gauges and pole-axes, so the structure of the two mills can be envisioned with some precision. We also have to mention, even if only in passing, the mills of Mănăștur abbey38 on the Someș river, located in Cluj itself and its environs, not far from Mănăștur (Hung. Kolozsmonostor, Ger. Abtsdorf) and Apahida (Hung. Apahida, Ger. Bruckendorf) all of which had connections to the abbey. We do not know what happened to the mills after the Reformation. The silences in the sources might indicate that there were no complaints about their operation and their services to the population. 29  A hospital in 1366, this institution later became a home for the elderly, in which role it still functions today. 30  Arhiva Diocezei Catolice Cluj, Fondul Szent Erzsébet Aggmenház [Archive of the Catholic diocese of Cluj, Fonds Saint Elisabeth Almshouse], “Inventarium,” 1591, fol. 10. 31  Ibid., “Inventarium,” 1591, fol. 15. 32  Elek Jakab, Oklevéltár Kolozsvár története első kötetéhez, vol. I (Budapest: 1888), 363–6. 33  Jakab, Oklevéltár, vol. 1, 55–6. 34  Szent Erzsébet ispotály, 55, 68, 112, 199, 323. 35  Ibid., 68, 188, 201. 36  Ibid. 37  For additional information regarding milling equipment see István Wöller, “Vízimalmok az örvényesi Séden,” in Tanulmányok a kézműipar történetéhez, eds. Gergely Csiffáry and Klára Dóka (Veszprém: 1999), 155–60. 38  Noémi Gyöngyvér Szabó, A kolozsmonostori bencés apátság gazdálkodása a késő középkorban (Debrecen: 2012), 86–91.

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Apart from water mills, Cluj also benefited from the services of dry mills, which used animal traction. According to the available sources, the city’s mill at Alparéth was a dry mill, equipped with a crushing plate in 1581,39 and refitted with two new crushing plates brought all the way from Csicsó (present-day Číčov, Slovakia) in 1621.40 The expenses of 133 florins listed in the above-cited sources for 1624 include the re-fitting of the crushing installations.41 Our sources contain several references to privately-owned mills, related to litigations between the owners and the municipal authorities around issues of competition. The co-existence of a significant number of city- and privately-owned mills in and around Cluj suggests that the industry was flourishing. According to sources, a mill called “the vicar’s mill” (Hung. plebános malma)” was located at the end of the narrow Saint Peter Street, to the north of Saint Peter’s church.42 A dam and a mill, built on the Someș river in the area between the suburbs of Cluj and Someşeni village, started operating sometime in 157743 as the property of Gáspár Gyeröffy, the head of a noble family from Someșeni. Later, the noble proprietors and the city community disputed ownership in the courts of law. The municipality declared that the owners had had no proper authorization to build and asked for the demolition of both mill and dam on the grounds that they did not fit in within the suburban area. It was the city’s residents who demolished the buildings with their own hands. The number of mills operating in the areas under consideration here appears to indicate both a thriving business and a healthy demographic growth in Cluj at the time.44 Owned by individuals, communities, or institutions, the mills were sites of production as well as of local and regional sociability. Millers in other towns and areas of Transylvania, such as Brașov (Hung. Brassó, Ger. 39  SJAN Cluj, KvSzám, 3/I, fols. 3–4. 40  Ibid., 15b/V, fol. 12. 41  Szent Erzsébet ispotály, 264. 42  Elek Benkő, Kolozsvár magyar külvárosa a középkorban (Cluj-Napoca: 2004), 55. There were two parish churches in Cluj from the mid-15th century onwards: the church of Saint Michael and the church of Saints Peter and Paul. The latter was the church of the ethnic Hungarians who lived in areas just outside the city walls. 43  SJAN Cluj, Arhiva Primăriei Municipiului Cluj [Archives of the Cluj City Council], 2, Acte Fasciculate, Fasc. 7, 15 December 1577, fol. 38. 44  Andras Kubinyi devised a model for analysing early-modern milling in Hungary and Transylvania and found a significant number of mills operating in the region. For the ‘Kubinyi model’, see the study of Andras Kubinyi, Városfejlődés és vásárhálózat a középkori Alföldön és az Alföld szélén (Szeged: 2000), 7–94. The model, based on ten criteria, permits a comparative analysis of the economic participation of cities and market towns in the region’s economy.

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Kronstadt), Țara Bârsei (Ger. Burzenland) and Sighișoara (Hung. Segesvár, Ger. Schässburg),45 were organized in guilds. The fact that their peers in Cluj did not form professional associations46 must have been due to the different patterns of mill ownership.

Bread Supply: Bakeries and Bakers

The flour ground in the city’s mills was used chiefly, but not entirely, in the city’s bakeries, which were run either by institutions or by individual owners. The daily bread of the citizens of Cluj was mostly baked in the city’s communal ovens47 or in ovens installed on private estates, usually in outbuildings adjacent to residential areas. Unfortunately, city-owned bakeries appear very rarely in historical accounts of early modern Cluj. Especially after the food crisis of 1603,48 the municipality made several attempts at setting up its own bakeries, such as, for instance, in 1605. Records among the City Council Decisions mention a bake-house to be built on Torda Street,49 one on Farkas [Wolf] Street in 1618,50 and a bakery functioning in 1582 on Szappany [Soap] Street.51 Historical evidence points to the existence of bakeries belonging to various institutions in Cluj, such as the above-mentioned Holy Spirit and Saint Elisabeth almshouses, but placed under the city’s management. The Holy Spirit almshouse owned two bakeries: in the Old Town (Lat. Vetus Castrum, Hung. Óvár) and on Király [King] Street. On this aspect of urban provisioning the account ledgers of the Holy Spirit almshouse offer important information, as Katalin Szende has shown in her study of bread supplies in early modern

45  Céhes élet Erdélyben, eds. Géza Kovách and Pál Binder (Bucharest: 1981), 129–136. The millers’ guild constitutions were expanded and submitted to the City Council in 1571. 46  Cf. Céhes élet, 29. The authors, Géza Kovách and Pál Binder, mention a millers’ guild in Cluj without, however, citing any supporting evidence. 47  SJAN Cluj, KvTanJk, IV/1, fol. 38. We learn from this registry book that Orsolya, wife of Hozzw István, baked the family bread at the oven on Soap Street. 48  The crisis was caused by the anti-Habsburg rebellion led by the Transylvanian military leader Mózes Székely, who governed Transylvania briefly in 1603 before being defeated. See Bálint and Pataki (eds.), Kolozsvári, 89–92. 49  SJAN Cluj, KvTanJk, I/1, fol. 507. 50  SJAN Cluj, KvSzám, 20/VII, fol. 23. 51  SJAN Cluj, KvTanJk, IV/1, fol. 38.

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Cluj.52 It is now possible to add further data to those she extracted from her sources. The bakery in the Old Town had been gifted by the Dominican monks after secularization53 and appears to have covered the almshouse’s needs constantly. Entries in the account ledgers show the costs of regular repairs and renovations, for example in 158754 and in 1603,55 when, as further data suggest, the building itself may have been extended.56 Luting and paintwork were left for the following year.57 The bakehouse needed significant repairs in 1642 as well.58 A few years later, in 1650, minor repairs were made, which only required 60 bricks, clay and a few boards.59 The alley near the Olt Town bakery was also the property of the almshouse. In 1648, 400 pieces of clapboard were used for improving it.60 This work was continued two years later, when the master carpenter mended the section near Péter Varga’s yard.61 The data on the repairs help in determining the size and location of the bakehouse. The costs involved illustrate the level of maintenance required and the important role of this establishment for the provision of the almshouse. The bakehouse on Király Street was a testamentary donation to the almshouse from Salatiel Nagy and his wife in 1559.62 It only served the almshouse until 1630. Sometime in 1631, between mid-August and mid-September, it was exchanged for another bakery on Közép [Central] Street (Lat. Platea Media), the property of one Imre Beuthelt. As the bakehouse on King Street had been quite profitable, the decision for the exchange is somewhat surprising, but it 52  Katalin Szende, “Mindennapi kenyerünket add meg nekünk ma,” Aetas: Történettudományi folyóirat 4 (2006): 217–21. 53  Enikő Rüsz-Fogarasi, Egy elfeledett intézmény története (Budapest: 2012), 23; A Szentlélek ispotály számadásakönyvei 1601–1650, ed. Ágnes Flóra (Budapest: 2006). 54  SJAN Cluj, KvSzám, 3/XXXIV, fol. 8: 84 floorboards were purchased. 55  A Szentlélek ispotály, 31: five cartfuls of material and 50 bricks were needed for mending the building’s vault and the oven base. 56  Ibid., 146–7: the materials purchased included 200 bricks, 300 roof shingles, and 1,000 shingle nails. 57  Ibid., 158–9. 58  Ibid., 181–2. The oven crashed in, and needed patching, and the roof was damaged by storms. The repairs required 200 bricks, one cartful of clay, one cartful of painting materials, 2,000 roof shingles and 4,000 shingle nails. The repair and luting of the chimney were paid for separately. 59  Ibid., 217–8. 60  Ibid., 208. 61  Ibid., 217. 62  Jakab, Oklevéltár, vol. 1, 391–3.

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may have been prompted by the consideration that, as Central Street was a busier area, it might bring in more revenue. The decision also contravened to some extent the terms of the Nagy family donation, which stated that the business should not be sold or terminated.63 The account books of the almshouse show that, as a result of the exchange, it received a significant amount of money (100 forints) from the wealthy Comes [Sheriff] of Cluj, Lőrinc Filstich,64 an increase in revenue which may have helped towards the purchase of a new vineyard, as the account books for 1633 show.65 The two bakehouses were managed by the almshouse masters. They were responsible for renovations,66 for the purchase of tools and firewood, and for the hire of kneaders and baker women. It was probably the latter who were responsible for procuring ingredients and selling the bread, as there are no separate entries for purchases of flour or revenues from sales in the accounts. The inventory of the almshouse includes items used in the bakehouses it owned, which helps with a reconstruction of the ways in which such establishments were equipped and furnished at the time. According to the inventory from 1601, the Old Town bakehouse purchased a second-hand cauldron still in good condition, 19 troughs, three additional troughs (two in good condition), a water bowl, a large, used tub, a bucket, 17 sieves (one of which was below par) and a used table for kneading.67 The bakehouse on King Street inventoried four tubs, one smaller tub, one tub in a poor condition, seven smaller tubs, ten sieves (four of which were second best), an iron cauldron, an iron bucket with chains, a table with legs, a pot for water, a good second-hand tub, a good bucket, and a table for kneading.68 Some of the listed items (sieves, tubs) are confirmed occasionally on the shopping lists of the almshouse.69 The flour purchased by the baker women or brought in by the customers was used for baking a variety of products (loaves of bread, buns, scones). A toll had to be paid for the baking. The Holy Spirit almshouse distributed some of the toll bread to its residents and to the master, while the rest was sold. It was not a large revenue, but it was constant.70 63  Ibid. The register of bakeries in the area show Imre Beuthelt’s name first in the entry for the Közép [Central] Street bakehouse and on King Street after the exchange. 64  A Szentlélek ispotály, 151, 256. 65  Ibid., 258. 66  Ibid., 170, 209. 67  Arhiva Diocezei Catolice Cluj, Fondul Szent Erzsébet Aggmenház [Archive of the Catholic diocese of Cluj, Fonds Saint Elisabeth Almshouse], “Inventárium,” 1601. 68  Ibid. 69  A Szentlélek ispotály, 32, 36, 139, 58, 61, 92–4, 171, 182. 70  Rüsz-Fogarasi, Egy elfeledett, 30–6.

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The other religious establishment, Saint Elisabeth almshouse, owned two bakeries at the end of the 16th century and in the first half of the next: one was adjacent to it, and the other was located close to Hungarian Street (Hung. Magyar utca).71 The bread baked in these two bakeries was meant only for the establishment’s own needs and was made with flour from its own mill, so the records only show the amount of flour used, rather than the amount of bread produced. Besides bakehouses run by the city’s charitable institutions, Cluj had a number of private (commercial) bakeries, built or leased by the city’s inhabitants. The tax registers contain some information regarding the location of some privately-owned bakeries catering for the city’s population,72 but this remains incomplete. It is particularly difficult to locate the bakeries, bar for some establishments of this type operating during the Principality (1541–1691). Registers of bakeries in the city of Cluj are also incomplete, and this makes it difficult to put together a coherent picture of the ways in which they operated. For instance, we do not know how many of these bakeries worked full time, or simply for some periods, or seasonally. However, some of the gaps can be filled on the basis of data from the cumulative tax registers of the City Council, which contain partial information on bakery owners. The names are followed by the dika73 (property tax), which indicates that these persons were tax-payers, but the entries do not specify the economic activities conducted in the buildings for which tax was paid.74 In his study on taxation in 16th-century Cluj, András Kiss mentions seven bakehouses operating in the city.75 Two of them were owned by the Saint Elisabeth almshouse and the other is the Holy Spirit’s bakehouse in the Old Town.76 The other bakehouses listed in the study were owned by the city’s inhabitants. In the 1618 City tax register at least twelve bakehouses are mentioned: one of them was owned by the Saint Elisabeth almshouse, two by the Holy Spirit, and the other nine by people involved in the bakery trade.77 71  Szent Erzsébet, 47, 93, 99, 127. An account from 1599 places one of the bakeries of the Saint Elisabeth almshouse in the vicinity of Ádám Lázár’s and Stephen Teibel’s bakehouses, close to Hungarian Street. SJAN Cluj, KvSzám, 8/VI, fols. 3–66. 72  András Kiss, Más források és más értelmezések (Târgu-Mureș: 2003), 203–20. 73  The unit of property tax in Cluj was generally 4 florins, but the exact amount could change as a result of decisions taken in the Council of centumviri (Council of the one hundred). 74  SJAN Cluj, KvTanJk, 20/VIII, fols. 203–10. 75  Kiss, Más források, 208. 76  The other bakehouse of the Holy Spirit almshouse on King Street is not listed here. 77  SJAN Cluj, KvSzám, 1618, fols. 19–26. The name of the owner of the bakery on Central Street indicates his occupation: Ferenc Kalácssütő (scone-maker). Ibid., fol. 24.

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The registers for 1634–1635 name the bakehouses of Imre Beuthelt, Márton Fenescher, Hans Bekken, István Fekete, Márton Kádár, Péter Viczei, the Király Street bakehouse run by Lorincz Schenili, as well as bakehouses on Kis Mester [Little Master] Street, on Közép [Central] Street, and on Holy Church Street.78 Prominent citizens such as Imre Gellyén (a chief judge), who was a member of the city’s administration for fourteen years at the end of the 16th century, owned two bakeries, one of which was on Közép Street.79 The tax registers for the commercial (privately-owned) bakeries have three entries for the artisans working in them, but only two working in almshouseowned establishments. Without exception, the workers were women, and their tasks were clearly defined: one passed the flour through the sieve, another kneaded the dough, and the third baked the bread. There were probably maidens among the sievers, because they appear under their maiden name. In comparison with other cities in Western and Central Europe, women had a much bigger role in the bakery business in Cluj. When Prince Gábor Bethlen (1613–1629) visited Cluj in 1618, nine bread artisans, all women, were selected for the purchase of bread, but as this was still not enough, they had to purchase extra loaves from the market.80 Home-baking was not unknown in 17th-century Cluj. Some urban houses presumably had their own ovens for baking bread, but they were not a majority. The sources indicate that most people still baked their bread in town, and kept the use of their own ovens for special occasions and festivities. But some of the private residences of the affluent elites were unimaginable without their own ovens. A good example is the residence of the Wesselényi family in Cluj at the end of the 17th century.81 Recent archaeological excavations have uncovered a domestic bakehouse with twin baking ovens.82 The archaeological findings are backed up by the house inventory, which lists a bakehouse equipped with two ovens, a table, a tub, two shovels and a lockable door.83 The municipality took safety issues very seriously, and inspected these structures regularly, whether they were ovens in individual kitchens or bakeries in 78  Ibid., 20/VIII, fols. 203–64. 79  Ibid., 20/VII, fol. 23. 80  SJAN Cluj, KvSzám, 1618, fol. 28. 81  Today it is the property of the Unitarian Bishopric of Cluj. 82  We are eagerly awaiting the results of field research conducted by Radu Lupescu, Zsolt Kovács and Árpád Furú in the city of Cluj. We know, however, that their study covered only a limited number (6–8) of households and estates for which inventories are available. 83  SJAN Cluj, Fond Familial Wesselényi de Hodod, 1745 [The National Archives, Cluj county archives, Fonds Wesselényi family, 1745], A Kolozsvári háznál lévő portékák [Purchase ledgers of family residences in Cluj], fol. 46.

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outbuildings.84 In 1603, the City Council appointed a number of inspectors who were authorized to close down ovens which did not comply with fire regulations.85 Institutionally, the city bakers were responsible for providing the City Council with bread. The Council, an important client, appointed personnel whose task was to manage the bread allocations of council members, and the relevant accounts. In 1648, for example, they oversaw the allocation of 6,691 white loaves and 8,198 wholemeal loaves.86 The City Hall’s annual bread requirements exceeded the amount of loaves baked in the almshouse-owned bakeries administered by the municipality. The City Council’s supplementary bread orders were recorded separately.87 City bakers used flour ground in the city’s mills, not from those owned by the almshouses, even though these, too, were administered by the municipality. We can only guess why: either council members thought that this was better-quality, safe-to-eat flour, or they tried to have greater control over council-managed bakeries. Narrative sources and charter records from the period mention not just the bakeries which produced bread loaves only, but, more specifically, bread artisans who made buns and pretzels. Several records show that bun-makers jointly represented their interests before the City Council and, on one occasion, asked for a mill to be dedicated to their own use.88 This joint action could suggest that they had a guild, but there is no information on membership numbers or on the ways in which they organized themselves, if they did at all. Another open question relates to the contractual nature of the bun-makers’ relationships with the bakeries. Unlike meat provision, sources show that bread provision did not cause problems in Cluj, because we do not have records on shortages or litigations in the municipal archives. However, when faced with temporary difficulties, the authorities ordered bread to be brought from the neighbouring town of Turda (Hung. Torda, Ger. Thorenburg, in Cluj county).89 The current phase of research shows that bakehouses were intended to be commercial enterprises, but that the owners were rarely members of the profession themselves. This could explain a feature which was peculiar to the city 84  Based on the available sources, separate bakeries were exceptional and were a characteristic of bigger urban households. 85  SJAN Cluj, KvTanJk, I/1, fol. 449. 86  SJAN Cluj, KvSzám, 25/b, fols. 895–918. 87  Ibid. 88  SJAN Cluj, KvTanJk, V/3, fol. 16. 89  Ibid., 3/XXX, fol. 36.

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of Cluj, namely that, unlike in other cities,90 there were no baker guilds here. Another characteristic of the bread industry in Cluj was the greater role of women among the workforce.

Meat Provision: Butcheries and Butchers

The availability of meat supplies is another essential component in the food provision of a city. In Transylvania, like everywhere else in early modern Europe, the countryside supplied meat to the cities. A network of slaughterhouses, livestock markets and butchers’ shops ensured the production, transportation and sale of meat for the needs of the cities. Beef, lamb, goat and pork were the varieties mostly to be found on the tables of Cluj residents in the 17th century. At the banquets of the rich, venison, too, was served. Lamb was reckoned the best, being sold for 8 denarii91 a packet. This was followed by pork (2–4 denarii per unit), ox (1.5–2 denarii per unit), beef (1–2 denarii per unit), mutton (1 denarius per unit). Goat meat must have been common, but was probably considered less desirable than other varieties of meat, because it was sold for as little as half a denarius per unit.The City authorities constantly attempted to make sure that meat provision met the needs of the population and was available for purchase in all butcher shops, at fairs and markets. A City Council decision dated 6 May 1656, for example, shows that attempts were made to ensure that even the less affluent sections of the population could afford certain varieties of meat. Butchers were warned that meat would have to be brought from outside the city if needs were not met internally.92 Other meat products such as offal, sausages, ham, liver sausage and bacon, were also available at butcheries. The system of meat provisioning was organized around the city’s slaughterhouses and butcheries. Bigger animals such as cattle were slaughtered in a single slaughterhouse located near the Someș (Szamos) bridge in Cluj, which 90  The available information on guilds in other cities is no safe basis for conjectures regarding the operation of bakeries in Cluj. See Ştefan Pascu, Meșteșugurile din Transilvania până în secolul al XVI-lea (Bucharest: 1954), 105–7; Céhes élet, 29–30; Benda, “Malmok,” 7–35; Ottó Domonkos, “A soproni pékház és pékek XVI–XIX századi céhemlékei,” Arrabona 17 (1975): 143–74. 91  A Hungarian florin = 100 denarii; 1 thaler = 200 denarii. For these exchange rates, see János Búza, “Az Erdélyi fejedelemség pénzértékei és a nagysinki országgyülés,” Erdélyi Múzeum 68 (1): 56–67. Open access at Corvinus University, Budapest, at URL: unipub.lib.uni-corvinus.hu/2359/1/Nagysink.pdf [accessed 5 October 2017]. 92  SJAN Cluj, KvTanJk, 6 May 1656, fols. 98–9.

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helped concentrate the process.93 The legislation of Buda,94 the capital of the Hungarian Kingdom, which also operated in Cluj, had prescribed the use of a single communal slaughterhouse since the 15th century.95 The cut meat was then sent to butcheries (macellae, Fleischbänke) where it was then traded. The butchers were an important economic group in the city. It should be remembered at this point that Cluj developed as a local centre for trade and crafts. The butchers’ influential position derived from the importance of their profession in an emerging town. Their importance in Cluj was also reflected in the existence in the 15th century of a so-called street of the butchers (linea seu vicus macellorum) and in the role assigned to the butchers’ guilds in the maintenance of one of the city’s towers. How many butchers’ shops were there in Cluj at the end of 16th century and the beginning of the 17th? The number of butcheries changed over time, in relation to changes in demograhics and annual levels of consumption.96 According to the available data, in the 17th century Cluj had twelve butchers’ shops catering for a population which varied between 7,000 and 9,000 inhabitants in the 16th–17th centuries.97 In cities like Buda and Frankfurt, it was the guilds which apportioned work, determined the number of active butchers’ shops and even the days when they were open for trade.98 In Cluj, a City Council decision of 1592 divided the year in two and allowed eight butcheries to operate in the first half of the year (from Saint Martin, on 11 November, to Pentecost) and six in the second (from Pentecost to Saint Martin).99 When a new butchery opened, any guild master butcher who was also a member of the City Council was in a privileged position when the sites to be developed were

93  EMSZT, VIII, 118. 94  Buda Law was a compilation of German laws and privileges granted to mediaeval Buda (1403–21) and adopted in early modern Cluj, where it remained in force at least until 1660. 95  Buda város jogkönyve, eds. László Blazovich and József Schmidt (Szeged: 2001), vol. 2, 370–1. 96  Szűcs, Városok, 130. 97  Elek Csetri, “Kolozsvár népessége a középkortól a jelenkorig,” in Kolozsvár 1000 éve, eds. Dáné Tibor Kálmán, Egyed Ákos et al. (Cluj-Napoca: 2001), 7. In the early 16th century, Buda had around 30 butcheries. See Jenő Szűcs, Városok és kézművesség a XV. századi Magyarországon (Budapest: 1955), 130. 98  András Kubinyi, “A középkori budai mészáros céh,” in A budai mészárosok középkori céhkönyve és kiváltságlevelei/Zunftbuch und Privilegien der Fleischer zu Ofen aus dem Mittelalter, eds. István Kenyeres and István Baraczka (Budapest: 2008), 26. 99  St. Martin was the patron saint of butchers. Goldenberg, Clujul, 153.

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allocated.100 As far as foreign butchers were concerned, in the 17th century they were granted the right to bring meat to Cluj once a week, on Thursdays.101 The butchers’ trade was regulated by their guild statutes and by the ordinances of the City Council. In mediaeval Cluj, the butchers formed their first guild in 1422.102 In the last quarter of the 16th century, a category of butchers called henteler founded a second guild and operated according to their guild’s regulations.103 In the older historiography, the henteler were believed to perform more complex tasks than the average butcher, but recent research104 has shown that the two guilds had the same roles in the purchase,105 processing and distribution of meat. The City authorities had the same expectations from both. Control by the municipality was important for ensuring observance of anti-monopoly rules in the meat industry. In 1568, the butchers and the henteler entered into a covenant before the City authorities,106 signing a document which was confirmed by King John Zápolya.107 They asked for their ancient privileges to be reconfirmed and for specific locations to be assigned to them for their retail activities. Initially, the henteler were granted the right to rent small shop units around the church of Saint Michael. Later they were allowed to rent their own stalls in the market, but this right was revoked when the city authorities decided that the market had become too cramped. At that point, the henteler received 13 small stores (Hung. kamrácska) as retail points, near the Házsongárd cemetery, outside the city walls.108 The guild statutes also determined the amounts of meat which could be sold on the local market. Usually, only one animal per day could be slaughtered, and only the guild master could grant the right to have two slaughtered.109 Butchers could slaughter smaller animals in their own homes, too.110 They did 100  Jakab, Oklevéltár, vol. 2, 144. 101  Jeney-Tóth, Kolozsvár város, 182. 102  Jakab, Oklevéltár, vol. 1, 162–163. 103  Goldenberg, Clujul, 378–81. 104  Zsolt Kálmán Sütő, A Kolozsvári mészárosok céhe a 16. században (Cluj-Napoca: 2004); Idem, A 17. századi Kolozsvári mészáros mesterség, unpublished MA dissertation (Univer­ sity of Cluj, Department of History and Philosophy, 2006). 105  The procurement of animals for slaughter caused conflicts and litigations, see Annamária Jeney-Toth, Míves emberek a kincses Kolozsvárott (Cluj-Napoca: 2004), 64–65; Eadem, “Adalékok a kolozsvári céhek XVII. századi történetéhez,” in Tanulmányok, eds. Csiffáry and Dóka, 312–22. 106  Jakab, Oklevéltár, vol. 2, 89–91. 107  King John Sigismund Zápolya (1540–1571). 108  Jakab, Oklevéltár, 89–91. 109  Ibid., 380. 110  SJAN Cluj, KvTanJk, 24 October 1657, fols. 123–4; 11 July 1659, fols. 162–3.

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not only slaughter their own cattle, but also animals which the inhabitants brought for slaughter for a fee.111 The animals, reared in the locals’ yards or purchased at the market, were weighed, slaughtered and processed in the same way as the butchers’ own. In the 17th century, butchers were often required to sell their cuts, especially pork, only at the market, or risk fines and the confiscation of their merchandise.112 On Sundays and holidays, selling could not commence at the market before the end of the church service.113 The city gates could only be opened with the permission of the judge.114 The raising of a flag was a sign that the free sale of livestock could start: serfs and ordinary citizens could then go in and buy cattle for labour and farming.115 In January 1602, the cattle market was liberalized for a very short time and every citizen of Cluj could buy animals according to their needs, but there were limits on resale.116 The names of cattle buyers were written down, in case they should be required to hand their animals in to the municipality, for slaughter or for other purposes.117 The council registers show such a case to have occurred in 1603, when citizens turned in 101 cattle for the army, and were reimbursed by the authorities.118 The decision to liberalize the market was short-lived: in March 1602, pre-emptive rights were restored to the butchers.119 Except on the days when fairs were held, only butchers were allowed to buy live cattle from the market, in order to ensure the adequate provisioning of the city. Once they purchased the cattle at the city gates, butchers had to mark those which were destined for the consumption of city’s residents.120 If any of the marked cattle died, the butcher had to account for it.121 The greatest temptation for butchers was engaging in the cattle trade,122 which was strictly forbidden in Cluj. 111  Jeney-Tóth, Kolozsvár város, 181. 112  Ibid., 180, 181. The site in the market allocated to butchers is identified in sources as the area near the House with Arcades. SJAN Cluj, KvTanJk, I/5, 22 January 1661, fol. 11. 113  Cluj joined the Reformation in the mid-16th century. See Edit Szegedi, “Die Reformation in Klausenburg,” in Konfessionsbildung und Konfessions-kultur in Siebenbürgen in der Frühen Neuzeit, eds. Volker Leppin and Ulrich A. Wien (Stuttgart: 2005), 77–88. 114   Kolosváry Sándor and Óvári Kelemen (eds.), Corpus statutorum, vol. 1 (Budapest: 1885), 198. 115  SJAN Cluj, KvTanJk, 8 April 1589, fol. 55; 5 May 1580, fol. 220v. 116  Jeney-Tóth, Kolozsvár város, 181. 117  SJAN Cluj, KvTanJk, I/5. 118  Ibid., I/5, 14 June 1603, fol. 224. 119  SJAN Cluj, KvTanJk, I/5. 6 March 1602, fol. 205v. 120  SJAN Cluj, KvTanJk, I/5, 24 January 1601, fols. 194–5. 121  Ibid., I/6. 4 January 1620, fols. 287–8. 122  Goldenberg, Clujul, 155.

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Supervising the meat trade was one of the main public service roles of the municipality. The activities of the slaughterhouses and butcheries were overseen by two Saxon and two Hungarian meat inspectors,123 in accordance with 16th-century legal practices,124 which required a parity of officials in municipal bodies.125 Their number was not constant: there were two at the beginning of the 17th century,126 and four by the middle of the century.127 Their duties, which were based on the general rules governing the work of civil servants in the City Council,128 were complex and diverse, and they had to work closely with the guild masters. Sometimes, like many others public servants, the meat inspectors worked pro bono,129 which means that their income resulted from the fines they levied. One third of the fines for disobedient butchers were laid by inspectors, two thirds by the City Council. Although not technically employed by the Council, the inspectors were accountable to it. The Council which supervised them closely, imposing fines and penalties for misconduct or poor performance.130 The inspectors’ critical role was to ensure that meat provisioning operated smoothly and that food shortages were avoided in difficult times. One such difficult time in the city’s history was the Fifteen Years War,131 and especially the years 1602–3,132 when requisitioning was constantly on the agenda. In June 1602, the authorities rationed meat, limiting purchases to one piece of meat per person.133 The inspectors were helped in enforcing these measures by the market supervisor and the master butchers from both guilds.134 Recalcitrant or under-performing butchers could be penalised in a number of ways: their cattle could be taken away, their prices could be slashed,135 or the 123  Jeney-Tóth, Kolozsvár város, 180–1. 124  SJAN Cluj, KvTanJk, I/3, 6 February 1573, fol. 83. 125  The structure of local government in Cluj was based on the so-called union between the two political nations, the Saxons and the Hungarians. The number of offices had to observe parity between the two. 126  Jeney-Tóth, Kolozsvár város, 183. 127  SJAN Cluj, KvTanJk, I/5. 24 June 1656, fol. 102. 128  Jeney-Tóth, Kolozsvár város, 180. 129  Ibid., 193. 130  Ibid., 191. 131  War between the Ottoman Empire and the Habsburgs (1593–1606), also known as the Long Turkish War. See Bálint and Pataki (ed.), Kolozsvári, 89–92. 132  For the food crisis of 1603, see note 48 above. 133  Jeney-Tóth, Kolozsvár város, 181. 134  Ibid., 188 and 193. 135  Ibid., 184–5.

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meat and skin of slaughtered animals could be confiscated and sold outside the city. Slaughtering animals without the inspector’s authorization was also a violation of the law,136 and incurred a fine, sometimes a significant one.137 If the cattle were found to be skinny and gaunt, the meat was confiscated and given to almshouses, to students or destitute people.138 If the meat turned out to be of very poor quality or inedible, the authorities ordered the merchandise to be dumped into the river.139 The cattle to be sold in the evening had to be slaughtered at seven in the morning, the cattle to be sold the next day had to be slaughtered in the afternoon. The cattle had to be brought to the slaughterhouse earlier, and had to be separated from other animals, still deemed to need fattening up.140 The inspectors went to the slaughterhouse to size up the animals.Inaccurate measurements were severely punished, and incompetent or dishonest butchers could be banned from trading.141 If inspectors did not deem the cattle fit for slaughter, they either sent the animals back to be fattened up, or ordered the meat to be sold at lower prices at the market, rather than in butchers’ shops.142 The processed meat was later examined at the butchery143 and placed in three categories before being sold. Good meat consisted of nice, fat cuts,144 poor meat was bad and skinny,145 while the lowest-quality cuts were labelled very poor.146 The production of wholesome and high-quality meat fit for human consumption and how to keep the town well-provisioned and clean was an ongoing concern for both the city authorities and the butchers’ guilds. Masters and shop boys alike had to wear clean aprons, butcheries and their surroundings were cleaned weekly,147 and bones were put on a cart and taken away to be disposed of outside the city gates.148 If levels of hygiene were not satisfactory, 136  SJAN Cluj, Kv TanJk, I/6, 15 June 1656, fols. 100–1. 137  Jeney-Tóth, Kolozsvár város, 193. 138  Ibid., 183. 139  Ibid., 188–9. 140  SJAN Cluj, KvTanJk, I/3, 10 July 1573, fol. 85. 141  Goldenberg, Clujul, 155. 142  Jeney-Tóth, Kolozsvár város, 188–9. 143  Ibid. 144  Ibid., 189. 145  Ibid. 146  SJAN Cluj, KvTanJk, I/6, 24 June 1656, fols. 111–2. 147  Arhivele Naţionale, Filiala Cluj, Registrul breslei măcelarilor din 1559/A mészáros céh 1559. évi statútuma [The National Archives, Cluj county archives, The butchers’ guild charter of 1559], articles 14 and 34. 148  Jeney-Tóth, Kolozsvár város, 185.

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the city’s prime judge (judex civitatis) ordered sanitary inspectors to clean the surroundings of the butcheries with their own hands, or incur a fine.149 The gates of the butcheries were closed and guarded at night, and butchers were not allowed to enter each other’s premises without permission.150 Conclusions Early modern Cluj shared with many multi-ethnic, medium-sized Protestant cities of Central Europe common patterns of food provisioning, particularly regarding bread and meat. The institutions and sites of basic food provision, such as mills, bakeries, slaughterhouses and butchers’ shops were closely supervised by the municipal authorities. Concerns for the welfare of the citizens was expressed in attempts to ensure that the city was supplied constantly with high-quality, hygienic foodstuffs. Throughout Europe, the price of bread was known to influence social cohesion and political stability. Therefore, the municipal authorities in Cluj paid particular attention to staples such as bread. With the secularisation of church assets in the mid-16th century, during the Reformation, the City Council created a network of public bakeries under a protectionist regime, which explains the absence of millers’ and bakers’ associative bodies. Conversely, the meat industry was regulated by the two butchers’ guilds, founded in the last quarter of the 16th century, and depended significantly on their capacity to put pressure on and engage with the local political elites. Short-term, liberalizing measures such as the granting of certain rights to the city’s residents or to foreign butchers did not seriously threaten the monopoly of the two guilds in the period considered here. Even though they did not have as many council representatives as other, more numerous guilds did, the butchers’ two guilds in Cluj were nevertheless well embedded in the city’s institutional and political framework. Bibliography Archival Sources Cluj-Napoca, Arhiva Diocezei Catolice Cluj, Fondul Szent Erzsébet Aggmenház [Archive of the Catholic diocese of Cluj, Fonds Saint Elisabeth Asylum]. Cluj-Napoca, Arhiva Primăriei Municipiului Cluj [Archives of Cluj City Hall]. 149  SJAN Cluj, KvTanJk, I/5, 25 September 1602, fol. 212. 150  Goldenberg, Clujul, 154.

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Cluj-Napoca, Kolozsvári Unitárius Egyházközség Levéltára, Vegyes iratok [Archives of the Unitarian Church in Cluj, Miscellanea]. Cluj-Napoca, Sucursala Judeţeană a Arhivelor Naţionale Cluj [The National Archives, Cluj county archives]: Fond Primăria Cluj, Hotărâri ale Consiliului Orăşenesc [Fonds City Hall, City Council decisions] (cited as SJAN Cluj, KvTanJk). Fond Primăria Cluj, Socoteli [Fonds City Hall, Accounts] (cited as SJAN Cluj, KvSzám). Fond Familial Wesselényi de Hodod, 1745, A kolozsvári háznál lévő portékák [Fonds Wesselényi family, 1745, Purchase ledgers of family residences in Cluj]. Statutul breslei măcelarilor din 1559/ A mészáros céh 1559. évi statútuma [The butchers’ guild charter from 1559]. Published Primary Sources Buda város jogkönyve [Registers of the city of Buda], eds. László Blazovich and József Schmidt (Szeged: 2001). Jakab Elek (ed.), Oklevéltár Kolozsvár története első kötetéhez [Diplomatarium for the history of Kolozsvár (Cluj)], vol. 1 (Budapest: 1888). Jakab Elek (ed.), Oklevéltár Kolozsvár története, második és harmadik kötetéhez [Diplomatarium for the history of Cluj], vols. 2 and 3] (Budapest: 1888). Jeney-Tóth Annamária, “Kolozsvár város céhekre vonatkozó határozatai. 1601–1655” [Regulations of the guilds of Kolozsvár (Cluj) 1601–1655], in Várostörténeti források: Erdély és a Partium a 16–19. században [Sources for urban history: Transylvania and Partium in the 16th–19th centuries], eds. Klára Papp Gorun, György Kovács and Annamária Jeney-Tóth (Debrecen: 2005), 178–194. Kolosváry, Sándor and Kelemen Óvári (eds.), Corpus statutorum Hungariae municipalium. I. A magyar törvényhatóságok jogszabályainak gyűjteménye (Budapest: 1885). Szent Erzsébet ispotály számadáskönyvei 1601–1650 [Account books of the Saint Elisabeth Almshouse 1601–1650], ed. Tünde Mária Márton (Budapest: 2010). Szentlélek ispotály számadáskönyvei 1601–1650 [Account books of the Holy Spirit Almshouse 1601–1650], ed. Ágnes Flóra (Budapest: 2006). Secondary Literature “Symposium review on cooking, cuisine and class,” Food and Foodways: Explorations in the history and culture of human nourishment 3 (1989). Bálint, József and Pataki, József, (eds.), Kolozsvári emlékírók [Memorialists of Kolozsvár (Cluj)] (Bucharest: 1990). Benda, Borbála, “Obiceiuri alimentare pe domeniile aristocratice şi evoluţia lor în secolul al XVII-lea: Identități și sensibilități alimentare Europene” [Eating habits on

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aristocratic estates and their evolution in the 17th century: European culinary identities and sensibilities], Caiete de antropologie istorică 5 (2006): 31–54. Benda, Judit, “Malmok, pékek és kenyérszékek a késő-középkori Budán” [Mills, bakers and bakeries in Buda in the late Middle Ages], Tanulmányok Budapest múltjából 38 (2013): 7–30. Benkö, Elek, Kolozsvár Magyar külvárosa a középkorban [The Hungarian suburbs of Kolozsvár (Cluj) in the Middle Ages] (Cluj-Napoca: 2004). Bitay, Enikő, Márton László and Talpas János, Technikatörténeti örökség MagyarGyerömonostoron [The technological heritage of Magyar-Gyerőmonostor (Mănăstireni)] (Cluj-Napoca: 2010). Blazovich, László, “A budai jog és Kolozsvár egy 1488–as oklevél alapján” [Buda law and Kolozsvár (Cluj) in a document from 1488] in Orașe și orășeni/ Városok és városlakók [Towns and townspeople], eds. Enikő Rüsz-Fogarasi, Ionuț Costea, Carmen Florea and Pál Judit (Cluj-Napoca: 2006), 342–49. Bloch, Marc, “Avènement et conquête du moulin à eau,” Annales d’histoire économique et sociale 7 (36) (Nov. 1935): 538–63. Kovách, Géza and Pál Binder (eds.), Céhes élet Erdélyben [Guild life in Transylvania] (Bucharest: 1981). Csapó, Emőke, “Festine luculliene: Secretele bucǎtǎriei elitei clujene în a doua jumǎtate a secolului XIX” [Lucullan feasts: culinary secrets of the elites of Cluj in the latter half of the 19th-century], Annales Universitatis Apulensis. Series Historica 14 (1) (2010): 179–88. Csetri, Elek, “Kolozsvár népessége a középkortól a jelenkorig” [The population of ClujNapoca from mediaeval times to the present day], in Kolozsvár 1000 éve [1000 years in the history of Cluj-Napoca], eds. Dáné Tibor Kálmán, Ákos Egyed, Gábor Sipos and Rudolf Wolf (Cluj-Napoca: 2001). Csiffáry, Gergely, “A gyöngyössolymosi malomkőbányászat” [Millstone mining in Gyöngyssolymos], in Tanulmányok a kézmű ipartörténetéhez [Studies in the history of crafts], eds. Gergely Csiffáry and Klára Dóka (Veszprém: 1999), 161–95. Domonkos, Ottó, “A Soproni pékház és pékek XVI–XIX. századi céhemlékei” [Bakeries in Sopron and the history of the bakers’ guild], Arrabona 17 (1975): 143–74. Erdélyi Magyar Szótörténeti Tár [A historical dictionary of the old Hungarian language in Transylvania], ed. Attila T. Szabó, vol. 8 (Bucharest-Budapest: 1996) [cited as EMSZT]. Endrei, Walter, A középkori technikai forradalom [The technical revolution of the Middle Ages] (Budapest: 1978). Gimpel, Jean, Revoluția industrială în evul mediu, trans. Constanţa Oancea (Bucharest: 1983). Goldenberg, Samuel, Clujul în secolul al XVI-lea [Cluj in the 16th century] (Bucharest: 1958).

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Jeney-Tóth, Annamária, Míves emberek a kincses Kolozsvárott [The craftsmen of Kolozsvár (Cluj)] (Cluj-Napoca: 2004). Jeney-Tóth, Annamária, “Adalékok a kolozsvári céhek XVII. századi történetéhez” [Additions to the history of guilds in 17th century Kolozsvár (Cluj)], in Tanulmányok a kézműipar történetéhez [Studies on the history of crafts], eds. Gergely Csiffáry and Klára Dóka (Veszprém: 1999), 312–22. Jeney-Tóth, Annamária, “Asztalok rendelése és a fejedelmi konyha Bethlen Gábor erdélyi udvarában” [Meals and the princely kitchen at the Transylvanian court of Bethlen Gábor], in Emlékkönyv Egyed Ákos születésének nyolcvanadik évfordulójára [Album on the 80th anniversary of Egyed Ákos], eds. Judit Pál and Gábor Sipos (Cluj-Napoca: 2010), 155–62. Kiss, András, Más források és más értelmezések [Other sources and other interpretations] (Târgu-Mureș: 2003). Kubinyi, András, “A középkori budai mészáros céh” [The butchers’ guild in mediaeval Buda], in A Budai mészárosok középkori céhkönyve és kiváltságlevelei/Zunftbuch und Privilegien der Fleischer zu Ofen aus dem Mittelalter, ed. István Kenyeres and István Baraczka (Budapest: 2008), 15–56. Kubinyi, András, Városfejlődés és vásárhálózat a középkori Alföldön és az Alföld szélén [The development of towns and markets in the Hungarian lowlands in the Middle Ages] (Szeged: 2000). Lukács, József, “Interferenţe în gastronomie: Câteva aspecte ale influenţelor reciproce întâlnite în gastronomia lumii italieneşti şi în cea a teritoriilor Regatului Maghiar medieval în perioada secolelor al XIV şi al XVI-lea” [Exchanges in gastronomy: aspects of mutual influences in the Italian and Hungarian cuisines, 14th–16th centuries], Anuarul institutului de studii italo-român 9 (2012): 93–100. Novák, Károly István, “Kolozsvár város malmai a XVI. század végi számadások tükrében” [The mills of Kolozsvár (Cluj) in late 16th-century accounts], Areopolis 1 (2001): 82–91. Ozsváth, Gábor Dániel, Patakmalmok a Kárpát-medence keleti felében [Creek mills in the eastern Carpathians] (Terc: 2011). Pascu, Ștefan, Meșteșugurile din Transilvania până în secolul al XVI-lea [The trades in Transylvania until the 16th century] (Bucharest: 1954). Rüsz-Fogarasi, Enikő, Egy elfeledett intézmény története: A kolozsvári Szentlélek-ispotály kora újkori története [The history of a forgotten institution: the early modern history of the Holy Spirit Hospital in Cluj] (Budapest: 2012). Sütö, Zsolt Kálmán, A Kolozsvári mészárosok céhe a 16. században [The butchers’ guilds of Cluj in the 16th century] (Cluj-Napoca: 2004). Sütö, Zsolt Kálmán, A 17. századi Kolozsvári mészáros mesterség [The butchers’ trade in 17th-century Cluj], unpublished MA thesis (Babeș-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca: 2006).

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Szabó, Noémi Gyöngyvér, A Kolozsmonostori bencés apátság gazdálkodása a késő középkorban [The administration of the Benedictine abbey of Kolozsmonostor (Mănăştur) in the late Middle Ages] (Debrecen: 2012). Szabó, Attila T., Kolozsvár települése a XIX. század elejéig [The settlement of Cluj until the early 19th century] (Cluj-Napoca: 1946). Szegedi, Edit, “Die Reformation in Klausenburg,” in Konfessionsbildung und Konfessionskultur in Siebenbürgen in der Frühen Neuzeit, eds. Volker Leppin and Ulrich A. Wien (Stuttgart: 2005), 77‑88. Szende, Katalin, “Mindennapi kenyerünket add meg nekünk ma” [Give us this day our daily bread], Aetas 4 (2006): 217–21. Szűcs, Jenő, Városok és kézművesség a XV. századi Magyarországon [Cities and crafts in Hungary in the 15th century] (Budapest: 1955). Takáts, Sándor, “Művelődéstörténeti közlemények: A magyar malom” [Cultural history publications; the Hungarian mills], Századok 41 (1907): 143–60. Tringli, István, “A magyar szokásjog a malomépítésről” [Hungarian customary law for the construction of mills], in Analecta Medievalia I. Tanulmányok a középkorról [Mediaeval studies], ed. Tibor Neumann (Budapest: 2001), 251–69. Wöller, István, “Vízimalmok az örvényesi Séden” [The water mills on the Séd], in Tanulmányok a kézműipar történetéhez [Studies on the history of crafts], eds. Gergely Csiffáry and Klára Dóka (Veszprém: 1999), 155–60.

Chapter 10

Spices and Exotic Foods in 17th-Century Transylvania: The Customs Accounts of Sibiu* Mária Pakucs-Willcocks A large-scale analysis of food consumption in Transylvania in the early modern period is still lacking. This chapter aims to offer a contribution towards the ultimate goal of such a study, with a focus on one specific aspect of food consumption: the imports of spices and exotic fruits in Transylvania. Trade was the most important means of acquiring foodstuffs which were not grown locally. The merchants who brought such food items often covered long distances on routes which ran across the Balkan Peninsula, linking the Ottoman centre and Transylvania. Only certain alimentary goods were suitable for this long-haul trade, which explains the overwhelming presence of non-perishable items such as spices, dried fruits, rice, and olive oil in the Transylvanian customs accounts of the early modern period. In this chapter I shall first discuss the legislation on the imports of spices and foodstuffs in 17th-century Transylvania. In the main body of the analysis, I shall consider spices and other foodstuffs individually. Tentatively, I shall also present a few examples of how the imported foods were utilised in the Transylvanian culinary context. My analysis is based primarily on the unpublished customs accounts of Sibiu (Hung. Nagyszeben, Ger. Hermannstadt) from the 17th century. Owing to the particularities of these sources, the analysis of trade is restricted to the traffic of foodstuffs and spices brought from the Ottoman Empire.1 Comparisons with the 17th-century customs books of Cluj (Hung. Kolozsvár, Ger. Klausenburg) *  Archival research for this chapter was supported by the ERC grant (ERC-2014-CoG no. 646489-LuxFass) for the research project “Luxury, Fashion, and Social Status in Early Modern South-Eastern Europe,” hosted by the New Europe College Bucharest. 1  Arhivele Naţionale, Serviciul judeţean Sibiu (SJAN Sibiu), Fond Magistratul orașului Sibiu. Inventarul 197. Socoteli de vamă vigesimă și tricesimă [The National Archives, Sibiu county archives, Fonds magistrate of the town of Sibiu, classmark 197, customs accounts, vigesima and tricesima taxes], no. 43 (1614–1615), no. 44 (1616–1617), no. 45 (1615–1616), no. 46 (1618– 1619), no. 47 (1622), no. 52 (1672), no. 53 (1673), no. 59 (1682–1685), no. 63 (1686), no. 64 (1687– 1688), no. 66 (1687–1689), no. 67 (1689–1692). [Hereafter SJAN Sibiu].

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi 10.1163/9789004367548_012

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and Transylvania will enable a better understanding of the trade in certain products. In 2003, Ferenc Pap wrote an article on a similar topic based on the customs accounts of Cluj.2 His findings shall be linked here to data from Sibiu, offering a more complete picture of the distribution of spices and exotic fruits in Transylvania and Central Europe. The same author published a collection of customs accounts from Cluj from the first half of the 17th century. A further register for 1631 was published by László Pakó.3 The Hungarian historian Borbála Benda has offered the most recent survey of the eating habits of the Hungarian aristocracy, including the Transylvanian nobility, during the early modern period.4 For Transylvania, the few studies dedicated to food consumption and foodways were written by Enikő Rüsz-Fogarasi, who reconstructed the diet of hospital patients in 17th-century Cluj.5 In the account books of the city’s hospitals, albeit rarely, spices are present among purchases, showing that on occasion they were used by the urban lower classes in Transylvania in similar ways to other parts of East-Central Europe.6 During the period between 1541 and 1699, the principality of Transylvania was a tributary state to the Ottoman Empire, and therefore its political and economic ties to Istanbul grew understandably closer. One of the most salient consequences of Transylvania’s political status was the increasing presence of Ottoman merchants of various extractions in the principality and its foreign trade. These Balkan-Levantine merchants, who were mostly Greek or Hellenised traders from particular regions in the Balkan Peninsula, became the main agents of trade and suppliers of ‘Turkish goods.’7 The pairing of 2   Ferenc Pap, “A Kolozsváriak fűszer-és déligyümölcs-kereskedése (1599–1637),” Erdélyi Múzeum 65 (1–2) (2003): 139–51. 3  László Pakó, “Kolozsvári harmincadjegyzék 1631-ből,” Erdélyi Múzeum 77 (1) (2015): 145–77. 4  Borbála Benda, Étkezesi szokások a magyar főúri udvarokban a kora újkorban (Archívum Comitatus Castriferrei, 6) (Szombathely: 2014). 5  Enikő Rüsz-Fogarasi, Egy elfeledett intézmény: A Kolozsvári Szentlélek-ispotály kora újkori története (Budapest: 2012), 132–44. 6  Andrzej Wyczański, La consommation alimentaire en Pologne aux XVIe et XVIIe siècles (Paris: 1985), 38. 7  The term Balkan-Levantine merchants was first used by S. Goldenberg and M. Dan in “Le commerce balkano-levantin de la Transylvanie au cours de la seconde moitié du XVIe siècle et au début du XVIIe siècle,” Revue des études sud-est européennes 5 (1–2) (1967): 87–117. For the regions of origin of these merchants see Mária Pakucs-Willcocks, “Greek and other merchants from the Ottoman Empire in the trade of Sibiu, 1614–1623,” Historical Yearbook 9 (2012): 45–59, and Lidia Cotovanu, “L’émigration sud-danubienne vers la Valachie et la Moldavie et sa géographie (XVe–XVIIe siècles): La potentialité heuristique d’un sujet peu connu,” Cahiers balkaniques 42 (2014): 2–7.

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‘Greek merchants’ with ‘Turkish goods’ was common in early modern Central Europe.8 The volume of trade and the number of merchants involved in the commercial exchange grew significantly in the second half of the 17th century, a trend documented by the customs accounts of Sibiu.9 These sources allow an investigation into the continuities and discontinuities of Ottoman exports of foodstuffs and spices into Central Europe over a longer period.

Normative Sources on Imported Foodstuffs in Transylvania

Spices had been known and consumed in Transylvania since the late Middle Ages. Sibiu and Brașov, Saxon towns in southern Transylvania, were active transit and exchange centres in the long-distance trade starting with the late 14th century.10 The 1412 customs tariff issued by the Transylvanian voivode Stibor for the benefit of the Brașov traders gave the instruction that the ‘thirtieth’ customs duties (tricesima) had to be paid on spices (pepper, saffron, ginger, and clove), mohair (goat’s hair), cotton, and “all goods brought by the Saracens” (i.e. Turks):11 “De pipere, croco, sinsibero, cariofolis et de crinibus caprarum, bombasio et de omnibus rebus mercimonialibus quae per Saracenos asportantur, habetur tricesimum.”12 This document is mirrored by the customs tariff issued by the Wallachian Prince Mircea in 1413, in which goods “coming from the sea or across the Danube” are mentioned generically.13 In the following centuries, spices and other Eastern goods continued to arrive to Transylvania, as documented by the 8  Lajos Gecsényi, “‘Turkish goods’ and ‘Greek’ merchants in the kingdom of Hungary in the 16th and 17th Centuries,” Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungariae 60, 1 (2007): 55–71. 9  Mária Pakucs-Willcocks, “The Transit of Oriental Goods through the Customs of Sibiu/ Hermannstadt in the sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries: An overview,” in Economy and Society in Central and Eastern Europe: Territory, population, consumption, eds. Daniel Dumitran and Valer Moga (Münster: 2014), 21–2. 10  Radu Manolescu, Comerțul Țării Românești și Moldovei cu Brașovul (secolele XIV–XVI) (Bucharest: 1965); Zsigmond Pál Pach, “Levantine Trade Routes to Hungary, 15th–17th centuries,” Acta Historica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 33 (1) (1987): 57–65. 11  Zsigmond Pál Pach, “A Levante-kereskedelem I. Lajos korában,” Századok 109 (1) (1975): 17, note 76, which explains that in contemporary usage Saracens did not refer to Arabs but generically to Muslims. 12  Urkundenbuch zur Geschichte der Deutschen in Siebenbürgen, vol. 3 (Sibiu: 1902), 544–7 [hereafter UB]. 13  UB, vol. 4 (Sibiu: 1937), 426.

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customs accounts of Sibiu and Brașov.14 Spices had been favourite commodities for long-distance trade since the mediaeval period. By the 17th century, spices, dried fruits and exotic foodstuffs were part of the daily diet of the urban upper classes and the nobility. The prices of the imported goods were a concern for the Transylvanian law-makers. Prince Gabriel Bethlen (1613–1629), an avid consumer of delicacies purchased for him in Venice, including sweets, spices, raisins and dried fruits,15 issued two price limitations for goods produced in Transylvania or imported into the principality. They provide us with a maximal range of sold and consumed spices and fruits in Transylvania in the 1620s, at least at the princely court. The first list of prices was submitted to the approval of the Transylvanian Diet in April 1627 and contained the following foodstuffs: almonds, Viennese olive oil, Turkish olive oil, currants and raisins, ‘Venetian’ cane sugar, sweets (confreit), Venetian saffron, pepper, cinnamon, Turkish saffron, cloves, nutmeg, rice, candied sugar (‘red’ and ‘white’), and ginger (dyed and undyed).16 In October of the same year, a more comprehensive list of goods with their recommended sale prices was issued at Prince Bethlen’s initiative. It included a larger variety of certain spices, such as, for instance, saffron from Bojnice (Hung. Bajmóc), Trenčín (Hung. Trencsén, Ger. Trentschin), Vienna or ‘Turkey’, and listed mace, figs as well as chestnuts from Italy or from Baia Mare (Hung. Nagybánya, Ger. Frauenbach).17

Spices in the Customs Accounts of Sibiu

While Prince Bethlen had personal agents, who supplied him with the fine foods he craved for, most foodstuffs were carried across shorter or longer distances and exchanged by merchants, and were sold in shops or at fairs.18 I have discussed the trade in spices and other foodstuffs coming from the Balkans into Transylvania in the 16th century in previous work.19 It is well known that the competition between the Venetian trade in Levantine spices and the 14  Mária Pakucs-Willcocks, Sibiu-Hermannstadt: Oriental trade in sixteenth century Transylvania, series Stadteforschung, vol. 73 (Cologne: 2007), 88–9. 15  Florina Ciure, Relațiile dintre Veneția și Transilvania în secolele XVI–XVII (Brăila-Oradea: 2013), 187–99. 16  Erdélyi Országgyülési Emlékek: Monumenta comitialia regni Transylvaniae, ed. Sándor Szilágyi, vol. 8 (Budapest: 1882), 380–1 [hereafter EOE]. 17  Ibid., 444–5. 18  Annamária Jeney-Tóth, “Kereslet és kínálat: Fogyasztási szokások a koraújkori kolozsvári polgárok mindennapjaiban,” in A fogyasztás társadalomtörténete, ed. József Hudi (Budapest: 2007), 69–71. 19  Pakucs-Willcocks, Sibiu-Hermannstadt.

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Portuguese maritime supplies of spices was one of the main features of the 16th century, and that the middle of the same century saw a ‘revival of the Levantine spice trade’ which can be followed even in the Transylvanian account books. In the 17th century, however, Transylvania was receiving spices and southern products (dried fruits, fish) from both directions: from the Ottoman Empire via the Balkans and from Vienna and the Polish towns.20 The customs registers of Cluj from the first half of the 17th century illustrate the two concurrent streams of supplies with exotic foods: they are easily identifiable even when the records do not indicate the precise origin of the goods. Thus, the spices, foodstuffs, and typical Turkish goods (silk, silk yarns, specific cotton textiles) are registered with their original Ottoman weights, such as the kanthar or okka for spices and foodstuffs.21 The Transylvanian customs accounts from the 17th century document a rich variety of spices: pepper, saffron, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, mace, cloves, and incense, albeit some in negligible quantities. Pepper was undoubtedly the most popular spice, used especially for flavouring meat.22 The variations in the recorded amounts at the customs of Sibiu indicate that the supplies from the Levantine trade of spices fluctuated greatly. Pepper was not registered at all in the Sibiu registers after 1684, but we know from different sources that it remained present in the consignments of Greek merchants in the following years.23 Table 1

1622 1672 1673 1682 1684

Quantities and value of pepper in the Sibiu customs accounts Quantities, in pounds

Value in gold florins

200 lb. 285 lb. 1015 lb. 200 lb. 50 lb.

50 fl. Au 47 fl. Au 167 fl. Au 33 fl. Au 3.5 fl. Au

20  Pap, “A Kolozsváriak,” 141, showing the increased role of the Polish towns in redirecting spices and exotic fruits in Central Europe to the detriment of Vienna. 21  Pakucs-Willcocks, Sibiu-Hermannstadt, 89. 22  Felipe Fernández-Armesto and Benjamin Sacks, “The Global Exchange of Food and Drugs,” in The Oxford Handbook of the History of Consumption, ed. Frank Trentmann (Oxford: 2012), 132. 23  Olga Cicanci, Companiile grecești din Transilvania și comerțul european în anii 1636–1746 (Bucharest: 1981), 184–5.

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Saffron was the most expensive of the spices, to the extent that a larger than the annual average amount of the spice could distort the overall values of imported goods, such as in 1682. In the price limitations of 1627, there are several types of saffron mentioned: the saffron imported from northern Hungary was set at the highest sale price, while the Turkish saffron cakes (pogácsa sáfrán) were listed in four degrees of quality: the very good variety and three successive lower-quality ones.24 The saffron recorded in customs accounts of Sibiu came on the land routes of the Ottoman Empire; its quality and shape were rarely described, and only very briefly, in the account books. Saffron cakes were recorded, but also “wax” saffron (viaszos sáfrány), which was of lower quality. Sibiu had always been an attractive market for saffron,25 and the town seems to have played this role well into the 17th century. In the customs account of Cluj, for instance, saffron was last recorded in 1630, whereas registers exist up to 1637. Table 2

1615 1616 1618 1623 1672 1673 1682 1683 1684 1685 1686 1689

Quantities and value of saffron in the Sibiu customs accounts Quantities, in pounds

Value in gold florins

130 lb. 440 lb. 93 lb. 220 lb. 31.5 lb. 86.5 lb. 170 lb. 50 lb. 58 lb. 120 lb. 2 lb. 10 lb.

228 fl. Au 770 fl. Au 163 fl. Au 382 fl. Au 31.5 fl. Au 86.5 fl. Au 160 fl. Au 44 fl. Au 55 fl. Au 50 fl. Au 5 fl. Au 25 fl. Au

24  EOE, vol. 8, 381 and 441–2. 25  Pakucs-Willcocks, Sibiu-Hermannstadt, 86.

Spices and Exotic Foods in 17th-Century Transylvania

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White turmeric (curcuma zedoaria) appears recorded as czitvar (from the German Zitwer) in the customs registers written in Hungarian from 1672 onward; it is a rhizome very similar to ginger. Ginger, recorded as sinsiber and Ingwer in the 16th-century customs accounts of Sibiu, was not registered under this name after the end of the 16th century.26 It is difficult to decide at this point whether people made such a clear difference between the two roots at that time or there was just a clerical choice of naming the same spice in different languages. In the customs registers of 1672 and 1673, in the section dedicated to the expenditure of the customs office, ginger (gyömbér) is listed together with the other spices in the consignments sent to the princely court in Alba Iulia, even though it did not feature in the recorded stock of the merchants. Table 3

1673 1682 1683 1685

Quantities of curcuma (czitvar) in the customs registers of Sibiu Quantities, in pounds

Value in gold florins

275 lb. 7300 lb. 750 lb. 3500 lb.

35 fl. Au (?) 600 fl. Au 148 fl. Au 280 fl. Au

The archives of Sibiu still preserve mandates for provisioning the princely household in Alba Iulia with spices from the customs. In 1675 none other than Bornemisza Anna herself, the wife of the Prince of Transylvania, sent a letter to Sibiu asking for “a cantor of spices for the needs of our kitchen.”27 In 1672 and 1673, the scribes also entered in the customs accounts among the usual expenses (salaries, running costs of errands, wood for heating, or small repairs to the customs house) the amounts of spices sent to the princely court by request. Such transports of spices from the customs house to the court were made every three months. To take the year 1672 as an example, the kanthar of spices had the same composition for each of the consignments meant for the needs of the princely kitchen: 60 pounds of pepper, 30 pounds of ginger, 6 pounds 26  Pakucs-Willcocks, Sibiu-Hermannstadt, 87, table 13. 27  SJAN Sibiu, Fond Documente medievale, U VI 1238: “[…] az Verestornyi harminczadrul tartozando egy cantorra valo fü szerszámot […] konyhánk szükségére.”

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of saffron, 3 pounds of mace, 3 pounds of cloves, 3 pounds of cinnamon, and 16 ½ pounds of cane sugar, all amounting to a value of around 50 gold florins. However, as previous tables show, the recorded traffic from the direction of the Balkans and Wallachia did not provide for these amounts of spices. It appears that these regular consignments of spices were part of the agreement with Prince Michael Apafi when Sibiu leased the customs revenues: a notice from the 1682–1685 register mentions that when the lease was agreed in 1679, 1,000 florins of the total sum was to be paid “in aromatics for Her Highness the Princess”, i.e. Bornemisza Anna.28 It is highly probable that the customs officers had to find and buy these spices elsewhere when they were not supplied by the commercial traffic. Nevertheless, it is clear that an expectation existed at court that the customs of Sibiu could furnish such amounts of aromatics, therefore partial entries in the customs registers could also be a reason for the small amounts of spices recorded. Ferenc Pap has found that the customs registers of Cluj indicate an active trade with spices coming from Vienna in the 1620s and from the Polish towns in the 1630s.29 Zs. P. Pach has shown that after 1665, the year when a trade agreement between Vienna and Constantinople was signed at Vasvár (Ger. Eisenburg), the Wiener Orientalische Handelskompanie was shipping spices to Constantinople, while no spices were recorded in the exports from the Ottoman Empire toward Europe. The late Hungarian historian stated that: “This is a clear indication of the fact that by the middle of the 17th century the traditional routes of the Levantine spice trade have truly and definitely declined; the Dutch and the English world sea trade had achieved a monopoly.”30 Pach’s conclusion resonates with the findings of Fernand Braudel about the Dutch monopoly on the distribution of spices in Europe.31 While there was less pepper and saffron coming via the Balkans, the Greek merchants continued to trade in spices and other exotic products, even buying them at fairs in Hungary and Transylvania, as shown by the records of Siguli Stratu, a Greek merchant from Sibiu. At the end of the 17th century, for instance, Siguli’s agents purchased pepper and cinnamon in Baia Mare and Târgu Mureş.32 28  Sibiu customs register no. 59, 1v (see note 3). 29  Pap, “A Kolozsváriak,” 140. 30  Pach, “Levantine Trade Routes,” 65. 31  Fernand Braudel, Civilization and Capitalism, vol. 1: The Structures of Everyday life, trans. Siân Reynolds (New York: 1981), 222. 32  Paul Cernovodeanu, England’s Trade Policy in the Levant and her Exchange of Goods with the Romanian Countries under the later Stuarts (1660–1714) (Bucharest: 1972), 118–9.

Spices and Exotic Foods in 17th-Century Transylvania



303

Foodstuffs in the Customs Accounts of Sibiu

Foodstuffs imported into Transylvania in the 17th century consisted overwhelmingly of dried fruits, citrus fruits, nuts, olive oil, and rice. Certain items had become staples in Transylvania, since they can be traced in the customs accounts for Ottoman imports to the region from the beginning of the 16th century. Raisins (Uvae passae, weinbeeren) were recorded in the Sibiu customs accounts throughout the 16th century, but the quantities recorded each year varied greatly, ranging from over 5,000 pounds in 1553 to merely 120 pounds in 1588.33 In the 17th century, historical sources distinguish between currants (Hung. tengeri szölö) and raisins (Hung. malozsa szölö). They are inexplicably not present in the Sibiu registers from 1600–1601 and in the customs accounts between 1614 and 1622, while the Cluj tricesima accounts show constant imports into Transylvania from Vienna during that period.34 In the 1630s, however, there is a constant increase in the exports of dried fruits from Cluj westwards,35 and we can safely assume that these goods originated from the Balkans. In the Sibiu customs accounts, raisins were recorded again in the last quarter of the 17th century but still in very small amounts, as shown below: Table 4

1672 1673 1688

Quantities and values of raisins and currants in the customs registers of Sibiu Quantities, in pounds

Value in fl. Au

25 lb. 25 lb. 700 lb.

1 fl. Au 1 fl. Au 28 fl. Au

33  Pakucs-Willcocks, Sibiu-Hermannstadt, 95, table 19. 34  Pap, “A Kolozsváriak,” 140. 35  Ibid., 141.

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Brought from southwest Asia by the Turks,36 rice was a typical product of Anatolia and the Balkan Peninsula in the early modern period.37 Rice had been brought to Sibiu since the 16th century and was listed in the limitations of 1627 and in the customs tariff of Brașov of 1654.38 Table 5

1615 1618 1622 1683 1684 1685 1689

Quantities and values of rice in the customs registers of Sibiu Quantities, in pounds

Value in fl. Au

6520 lb. 6500 lb. 2240 lb. 200 lb. 8400 lb. 1400 lb. 3700 lb.

200 fl. Au 200 fl. Au 65 fl. Au 3 fl. Au 117 fl. Au 20 fl. Au 52 fl. Au

In the customs accounts of Cluj, rice is first recorded as late as 1617 in one merchant’s transport of only 200 pounds, where the scribe noted that the rice was brought from “Turkey.”39 In following years, the amounts registered grew to an average of 20–25 kanthars (approximately 4000 pounds) of rice each year, and while all was definitely imported from the Ottoman Empire, it was not sold locally but taken further into northern Hungary.40 Bornemisza Anna’s cookbook suggested several ways for cooking rice. Among her recipes she included rice cooked “the way the Turks like it,” namely sweetened with honey, raisins, currants, and almond milk.41 The price limitations set in 1627 at Prince Gabriel Bethlen’s request distinguished between Viennese and Turkish olive oil.42 Just as with other goods that 36  Te-Tzu Chang, “Rice”, in The Cambridge World History of Food, vol. 1, eds. Kenneth F. Kiple and Kriemhild Coneè Ornelas (Cambridge: 2000), 138. 37  Halil Inalcık, “Rice cultivation and the çeltükci-Re’âyâ system in the Ottoman Empire,” Turcica. Revue d’études turques 14 (1982): 139. 38  Pakucs-Willcocks, Sibiu-Hermannstadt, 95; EOE, vol. 8, 442. 39  Ferenc Pap (ed.), Kolozsvári harmincadjegyzékek (1599–1637) (Bucharest: 2000), 269. 40  Ibid., passim. 41  Bornemisza Anna szakácskönyve 1680-ból, ed. Elemér Lakkó (Bucharest: 1982), 215. 42  EOE, vol. 8, 351.

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were imported into Transylvania from both south and west, we can assume that the olive oil brought to Sibiu arrived on the land routes along the Balkans. It was one of the few foodstuffs that was sold continuously and without great variations in amounts throughout the 17th century, only to show a salient increase in the traded quantities in 1689 and 1690. Table 6

1615 1618 1622 1672 1673 1682 1684 1688 1689

Quantities and values of olive oil in the customs registers of Sibiu Quantities, in pounds

Value in fl. Au

300 lb. 280 lb. 650 lb. 120 lb. 420 lb. 240 lb. 420 lb. 4300 lb. 3800 lb.

31 fl. Au 22 fl. Au 51 fl. Au 4 fl. Au 14 fl. Au 10 fl. Au 10 fl. Au 100 fl. Au (?) 90 fl. Au (?)

A greater array of foodstuffs reached Transylvania from the south as the century progressed. Thus, coffee was first recorded in the Sibiu customs accounts in 1689, and, starting with 1694 through to 1725, it arrived in Transylvania in very small amounts, according to the data extracted from registers of the Greek merchants’ association from Braşov by Olga Cicanci.43 Tobacco also made its way into Transylvania in the second half of the 17th century.44 This timeline is consistent with the arrival of coffee and tobacco in other parts of our region.45 Citrus fruits were late arrivals among the southern fruits recorded at the customs of Sibiu: lemons, lemon juice, and oranges feature in the account books only in the late 17th century. The household inventories of Prince Gabriel 43  Cicanci, Companiile, 185. 44  Ana Maria Gruia, The Gift of Vice: Pipes and the habit of smoking in early modern Transylvania (Cluj-Napoca: 2013), 27–37. 45  Aleksandar Fotić, “The Introduction of Coffee and Tobacco to the Mid-west Balkans,” Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungariae 64 (1) (2011): 89–100. Cf. Olivia Senciuc’s study in the present volume: Senciuc places the beginnings of coffee-drinking among the elites of the Romanian Principalities in the early 18th century.

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Bethlen show nonetheless that he ordered lemons, dried lemons, and oranges to be purchased for him regularly in the 1620s.46 Among the more exotic foodstuffs of the 17th century, the habarnicza (a cephalopod, octopus or squid) stands out. Habarnicza is mentioned in Transylvanian account books from the late 16th century47 and was purchased for Prince Gabriel Bethlen in 1620 and 1625 in Istanbul.48 In the 1654 customs tariff issued for the customs point near Braşov, the habarnicza was priced by the bundle and listed together with fish.49 It was most likely sold dry, as Bornemisza Anna’s recipe for habarnicza suggests: What should be cooked from habarnicza Make a strong lye, put the habarnicza in and let it rest for about three nights, it shall swell nicely. Wash the habarnicza twelve times and let it rest in fresh water to clean the lye off. Afterwards throw it in hot water, clean it, and cool it down. The habarnicza has many tails: bind them, put them on a skewer. Roast them quickly and sprinkle with soft butter. Serve dry and warm. It is tasty to eat with pepper. It does not require many ingredients, but it is laborious. It can be fried, according to one’s wish: it is tasty just the same.50 Princess Bornemisza also offered nine ways for preparing snail, which include using green herbs and plenty of pepper.51 Snails are documented in 1672 in the Sibiu customs registers. Occasionally, merchants were recorded carrying Turkish cheese and butter, walnuts or aniseed (1672, 1673, and 1683). Comparing the composition of the traffic in foodstuffs in the various Transylvanian customs accounts against the purchases made for Prince Gabriel Bethlen, it is evident that the goods supplied through the agency of Balkan merchants were aimed at a wider consumer market, perhaps well-to-do townspeople and the nobility. Furthermore, in the 17th century, foodstuffs and spices were not a major group of commodities in the trade transiting the Balkans and Transylvania further into Central Europe. Foodstuffs generally made up a small 46  Udvartartás és számadáskönyvek, vol. 1. Bethlen Gábor fejedelem udvartartása, ed. Béla Radvánszky (Budapest: 1888), 8–36. 47  Erdélyi Magyar Szótörténeti Tár, ed. Attila T. Szabó, vol. 4 (Bucharest: 1984), 855. 48  Udvartartás és számadáskönyvek, 29. 49  Nicolae Edroiu and Paul Gyulai, “Tricesima la Brașov în a doua jumătate a secolului al XVII-lea,” Studia Universitatis Babeş-Bolyai, Series Historia 12 (1967): 15. 50  Bornemisza Anna, 191. 51  Ibid., 196.

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percentage of the overall commercial traffic,52 which consisted overwhelmingly of the transports of textiles, fabrics, and yarns. Their highest share of the recorded trade was reached in 1616 and 1673, when spices and foodstuffs amounted to 5 per cent of the merchandise, only to drop to insignificant amounts in the 1690s. Table 7

Trade in spices and foodstuffs in the customs registers of Sibiu

1615 1616 1672 1673 1682 1683 1684 1685 1686

Value in fl. Au

% of total trade

566 fl. Au 866 fl. Au 260 fl. Au 786 fl. Au 534 fl. Au 465 fl. Au 163 fl. Au 581 fl. Au 11 fl. Au

3.97% 5% 1% 5% 2.72% 2.62% 0.53 % 2.69% 0.07%

Conclusions Sibiu was a major trading centre in Transylvania and attracted the most active of the Greek merchant community in the region, therefore we can use its commercial traffic as a good indicator of the offer of Oriental goods in the region. However, it is difficult to assess the overall values of Transylvania’s imports of spices, dried fruits and other foodstuffs based solely on Sibiu’s customs accounts. Comparisons with the customs accounts for the city of Cluj in the same period have been made wherever possible. There were several channels for exotic foods to reach Transylvania. The ruler of Transylvania, Gabriel Bethlen, paid his agents to procure fashionable fineries in fabrics and in foodstuffs. In addition, merchants coming from the Ottoman Empire can be credited with introducing novelty and exotic products onto the Transylvanian and Central European markets. In the 17th century, Transylvania became a meeting ground for the trade in spices and exotic foodstuffs arriving 52  Pakucs-Willcocks, “The Transit of Oriental Goods,” 24.

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both from the Ottoman Empire and from the West. Mediaeval cuisines across Europe made heavy use of spices, a trend which continued in Transylvania in the 17th century, at a time when it had peaked elsewhere. In addition, the Transylvanian imports in this century were enriched by new foods and other items, such as tobacco, which caught on in phase with the West.53 Although culinary practices in Transylvania were not the main focus of my analysis, I have tried to connect the data from the customs accounts to actual culinary usage, especially at the court of Princess Bornemisza. I have shown that Bornemisza Anna used Sibiu as a constant supplier of spices. Her recipe collection fleshes out the raw data with illustrations on how exotic fruits and spices were embedded in the cuisine of her time. At the current state of our knowledge of foodways and food practices in the regions covered by the present volume, we can presume that the use of spices in Transylvania was comparable to the style of cooking widely used in Europe at the time. This style of cooking had inherited mediaeval practices of mingling rich flavours of hot, sweet, and sour—as opposed to the more ‘natural’ way of cooking newly emerging in France.54 Bornemisza Anna’s cookbook shows an acquaintance with ‘Turkish’ sweet dishes, although the degree of Turkish influence on 17thcentury Transylvanian gastronomy has yet to be determined. Bibliography Archival Sources Sibiu, Arhivele Naţionale, Serviciul judeţean Sibiu [The National Archives, Sibiu county archives (cited as SJAN Sibiu): Fond Magistratul orașului Sibiu. Inventarul 197. Socoteli de vamă vigesimă și tricesimă [Fonds magistrate of the town of Sibiu, classmark 197, customs accounts]: no. 43 (1614–1615), no. 44 (1616–1617), no. 45 (1615–1616), no. 46 (1618–1619), no. 47 (1622), no. 52 (1672), no. 53 (1673), no. 59 (1682–1685), no. 63 (1686), no. 64 (1687– 1688), no. 66 (1687–1689), no. 67 (1689–1692). Fond Documente medievale [Fonds mediaeval documents], U VI 1238. Published Primary Sources Bornemisza Anna szakácskönyve 1680-ból [The cookbook of Anna Bornemisza], ed. Elemér Lakkó (Bucharest: 1982). 53  Gruia, The Gift of Vice, 33–9. 54  Susan Pinkar, A Revolution in Taste: The rise of French cuisine, 1650–1800 (Cambridge: 2009), 64, 71–2.

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Erdélyi Országgyülési Emlékek: Monumenta comitialia regni Transylvaniae, vol. 8, ed. Sándor Szilágyi (Budapest: 1882). Pap, Ferenc (ed.) Kolozsvári harmincadjegyzékek (1599–1637) [The tricesima account books of Cluj 1599–1637] (Bucharest: 2000). Udvartartás és számadáskönyvek. Vol. 1: Bethlen Gábor fejedelem udvartartása (Household and account books: the household of Prince Gabriel Bethlen), ed. Béla Radvánszky (Budapest: 1888). Urkundenbuch zur Geschichte der Deutschen in Siebenbürgen, vols. 3–4 (Sibiu: 1902, 1937). Secondary Literature Benda, Borbála. Étkezesi szokások a magyar főúri udvarokban a kora újkorban [Eating habits at the Hungarian aristocratic courts in the early modern period] (Archivum Comitatus Castriferrei 6) (Szombathely: 2014). Braudel, Fernand, Civilization and Capitalism, vol. 1: The Structures of Everyday life [Civilisation matérielle, économie et capitalisme, XV e–XVIII e siècle. vol. 1: Les structures du quotidien (Paris: 1979), trans. Siân Reynolds (New York: 1981). Cernovodeanu, Paul, England’s Trade Policy in the Levant and her Exchange of Goods with the Romanian Countries under the Later Stuarts (1660–1714) (Bucharest: 1972). Chang, Te-Tzu, “Rice,” in The Cambridge World History of Food, vol. 1, eds. Kenneth F. Kiple and Kriemhild Coneè Ornelas (Cambridge: 2000), 132–49. Cicanci, Olga, Companiile grecești din Transilvania și comerțul european în anii 1636– 1746 [The Greek companies in Transylvania and European trade in 1636–1746] (Bucharest: 1981). Ciure, Florina, Relațiile dintre Veneția și Transilvania în secolele XVI–XVII [Interactions between Venice and Transylvania in the 16th–17th centuries] (Brăila-Oradea: 2013). Cotovanu, Lidia. “L’émigration sud-danubienne vers la Valachie et la Moldavie et sa géographie (XVe–XVIIe siècles): La potentialité heuristique d’un sujet peu connu,” Cahiers balkaniques 42 (2014): 2–7. Edroiu, Nicolae and Paul Gyulai, “Tricesima la Brașov în a doua jumătate a secolului al XVII-lea” [The tricesima customs of Brașov in the second half of the 17th century], Studia Universitatis Babes-Bolyai, Series Historia 12 (1967): 7–26. Fernández-Armesto, Felipe and Sacks Benjamin, “The Global Exchange of Food and Drugs,” in The Oxford Handbook of the History of Consumption, ed. Frank Trentmann (Oxford: 2012), 128–44. Fotić, Aleksandar, “The Introduction of Coffee and Tobacco to the Mid-west Balkans,” Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungariae 64 (1) (2011): 89–100. Gecsényi, Lajos, “ ‘Turkish goods’ and ‘Greek’ Merchants in the Kingdom of Hungary in the 16th and 17th Centuries,” Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungariae 60, 1 (2007): 55–71.

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Goldenberg, Samuel, Dan, Mihail “Le commerce balkano-levantin de la Transylvanie au cours de la seconde moitié du XVIe siècle et au début du XVIIe siècle,” Revue des études sud-est européennes 5 (1–2) (1967): 87–117. Gruia, Ana Maria, The Gift of Vice: Pipes and the habit of smoking in early modern Transylvania (Cluj-Napoca: 2013). Inalcık, Halil, “Rice Cultivation and the Çeltükci-Re’âyâ system in the Ottoman Empire,” Turcica. Revue d’études turques 14 (1982): 69–141. Jeney-Tóth, Annamária. “Kereslet és kínálat: Fogyasztási szokások a koraújkori kolozsvári polgárok mindennapjaiban” [Demand and offer: consumption habits in the daily life of the early modern citizens of Cluj], in A fogyasztás társadalomtörténete, ed. József Hudi (Budapest: 2007), 67–79. Manolescu, Radu, Comerțul Țării Românești și Moldovei cu Brașovul (secolele XIV–XVI) [The trade of Wallachia and Moldavia with Brașov, 14th–16th centuries] (Bucharest: 1965). Pach, Zsigmond Pál, “A Levante-kereskedelem I. Lajos és Zsigmond korában” [The Transylvanian route of Levantine trade in the age of Louis I and Sigismund] Századok 109 (1) (1975), 3–32. Pach, Zsigmond Pál, “Levantine Trade Routes to Hungary, 15th–17th centuries,” Acta Historica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 33 (1) (1987), 57–65. Pakó, László, “Kolozsvári harmincadjegyzék 1631-ből” [The customs register of Cluj from 1631] Erdélyi Múzeum 70 (1) (2015): 145–177. Pakucs-Willcocks, Mária, “Greek and other Merchants from the Ottoman Empire in the Trade of Sibiu, 1614–1623,” Historical Yearbook 9 (2012): 45–59. Pakucs-Willcocks, Mária, “The Transit of Oriental Goods through the Customs of Sibiu/Hermannstadt in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries: An overview,” in Economy and Society in Central and Eastern Europe: Territory, population, consumption. Papers of the International Conference held in Alba Iulia, 25–7 April 2013, eds. Daniel Dumitran and Valer Moga (Münster: 2014), 19–30. Pakucs-Willcocks, Mária, Sibiu-Hermannstadt: Oriental trade in sixteenth century Transylvania (Series Städteforschung. A) 73 (Cologne: 2007). Pap, Ferenc, “A Kolozsváriak fűszer-és déligyümölcs-kereskedése (1599–1637)” [The trade in spices and southern fruits of the inhabitants of Cluj 1599–1637] Erdélyi Múzeum 65 (1–2) (2003): 139–151. Pinkar, Susan. A Revolution in Taste: The rise of French cuisine, 1650–1800 (CambridgeNew York: 2009). Rüsz-Fogarasi, Enikő, Egy elfeledett intézmény: A kolozsvári Szentlélek-ispotály kora újkori története [A forgotten institution: the early modern history of the Holy Spirit Hospital in Cluj] (Budapest: 2012). Wyczański, Andrzej, La consommation alimentaire en Pologne aux XVI e et XVII e siècles (Paris: 1985).

Chapter 11

The Food Trade in 18th-Century Wallachia between Daily Subsistence and Luxury Gheorghe Lazăr As a consequence of international conflict among the great regional powers of the early modern period (the Ottoman Empire, Poland and Hungary) competing for control in South-East Europe, Wallachia (like its neighbour Moldavia) became a tribute-paying state of the Ottoman Porte as early as the early decades of the 15th century. Broadly speaking, this status involved the payment of an annual tribute (which fluctuated according to shifts in the international balance of power), as well as the fulfilment of some military obligations. Crucially, it also involved prioritising the provisioning of Constantinople with grain—“a long-term outcome of food policies inherited from Byzantium and Rome”1—as well as provisioning the Ottoman troops transiting Wallachia or campaigning in its vicinity. In exchange for the fulfilment of these duties, the Ottoman Porte guaranteed Wallachia’s territorial integrity, the inviolability of its territory, as well as significant domestic autonomy which translated chiefly as being able to retain a native ruling prince with important powers,2 as well as a native political elite.3

1  Gheorghe I. Brătianu, Études byzantines d’histoire économique et sociale (Paris: 1938), 176. 2  For the political status of the Romanian ruling princes, see Andrei Pippidi, Tradiţia politică bizantină în ţările române în secolele XVI–XVIII (Bucharest: 1983); Idem, “Centre et périphérie dans le Sud-Est de l’Europe,” Revue des études sud-est européennes 31 (3–4) (1993): 269; Matei Cazacu, “Prince, Etat et Église en Valachie et en Moldavie aux XVe–XVIe siècle,” in Histoires des idées politiques de l’Europe Centrale, eds. Chantal Delsol and Michel Maslowski (Paris: 1998), 156–7. 3  Mihai Maxim, “Le statut des pays roumains envers la Porte Ottomane aux XVIe–XVIIIe siècles,” Revue roumaine d’histoire 24 (1–2) (1985): 36–7.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi 10.1163/9789004367548_013

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The “Big” Retail Trade between Geographical Opportunity and Political Fatality

Cereals and cattle were for a long time Wallachia’s chief exports and there were two main reasons for this. One was the predominantly agrarian character of Wallachia’s economy. The other was the province’s advantageous geographical location which ensured that it had control over segments of important trade routes4 as well as access to the two ‘économies-monde’ of East and West, to use Fernand Braudel’s term.5 It is not easy to reconstruct the size and structure of this trade, or the types of networks used by merchants. The main reason for the difficulty is the absence of topic-specific sources such as censuses, customs and account registers, lists of expenses and revenues, types of documents which historians of other geographic areas use to study trade. In addition, the sources available for the study of Romanian trade are mainly (rather repetitive) patrimonial papers which yield incomplete, discontinuous data. For these reasons, at this stage we only offer a broad overview of this type of trade. Horses and cattle from Wallachia were known in the 16th–18th to be much sought-after items in Central Europe (Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia) as well as in the ‘East’, on the Ottoman markets.6 Other successful Wallachian exports,

4   One of these trade routes linked Central Europe, via Vienna and Buda, and across Transylvania, with the Romanian Principalities (Wallachia and Moldavia). From here, another route crossed the Danube at Nicopole, Giurgiu or Galaţi to reach the major trade centres of the Balkan Peninsula, such as: Thessaloniki, Trikala, Varna, Edirne and Constantinopole. For further details, see Paul Cernovodeanu, “Les marchands balkaniques, intermédiaires du commerce entre l’Angleterre, la Valachie et la Transylvanie durant les années 1660–1714,” in Actes du Ier Congrès des études balkaniques et sud-est européennes, vol. 3 (Sofia: 1969), 649– 658; Philippe Braunstein, “Livres de comptes et routes commerciales dans les Alpes orientales et les Balkans au XVIe siècle,” Annales. Economies, sociétés, civilisations 29 (1) (1972): 252–5. 5  Gheorghe I. Brătianu, Marea Neagră: De la origini până la cucerirea otomană, trans. Michela Spinei, vol. 2 (Bucharest: 1988); Şerban Papacostea, Geneza statului in Evul Mediu românesc (Cluj: 1988), 151–204; Idem, La Mer Noire: Carrefour des grandes routes intercontinentales, 1204–1453 (Bucharest: 2006). 6  Andrei Oţetea, Pătrunderea comerţului românesc în circuitul internaţional (în perioada de trecere de la feudalism la capitalism) (Bucharest: 1977), 45–6; L’histoire de l’économie roumaine: De l’origine jusqu’à la deuxième guerre mondiale, ed. Nicolae. N. Constantinescu (Bucharest: 1996), 104. For an analysis of this type of export, see Bogdan Murgescu, Ţările Române între Imperiul Otoman şi Europa creştină (Iaşi: 2012), 207–26.

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e­ specially on the Ottoman and Polish markets, were the locally-mined salt7 and the end-products of bee-keeping, honey and wax. Honey, as the “poor man’s sugar,”8 was a key locally-sourced item. The period’s dowry papers, testaments and domestic inventories, as well as the accounts of foreign travellers to the Romanian lands, show that bee-hives and apiaries were important items in Wallachian households.9 Moreover, this abundance might explain why, in Wallachia (as well as in Moldavia) the number of apiaries and the amount of wax and honey they yielded were subject to a double taxation.10 Whereas in the majority of cases the honey produced in privately-owned apiaries was destined for daily domestic consumption, some boyar owners sold their surplus honey to merchants for cash (or as repayments of outstanding debts) or in exchange for other products, usually luxury items. A letter of 1743 illustrates this point. It was addressed by Milco Stoenescu, one of the most important of Oltenia’s11 merchants in the first half of the 18th century, to Mariuţa Argetoianu, a grand-daughter of the forme ruling prince of Wallachia, Constantin Brâncoveanu (1688–1714). Amidst details of ongoing business between the two such as the interest rate on a loan to the Monastery Tismana or some outstanding debts, the sender expressed his hope that the boyar lady would entrust him with all the transactions involving “Your Ladyship’s apiaries.” As he wanted to “rest assured” that she would do so, Milco Stoenescu asked Mariuţa Argetoianu to “pledge her word and promise” and offered in his turn to advance any sums of money “she might need for her business.”12 Half a century later, in a letter to Hagi Ianuş Costa Petru, the 7  M.M. Alexandrescu-Dersca Bulgaru, “Le régime du sel valaque exporté dans l’Empire ottoman (XVIe–XVIIIe siècles),” in V. Milletlerarası Türkiye Sosyal ve Iktisat Tarihi Kongresi. Tebliger. Istanbul 21–25 August 1989 (Ankara: 1990), 441–51; Murgescu, Ţările Române, 227–35. 8  Violeta Barbu, Ordo amoris: O istorie a instituţiei căsătoriei în Ţara Românească în secolul al XVII-lea (Bucharest: 2011), 229. 9  For further details on this topic, see ibid., 229–30; Constanţa Vintilă-Ghiţulescu, În şalvari şi cu işlic: Biserică, sexualitate, căsătorie şi divorţ în Ţara Românească a secolului al XVIIIlea (Bucharest: 2004), 148–9; Dan Dumitru Iacob (ed.), Avere, prestigiu şi cultură materială în surse patrimoniale: Inventare de averi din secolele XVI–XIX (Iaşi: 2015). 10  The sale of this produce was entrusted to specialised merchants, referenced in the period’s documents as balgii (Tr. balcı): Gheorghe Lazăr, Documente privitoare la negustorii din Ţara Românească, vol. 1 (1656–1688) (Iaşi: 2013), 132, 203–4, 227–8; vol. 2 (1689–1714) (Iaşi: 2014), 332–3. 11  Oltenia is a region in southern Romania. 12  Serviciul Judeţean al Arhivelor Naţionale [hereafter SJAN] Galaţi, V.A. Urechiă Collection, XX/6.

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merchant Gheorghe Hagi Lambru from the Hungarian capital Pest asked for a large amount of honey—300 tubs—while sharing with his business partner information on the current price for animal fat, candle wax and other products on the local market.13 We have more information—although even in this case falling short of serial quantitative data—on the wholesale trade in foodstuffs and livestock (especially sheep) from Wallachia mainly to areas south of the Danube, a vast territory controlled by the Ottoman Empire, but also to some remote European markets.14 Here one must note that, beyond the impositions, abuses and monopolistic tendencies of the Ottoman authorities,15 which worsened after the annexation of Oltenia by the Habsburg Empire in 1718,16 due among orher things to the difference in status between the political players, one should not underestimate the importance of the Ottoman market as an outlet for the Wallachian economy in general.17 In this overall economic context, one notices an increasing number of references in 17th- and 18th-century sources to a specialized sub-group of traders called gelepi in Romanian18 (from the Turkish celep), who purchased livestock, especially sheep, in Wallachia for sale on the large and demanding markets of Constantinople. Throughout the period under consideration here, the gelepi 13  Arhivele Naționale Istorice Centrale [The National Central Historical Archives, hereafter ANIC], Fonds Hagi Ianuş, XXXVI/1. 14  The Comte d’Hauterive, personal secretary to the ruling prince Alexandru Ypsilanti (1787–88), had expert knowledge of the political and economic situation of the Romanian provinces. He noted the following with reference to the trade in cattle: “La Valachie vaut mieux pour les moutons, et la Moldavie pour les bœufs et les chevaux, pour les chevaux surtout. Depuis Iassi jusqu’en Pologne, on ne peut trouver nulle part au monde de meilleure laine que celle des moutons valaques, qui d’ailleurs dégénèrent en Moldavie comme les chevaux et les bœufs s’abâtardissent en Valachie.” Mémoire sur l’état ancien et actuel de la Moldavie présenté à S.A.S. le prince Alexandre Ypsilanti hospodar régnant en 1787 (Bucharest: 1902), 374. 15  For key approaches to this topic in the Romanian historiography, see Murgescu, Ţările Române, 151–72. 16  The earliest such decree was issued in 1729, when Sultan Ahmed III (r. 1703–1730), having noted the aggressive stance of the Austrian troops, required the ruling prince Nicolae Mavrocordat (1719–1730) to stop all exports of cereals to territories controlled by the Habsburg Empire. For the decree, see Mihail Guboglu, Catalogul documentelor turceşti, vol. 1 (Bucharest: 1960), 51, no. 134. 17  Maxim, “Ottoman Documents Concerning the Wallachian Salt in the Ports on the Lower Danube in the Second Half of the Sixteenth Century,” Revue des études sud-est européennes 26 (2) (1988): 113–22; Murgescu, Ţările Române, 191–206. 18  Rom sg. gelep.

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were drawn both from Wallachian traders,19 and from non-Muslims residents of the Ottoman Empire.20 Regrettably, we do not have detailed information on the ways in which this trade was conducted, on its size,21 or on the types of organizations set up by its practitioners. This is because most of the information on these traders come indirectly from documents which refer to them as mere witnesses to real estate transactions,22 as creditors,23 and, rarely, as directly involved in the purchase of estates.24 Although the Ottoman Porte’s pre-emptive rights of requisitioning Wallachian goods were abolished by the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca (1774),25 19   Catalogul documentelor Ţării Româneşti din Arhivele Statului, vol. 2 (1601–1620), eds. Maria Soveja, Doina Duca-Tinculescu, and Reghina Dragomir (Bucharest: 1974), 269, no. 531. 20  It is worth noting that south of the Danube, the celep were in a separate tax category, which was determined by their revenue. Bistra Cvetkova, “Les celep et leur rôle dans la vie économique des Balkans à l’époque ottomane (XVe–XVIIIe s.),” in Studies in the Economic History of the Middle East from the Rise of Islam to the Present Day, ed. M.A. Cook (LondonNew-York-Toronto: 1974), 172–92. 21  As an example, the Ragusa-born Stephan Ignaz Raicevich, who had acquired a good knowledge of the Wallachian economy as secretary to the ruling prince Alexandru Ypsilanti (1787–1788) and as Austrian consul in Bucharest, observed at the end of the 18th century: “each year, in the spring, the Greek merchants, armed with fermans from the Porte, come to the two Principalities to buy sheep and they take from 500,000 to 600,000 sheep, for which they pay what they think fit.” Călători străini despre ţările române, vol. 10I, eds. Maria Holban et al. (Bucharest: 2000), 499. [Hereafter Călători străini]. 22  A celep called Apostol acted as witness to the sale of serfs on 1 December 1630. Documenta Romaniae Historica, seria B, Ţara Românească, 23 (1630–1632), ed. Damaschin Mioc (Bucharest: 1969), 300–301. 23  In his testament of 1661, Sima, an intendant (Rom. cămăraş), listed an outstanding loan of 12 ughi (Hungarian golden coin) from Cârstea, a celep by trade: George Potra, Tezaurul documentar al judeţului Dâmboviţa (1418–1800) (Muzeul judeţean Dâmboviţa: 1972), 325. 24  A certain Teodosie, imperial celep, purchased a land in the village Sălcuţa in Dolj county, in 1673. Meşteşugari şi neguţători din trecutul Craiovei: Documente (1666–1865), eds. Al. Bălintescu and Ioan Popescu-Cilieni (Bucharest: 1957), 6. 25  Following this peace treaty, in November 1774 Sultan Abdülhamid I (r. 1774–1789) issued a new hatt-i şerif granting economic privileges which had an important impact on economic developments in the two Principalities. In this document, the Porte pledged to be content with the payment of a fixed tribute and cancelled all dues in cereals, provided the provinces would not stockpile them. However, as the two Principalities remained the Empire’s kiler (pantry, granary), the document established pre-emptive rights for purchasing grain and sheep for the Ottoman merchants or those who came from the Empire. The document also stipulated that Ottoman merchants, civil servants and soldiers could only enter the Romanian territories armed with official permits signed by the Ottoman authorities and endorsed by the Romanian ruling princes. Another stipulation prescribed the

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the celep traders continued enjoying the protection of both the Ottoman and the Wallachian authorities. The 1795 case of the celep Nicola is an illustration of how this protection worked. Nicola obtained a princely writ which notified local authorities that the merchant was authorized to collect sheep from 11 Wallachian counties and requiring them to grant him the freedom to fulfil his task.26 Towards the end of the 18th century and in the first three decades of the 19th, the number of celep traders increased, as the occupation was found to be very lucrative. Documents have preserved the names of two outstanding members of this professional category: Hagi Ianuş27 and Dimitrie Aman,28 both conducting their business in Oltenia’s main city and economic centre, Craiova, a not insignificant detail when one considers its proximity to the Ottoman imperial border. Official protection could be abused by members of the celep trade, abuses which often went unpenalised, which explains why complaints kept pouring in and why Wallachian authorities repeatedly attempted to limit the number of those coming from imperial regions with permission to exert the trade on Wallachian territory.29 In 1794, for example, the abbot of the monastic skete of Buliga complained to the ruling prince about the abuses committed by the celep Ene Ţene in the area.30 In 1817, a report (Gr. anaphorá) sent by high-­ ranking boyars to the ruling prince recommended measures to be taken against celep traders who purchased more than the required number of animals, and paid prices below the market value. Moreover, the document also exposed an

purchase of agricultural products at their market value. Mustafa A. Mehmed, Documente turceşti privind istoria României, vol. 1 (Bucharest: 1976), 321–28. A series of subsequent documents reinforced these stipulations. See Maria M. Alexandrescu-Dersca Bulgaru, “Les rapports économiques de l’Empire ottoman avec les Principautés Roumaines et leur réglementation par les khatt-i serif de privilèges (1774–1829),” in Economie et société dans l’Empire ottoman ( fin du XVIII e- début du XX e siècle). Actes du colloque de Strasbourg (1–5 July 1980), eds. Jean-Louis Bacqué-Grammont and Paul Dumont (Paris: 1983), 317–26. 26  V.A. Urechia, Istoria românilor, vol. 5 (Bucharest: 1893), 238. 27  See, as an example, the decree issued by Prince Ioan Gheorghe Caragea (r. 1812–18) on 5 February 1818 (ANIC, Fonds Hagi Ianuş, LXX/68). 28  For many details on the activities of this merchant, see N. Iorga, Corespondenţa lui Dimitrie Aman, negustor din Craiova (Bucharest: 1913), passim. 29  Gheorghe Lazăr, Les marchands en Valachie. XVII e–XVIII e siècles (Bucharest: 2006), 117–26. 30  ANIC, Mitrop. Ţ. Rom., CLXXXIII/9.

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abusive practice whereby some merchants paid with depreciated coins, which they claimed to be above market value.31 Provisioning the very demanding Ottoman Porte provided the celep traders with a large and secure market. This, and the special status granted them by the Ottoman authorities32 allowed some of the celep dealers to make huge profits and eventually settle in Wallachia. Edirne-born Dumitraki Papazoglu was one of these. In 1778 a ferman issued by Sultan Abdülhamid I (r. 1774–1789) made him a member of the Kapan, Istanbul’s Grain Exchange, and authorised him to do business in the Romanian lands.33 By 1786, as shown in his testament, he had amassed an impressive wealth, which included an inn located in a busy commercial area of Bucharest, a few landed estates and important liquid assets. He combined an entrepreneurial spirit with piety and donated significant sums of money to major Eastern Orthodox establishments, such as the Monastery of St. John the Theologian in Patmos, and the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. The testament was endorsed by the Wallachian ruling prince, who justified his decision thus: “the above-named Hagi Dimitrache Papazoglu” came from “a line of distinguished and worthy merchants and […] ever since he settled in this land, he has always looked after the business of the Kapan.”34

31  Georgeta Penelea, Les foires de la Valachie pendant la période 1774–1848 (Bucharest: 1973), 32. It is worth mentioning that, apart from livestock, merchants also traded, both in Central Europe and to the south of the Danube, a number of animal derivates such as skins (the famous cordwain or cordovan), animal fat and a type of smoked sausage called pastrami, from the Turkish pastırma. In the mid-17th century, the Turkish traveller Evliya Çelebi asserted—perhaps not without exaggeration—that the guild of Istanbul’s pastırmacı was dominated by merchants from Wallachia and Moldavia. He noted that every year, on the feast day of Saint Demetrius (26 October) these merchants would take around 300,000 cattle to cater for the Christian residents of Istanbul. Călători străini, vol. 6, 347. On the making and popularity of pastırma see also the contribution by Maria Magdalena Székely in this volume. 32  See the ferman of 1775 in which he ordered the Romanian ruling princes and Ottoman civil servants south of the Danube to refrain from causing difficulties to the celep traders. Mehmed, Documente turceşti, vol. 2 (Bucharest: 1983), 5–8. 33  Ibid., 19–22. 34  George Potra, Documente privitoare la istoria oraşului Bucureşti. 1634–1800 (Bucharest: 1982), 332–5. For the activity of this merchant, see Gh. Lazăr, “Contribuţii privind activitatea şi averea negustorului Hagi Dumitrache Papazoglu,” in Miscellanea historica et archaeologica in honorem Professoris Ionel Cândea, eds. Valeriu Sârbu and Cristian Luca (Brăila: 2009), 499–509.

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Alongside livestock, cereals occupied a prominent place in the Wallachian trade dealings with the Ottoman territories in the 17th–18th centuries.35 Here, too, historians lack direct data, which makes it difficult to identify and quantify the merchants involved, and the manner in which grain was collected and then transported south of the Danube. We may presume that, as we have seen in the case of the trade in livestock, the grain trade, too, was dominated by major representatives of the Wallachian merchant class, who had the necessary financial, but also the human and institutional capital for conducting what was a difficult and hazardous trade. A similar lack of precision in the sources does not allow for a quantification of the amounts of grain sent to the Ottoman Empire or of the ratio of these exported amounts to those destined for domestic consumption. To give an example, a memoir addressed in 1770 by the Wallachian boyars to the Russian general Piotr Ivanovich Panin,36 specified that starting with the mid-18th century the province had been under the obligation to send 35,000 kilograms of wheat and 70,000 sheep each year to the Porte.37 While such figures remain difficult to contextualise without further information on prices or on the proportion of Romanian grain in the provisioning of Constantinople,38 there is ample evidence that the Ottoman authorities were not indifferent to this aspect of their dealings with the Romanian provinces.39 Throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, the Porte repeatedly issued fermans which placed restrictions—or even bans—on the exports of Wallachian foodstuffs towards Central Europe.40

35  For an overview of the Romanian exports of cereals, see Oţetea, Pătrunderea comerţului, 48–53. 36  Piotr Ivanovich Panin, Count and General (1721–1789). He fought in the Russo-Ottoman war of 768–1774 and played an important role in Russian diplomacy. He was responsible for the Russian army’s conquest of the fortress of Tighina (Bender) in 1770. 37  Mihail Cantacuzino, Genealogia Cantacuzinilor, ed. N. Iorga (Bucharest: 1902), 461. 38  For this debate, see Murgescu, Ţările Române, 245–50. 39  See, for example, the ferman of 1778, in which the two Romanian provinces are described as “une espèce de grenier pour mes pays.” Dumitru Z. Furnică, Documente privitoare la comerţul românesc (1473–1868) (Bucharest: 1931), 32. See also a reference to the Romanian lands as ‘pantry’ (Tr. kiler, kilâr) of the Porte in the contributions by Margareta Aslan and Violeta Barbu to this volume. 40  Guboglu, Catalogul, vol. 1, 70, no. 225; Murgescu, Ţările Române, 173–85.

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The “Small” Retail Trade in Luxury Foods: “Their Mind is More on Luxuries than on Food”

Although Wallachia had an essentially export-oriented economy, trade in the 17th and 18th centuries also included imports, largely dominated by luxury goods41—expensive furs and textiles, silks, jewellery, furniture, glasware— destined for the ‘consumption’ of the top-ranking boyars and members of the affluent elites. An indication of the scale of this trade is the great number of— ultimately futile—attempts by the ruling princes throughout the 18th century at legislating against the negative consequences of what the state considered “sterile investments.”42 Although the documentary sources are limited, we find references to foodstuffs among these imports. The predominantly agrarian nature of the country’s economy and the high transport and distribution costs of such products explain why this was a niche trade, largely catering for the rarefied top-echelon circles of the elites. Growing contacts with European culture and tastes had an impact on the Romanian elites’ desire to emulate this type of consumption. This is true even when, as was often the case, the agents of ‘modernisation’ and ‘civilising’ influence were the officers of the occupying Austrian and Russian troops quartered in the region many times during the 18th century.43 Given that the available information on imported foods is fragmentary, we have decided to focus only on those items which are specifically mentioned in the correspondence between merchants in the period considered. One must bear in 41  A clear indication of the existence of this trade in luxuries is provided by the various customs registers which listed the various customs taxes starting with 1676. The m ­ erchandise is referred to under generic terms such as: “Viennese commodities,” “Graz merchandise,” “Venetian merchandise” or “commodities from Lipţa (Leipzig).” Urechia, Istoria Românilor, vol. 4 (Bucharest: 1892), 233–49; vol. 9 (Bucharest: 1900), 206–16, 227–51; vol. 13 (Bucharest: 1901), 203–42; Dumitru Z. Furnică, Din istoria comerţului la români, mai ales băcănia: publicaţiune de documente inedite. 1593–1855 (Bucharest: 1908), 37–9, 119–22, 167– 73, 176–78, 213–17, 256–57. 42  Gheorghe Lazăr, “Les marchands de luxe, le luxe des marchands en Europe Orientale: Le cas de la Valachie (XVIIe–XVIIIe siècle),” in Le commerce du luxe: Production, exposition et circulation des objets précieux du Moyen Age à nos jours, eds. Natacha Coquery and Alain Bonnet (Lyon: 2015), 251–59. 43   On the channels of Europeanisation, see Angela Jianu, “Women, Fashion and Europeanisation in the Romanian Principalities,” in Women in the Ottoman Balkans: Gender, culture, and history, eds. Amila Buturović and Irvin C. Schick (London: 2007), 202–30, and Constanţa Vintilă-Ghiţulescu, Evgheniţi, ciocoi, mojici: Despre obrazele primei modernităţi româneşti, 1750–1860 (Bucharest: 2013), passim.

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mind that, given the reduced mobility of the population, the majority of such goods were imported by commercial agents. The lengthy periods of fasting prescribed in the calendar of the Eastern Orthodox Church meant that people had to be quite inventive in their choice of foods. Snails came to the rescue, both among the lower classes and among the boyar elites. However, one foreign visitor, the Italian Anton Maria Del Chiaro,44 employed as court secretary by the ruling prince Constantin Brâncoveanu (r. 1688–1714), noted that initially the natives were resistant to such fare, as they were resistant to tortoises as food.45 If one is to give credence to the same observer, one has to share in his amusement at the thought of soldiers being sent to the gardens of Franciscan monks to collect snails for the princely court at Târgovişte, but one also has to accept his testimony as evidence that such ‘delicacies” were normally sourced domestically and were only imported in exceptional cases. Such was the case of Constantin Otetelişanu, a boyar from Oltenia, who, in February 1803 wrote to Hagi Constantin Pop, the head of a major trading house in Transylvania, letting him know that he was sending a sum of ten zloty,46 with which he required the merchant (“I beg you to kindly be willing”), as Lent approached, to purchase “as many snails as you can get … because we have had heavy snow here, and there are no means of finding snails for cooking.”47 In November 1810, the merchant Nica Iovipali placed an order with the same trading house in Sibiu (Ger. Hermannstadt), who were his business partners: he requested the purchase of 1,000–1,500 snails, which were to be “carried in a small barrel”, as well as of specific amounts of lentils, peas, beans and rice.48 Other produce favoured during Lent and other fasting periods which Wallachian merchants could order were fish roe and olives. Documents show that there was a fairly wide range of roe available: “black”, “red”, “sturgeon roe”, “beluga roe” (caviar) and “carp roe”, and could be preserved, salt-cured or even

44   Călători străini, vol. 8, 377–78. 45  Customs registers throughout the 18th century listed octopus, but we have no direct information on the amounts purchased or the consumption of this food. Furnică, Din istoria comerţului, 38, 120, 212, 316, 333. 46  Polish currency traded in East-Central Europe in the early modern period. 47  Iorga, Scrisori de boieri şi negustori olteni şi munteni către casa de negoţ sibiiană Hagi Pop (Bucharest: 1906), 39; Furnică, Din istoria comerţului, 223. 48  Furnică, Din istoria comerţului, 277–78. With reference to the trade in rice, it is worth mentioning a letter from the merchant Antonie Nicolantin addressed to Hagi Constantin Pop on 23 June 1770, informing him that he had purchased 1,000 okka of rice from a Turkish trader, for which he paid 21.5 lei per one hundred okka. (Ibid., 26–8).

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sweetened, and transported in barrels.49 Black roe (caviar) is listed a few times in an early 19th-century log in which the merchant Constantin David entered outstanding debts which had to be settled by his customer the Abbot Pahomie of Hurezi Monastery.50 In 1814, the aforementioned Hagi Constantin Pop was notified by one of his agents of the dispatch of two casks of caviar, among other items.51 In December 1823, the isnaf (guild, from Tr. esnaf ) of the Wallachian grocers lodged a complaint about the market prices fixed for roe and other foodstuffs, petitioning the ruling prince for a rise in prices, without which they risked bankruptcy52. The prince appointed a commission of high-ranking dignitaries who, after “due consideration” and a discussion with the guild elder and a few members, decided that the complaint had no foundation, given that, among other criteria, the year had been “plentiful.”53 Less frequently referenced than fish roe, olives appear to have been a much sought-after item for which merchants received orders. That this was so is suggested by a document dated 1793, drawn up to conclude a litigation between the merchants, Dimitrie Pociu (on behalf of his brother) and Sterie Niţu, who had failed to fulfil an agreement regarding a delivery of olives.54 Documents of a legislative nature regulating prices and the operation of markets in the last quarter of the 18th century and the early decades of the next suggest the many varieties of olives on the market. Olives were identified by coloiur (black and green) or by their place of origin: Rumele (= Greece), Ţarigrad (= Istanbul) or France.55

49  Ibid., 177, 316. A cookery book from the late 17th century/early 18th century used by the noble Wallachian families Cantacuzino and Brâncoveanu includes intriguing recipes for the preparation of fish roe: they could be mixed with nuts, sugar, cinnamon, lemon juice, etc. See O lume într-o carte de bucate: Manuscris din epoca brâncovenească, transcription, introduction and epilogue by Ioana Constantinescu; introductory study by Matei Cazacu (Bucharest: 1997), 115–16. 50  I. Ionaşcu, “Istoricul mănăstirii Hurez. Anexe,” Arhivele Olteniei 86–88 (1936): 440. 51  Furnică, Din istoria comerţului, 286–7. The same amount of roe is listed among “items received” on a list compiled in December 1817 the merchant Florea Marionovici in Ibid., 298. 52  The phrase used in the text is “să eşim mofluzi” = to end up bankrupt, insolvent, from the Tr. müflis. 53  Furnică, Din istoria comerţului, 316, 326–28. 54   Documente economice din arhiva casei comerciale Ioan St. Stamu, vol. 1 (1714–1876), eds. Dumitru Limona and Natalia Trandafirescu (Bucharest: 1983), 63, no. 40. 55  Furnică, Din istoria comerţului, 38, 119–22, 176, 212–13, 316, 333.

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Beverages: New Trends and Fashions

Although the Romanian lands were large producers of wines, exported on the Austrian and Russian markets,56 the top boyar elites became great consumers of fine West-European wines alongside domestic wines. The rich archives of the aforementioned trading house of Hagi Constantin Pop from Sibiu (Hermannstadt) have preserved fascinating details on this fashionable “trend”.57 One of the most faithful customers of the Transylvanian firm was Barbu Ştirbei, future ruling prince of Wallachia (r. 1849–1853), who obviously loved his wine, judging from the orders he placed. Thus, on 20 June 1781, he expressed his disappointment that the person entrusted with a wine delivery had broken “all the bottles, bar one,” presumably out of negligence (“for which reason I do not know”).58 But the high-ranking boyar continued ordering wine from Hagi Pop, as suggested by a letter dated 9 August 1783 in which he ordered “10 bottles of Fruntineag” (= Frontignan).59 He must have been pleased with the quality of the beverages sent, because his orders include on for “two bottles of French vutca (= liqueur) called Rum”. He specified that if the drink was not readily available for purchase, it should be produced on order, but it “should be made with molasses” (“această vutcă să face din drojdii de zaharu”).60 Happy events to be celebrated at the homes of the top elites were occasions which required the purchase of high-quality wines. For example, in 1794 two Oltenian dignitaries, the paharnic Hagi Stan Jianu and the medelnicer Constantin Otetelişanu celebrated two important family events: the first was planning his nephew’s marriage, the latter his own. Both placed orders with the Hagi Constantin Pop house for wines of “Tocaia” (= Tokay, Hungary), of “Aispurh” (Ausbruch, Austria), of “Renu” (= the Rhine Valley) and of “Şpanu” (Spain).61 The same brands of wine were ordered in April 1787 by Hagi Stan 56  After the dramatic events of 1792, F.G. Laurençon left France and settled in late 1809 settled in Wallachia where he earned a living as tutor to children of boyar families. He wrote that “le vin est le plus grand objet de commerce qu’ils aient. Ils en ont un débouché sûr par la Bessarabie, l’Ukraine et Odessa; on transporte du vin de Valachie jusqu’à Niezen en petite Russie et même jusqu’à Moscou.” Nouvelles observations sur la Valachie (Paris: 1822), 6. See also Constantin C. Giurescu, “Relaţiile economice dintre români şi ruşi până la Regulamentele Organice,” Revista istorică română 1–2 (1947): 33–4. 57  Large portions of these archives have been published by N. Iorga and D.Z. Furnică. 58  Furnică, Din istoria comerţului, 119, no. 67. 59  Iorga, Scrisori de boieri, 8. 60  Ibid., 29, 33. 61  In the event of the impossibility of purchasing the wines listed in his letter, Hagi Stan Jianu left his addressee the freedom of choosing “other wines from abroad.” Ibid., 29–30.

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Jianu, as he prepared for the visit of the country’s ruling prince to the regional capital city Craiova. To these he added a number of luxury items: “untdelemnul de Provenţiia” (= olive oil from Provence), “fine pearl barley,” “Italian rice,” “assorted ladyfingers,” among other goods. He left no detail to chance, as on the success of this event depended opportunities of upward mobility for himself and his kin. He meticulously insisted in his letter that the produce should be “fresh”, should not be the ordinary fare available on the market, and the wine should “not be spoilt.” Undoubtedly, a princely visit was an opportunity for the host to put his wealth, refined taste and behaviour on display, as marks of social distinction. Consequently, Hagi Stan Jianu was not simply content to order a rich array of luxury foods, but also requested a centrepiece, which, his nephew had assured him, was the latest trend on the tale of the high-ranked rich. He, therefore, ordered a “naimod [= meaning an unusual, special ornament] … for the decoration of the table.”62 Because of their alleged therapeutic virtues, good-quality wines were recommended not only for the consumption of the wealthy on special occasion, but also to those afflicted with various conditions. The paharnic Constantin Brăiloiu was a refugee in the town of Râmnic after the advance of Ottoman troops in November 1800. Being ill, he asked Hagi Constantin pop to purchase “four vedre63 of old wine,” and gave him very specific instructions: the wine should be “pure, good, clear, not admixed with anything; it should be neither sweet, neither sour, but as per its own nature.”64 Ten years later, the same Constantin Brăiloiu wrote to Pǎunica, the widow of the now deceased Constantin Hagi Pop, who had taken over the management of the house. He explained that the example of an acquaintance of his who “had an ailment,” and the advice of doctors to “partake of a little very old wine” alongside “other medicine” induced him to order eight or ten of the “very best wine”, for which he was forwarding 200 florins.65 Although the consumption of coffee, as part of the overall Ottoman impact on the culinary practices of the Romanian lands,66 is documented for 62  Ibid., 13–14. Another merchant from Sibiu, Manicati Safranu, sent the great paharnic Ioan Hagi Moscu a few bottles of Tokay wine, as well as a casket of silver cutlery. Dumitru Limona, Negustorii “greci” şi arhivele lor comerciale, ed. Loredana Dascăl (Iaşi: 2016), 71. For further details on what Hagi Stan Jianu ordered and an analysis of the centrepiece see Angela Jianu’s contribution to the present volume. 63   Vadrǎ was an old Wallachian measuring unit for liquids, equivalent to 10 litres today. 64  Iorga, Scrisori de boieri, 113. 65  Ibid., 49. 66  For an introduction to the topic, see Cafés d’Orient revisités, eds. Hélène Desmet and François Georgeon (Paris: 1997).

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earlier periods,67 our data on the trade in coffee only go back to the latter half of the 18th century. A body of documents, including the correspondence of the above-mentioned Hagi Constantin Pop with Wallachian boyar customers and fellow-traders,68 as well a few surviving customs registers, give an indication of the coffee types available on the market. These ranged from “French,” “Turkish,” “Moca” [sic], “Emen” (= Yemen) coffees to varieties referred to simply as “good” or “bad” coffee.69 Each of these varieties were subject to different customs tariffs, depending on quality and market value.70 Whether served with or without sugar, or accompanied by a portion of fruit jam,71 coffee-drinking became a ubiquitous ritual both among boyars and clerics, as suggested by the lists of purchases of religious establishments.72 One can speak of a relative ‘democratization’ of coffee-drinking towards the mid-18th century, when the first coffee-houses opened in the Wallachian capital city, Bucharest.73 The 67  On this, see the observations of Antonio del Chiaro, the Italian-language secretary of Prince Constantin Brâncoveanu. He wrote that princely and boyar banquets usually ended with coffee, preceded by a glass of wine and accompanied by a “pipe of tobacco.” Călători străini, vol. 8, 377–8. For a discussion of the possible dates suggested for the start of coffee-drinking in Wallachia, see the contribution by Olivia Senciuc in this volume. 68  Furnică, Documente, 48–50; Iorga, Scrisori de boieri, 33, 36. 69  Furnică, Din istoria comerţului, passim. 70  See, for example, the customs register which came into force on 3 January 1784 and which established specific tariffs for each variety. Ibid., 119–22. 71  We know from the secret diary of Prince Constantin Brâncoveanu (r. 1688–1714) that he purchased some of his fruit conserves and jams from Istanbul through the intermediary of the merchant Hagi Cuzi. One entry specifies the sum of 109 thaler sent to the merchant in September 1711. Ion-Radu Mircea, “Constantin Brâncoveanu: Însemnări de taină,” Manuscriptum 4 (1985): 24. The name of this merchant also appears in the registers of the state treasury which recorded the sum of 204 thaler paid to him for the “victuals sent” in the period 1698–99. (Aricescu, Condica, 525). The importance of jam-making is illustrated also by the purchase of special utensils: among the household goods of the merchant Cernea Popovici, active in the first three decades of the 19th century was a pan for jammaking “made in Constantinople and bought for the purpose.” G. Lazăr, “Un testament şi o poveste de viaţă: cazul negustorului Cernea Popovici,” in Miscellanea historica in honorem Professoris Marcel-Dumitru Ciucă septuagenarii, 601. 72  This was also the case of the Cotroceni Monastery, which, in 1740, spent 5 thaler and 28 para for the purchase of 2.5 okka of coffee. Istoria Cotrocenilor în documente (secolele XVII–XX) (Bucharest: 2001), 64. See also purchases ordered by Pahomie, the Abbott of Hurezi Monastery, in Ionaşcu, Istoricul mănăstirii Hurezi, 412–415. 73  Potra, Din Bucureştii de ieri, vol. 1 (Bucharest: 1990), 386–98. It is worth mentioning that in 1803 some customs records include coffee mills (“morişti de cafea”). Urechia, Istoria românilor, vol. 11 (Bucharest: 1900), 231. For the consumption of coffee in the Romanian Principalities, especially in the first half of the 19th century, see also Constanţa

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preference for purchasing coffee rather than other products is referred to in a letter dated 1820 addressed by the merchant Sava Ioan Tetoveanul to the same Hagi Constantin Pop trading house. After a preamble in which he complained of poor overall sales—“exceedingly poor, as never before”—at the market in Râureni (Vâlcea county), he asked his trading partners to send increasing amounts of coffee because, as he noted with obvious irritation, “the minds of people here are more on luxuries than on food.”74 Tea-drinking in the Romanian lands was also due to a foreign influence, Russian rather than Turkish.75 Here, too, the archives of the Hagi Constantin Pop house prove to be an invaluable source. In February 1780 the boyar lady Dumitrana Ştirbei wrote to the same “good friend” Hagi Constantin Pop asking for “fabric to make a giubea,”76 some “long, thick … church candle-holders,” as well as “good Russian tea”. A few months later, the lady, an avid consumer, placed another order for a jar of fennel-flavoured butter, 50 dram77 of rosemary for cooking and “half a pound of fine tea.”78 A few years later, the merchant Antonie Nicolantin ordered from his Transylvanian counterpart some “good, green tea,” “fresh oil from Barabanţi,”79 as well as “tobacco from Peşta” (= Budapest).80 A direct proof of the increased appetite for coffee and tea in 18th-century Wallachian society was the availability of increasingly sophisticated and, it goes without saying, foreign-produced, imported utensils. Even a summary analysis of the period’s dowry papers81 and wealth inventories shows that any respectable family above a certain economic level possessed coffee- and teamaking equipment and utensils, which were displayed whenever there was a suitable occasion.82 For example, we know from an inventory drawn up in 1771 Vintilă-Ghiţulescu, Patimă şi desfătare: Despre lucrurile mărunte ale vieţii cotidiene în societatea românească, 1750–1860 (Bucharest: 2015), 149–54 and, in greater detail and over a longer period, the contribution by Olivia Senciuc in the present volume. 74  Iorga, Scrisori de boieri, 89. 75  Tea, which “comes from the Turkish Land or Lipsca (Leipzig)” was listed in the customs register which came into force on 3 January 1784. Furnică, Din istoria comerţului, 121. 76  From Tr. cübbe = a long-sleeved overcoat for men. 77  Rom. sg. dram, pl. dramuri (from the Greek) = old measuring unit, approx 3.20 grams. 78  Furnică, Din istoria comerţului, 4–5. The measuring unit used in the text is funt, derived from the English “pound”. 79  Locality near Alba Iulia (Hung. Gyulafehérvár, Ger. Karlsburg) in Transylvania. 80  Furnică, Documente, 122–3, no. 89. 81  Vintilă-Ghiţulescu, În şalvari şi cu işlic, 147–48; Barbu, Ordo amoris, 224–29. 82  See also the description by the doctor Andreas Wolf in 1784, on a visit to a boyar household in Moldavia in Călători străini, vol. 10II, 1269). Vintilă-Ghiţulescu, Patimă şi desfătare, 151.

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that the wealthy Văcărescu family possessed a silver coffee-pot which “made 12 cups of coffee in the European style rather than Turkish cups.83 A year later, a list of purchases sent to Hagi Constantin Pop from a customer who remains anonymous includes, among other items, a teapot and “6 large teacups (Rom. filigene) of good quality, with handles and saucers.”84

Sweets, Desserts and Exotic Fruit

We know that Wallachia was a great producer of honey, used as a sweetener on a large scale in the period. But there is documentary evidence for the use of sugar: sugar “from Venice” or “from Misir” (today’s Egypt), “unprocessed” sugar or “rock sugar and fine, powder sugar,”85 varieties used as sweetener but also in cooking. Sugar was often on the lists of purchases of elite households in the 18th century, as illustrated by the probate inventory of the boyar lady Maria Greceanu,86 as well as on lists of orders sent to Hagi Constantin Pop a few decades later by an anonymous customer who wanted “păpuşele de zaharu pişcot” (possibly small figurines made of sugar or ginger-bread).87 Hagi Constantin Pop in Sibiu received orders for sugar from members of elite Oltenian families such as Barbu Ştirbei and Elenca Brăiloiu.88 The merchant Zotu Ossi from Vienna enquired after the retail price of sugar on Wallachian markets from his business partner in Craiova, Hagi Ianuş Costa Petru.89 Also popular were commodities which nowadays would be classed as patisserie: the documents include references to ladyfingers,90 breadcrumbs

83  Mihail Carataşu, Documentele Văcăreştilor (Bucharest: 1975), 59. 84  Furnică, Din istoria comerţului, 31. Rom. sg. filigean (pl. filigene) and its variant felegean are adaptations of the Turkish word filcan, var. fincan = cup. 85  These varieties of sugar are listed in the customs register for 1784. Ibid., 119–22. 86  Lazăr, “Cheltuielile de înmormântare a unei jupânese de altădată: Cazul Mariei Greceanu,” in Mihai Dim. Sturdza la 80 de ani: Omagiu, eds. Mircea Ciubotaru and Lucian-Valeriu Lefter (Iaşi: 2014), 790–1. 87  Furnică, Din istoria comerţului, 116–117. 88  Iorga, Scrisori de boieri, 33, 36, 48. 89  ANIC, Fonds Hagi Ianuş, XXXIX/26 (document dated 2 May 1813). In 1786, Hagi Constantin Pop received information on the sugar sold in Wallachia by one of his business partner Tudoran Mihai. Furnică, Documente, 124–126. 90  A list of commodities sent in 1780 by Hagi Constantin Pop to the boyar and writer Constantin Golescu included “9 boxes of ladyfingers.” Furnică, Din istoria comerţului, 112. A decade later, the serdar Jianu asked the merchant to send “4 pounds of ladyfingers”

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“from Braşov” (Hung. Brassó, Ger. Kronstadt),91 “candied sweets”92 (assortments of bonbons and fruit jellie)], as well as the “larger sugar figures of different shapes, and such,” as noted in 1794 by the medelnicer Constantin Otetelişanu in a letter to Hagi Constantin Pop, as he planned his wedding to the daughter of sluger Argetoianu.93 The correspondence of the Hagi Pop house also suggests that purchases by the Wallachian elites included popular items such as: almonds,94 raisins,95 pineapples and lemons. The chief interest of such goods probably lay in their novelty value which made them suitable for display,96 but they were also recommended for their presumed therapeutic properties as well as for seasoning dishes.97 As an example, in 1798 the wife of a high court dignitary (“Her Ladyship the honourable wife of the caimacam”98), who had recently given birth, was visiting the town of Râmnic. One of the local high boyars, the pitar Constantin Brăiloiu appealed to the same merchant from Sibiu, Hagi Constantin Pop, from whom he ordered some prescription medicine for the lady as well as “two of those pomes … they call pineapple.” From the text of the letter we learn that those “pomes” could be procured from the city gardeners, or from the “garden of Brocăntal.”99 The sender wanted the fruit to be sent as soon as possible as the visiting lady was “a new mother and is rather frail.”100 In 1811, the boyar lady Elena Brăiloiu ordered pineapples,101 as did the boyar Barbu alongside other purchases which included bottles of wine and … two stoves. Iorga, Scrisori de boieri, 21. 91  Furnică, Din istoria comerţului, 116–17. 92  Iorga, Scrisori de boieri, 19. 93  Ibid., 29–30. Medelnicer and sluger were high-ranking boyar titles. 94  As an illustration, the merchant Manicati Safranu from Sibiu (Hermannstadt) sent one of his trade partners in Bucharest, Andrei Nicolae Papazoglu, 100 okka of sweet almonds to the value of 200 Groszen (Rom. groşi). Limona, Negustorii “greci,” 69. Groszen was an Austrian silver currency. 95  Furnică, Din istoria comerţului, 31. 96  For example, Elenca Brăiloiu asked Păunica, Hagi Constantin Pop’s wife, to procure, alongside sugar, some “golden tinsel” and almonds to be served at the wedding of her nephew. Iorga, Scrisori de boieri, 48. 97  In a 1781 letter to Hagi Constantin Pop, the boyar lady Dumitrana Ştirbei notified him that he had sent black raisins instead of the rosemary she had asked for, “the one that grows in gardens, for use in cooking.” Ibid., 5. 98  From the Tr. kaymakam. 99  This is a phonetic rendering of the name of Samuel von Brukenthal, Governor of the Principality of Transylvania from 1777 to 1787. 100  Iorga, Scrisori de boieri, 35. 101  Ibid., 52.

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Ştirbei, who explained that they were needed for a festive table for the feast of Saint Catherine and hoped that, in the new political context,102 it would still be possible to find “enough” of such fruit for the occasion.103 Lemons, too, were on the period’s lists of purchases. Initially, they were used chiefly for making refreshing fruit juices104 and jams.105 In time, there were attempts at acclimatizing lemon trees in Wallachia,106 as suggested in a letter from the boyar Ştefan Pârşcoveanu to the same Hagi Constantin Pop, in which the sender complained that the country lacked skilled gardeners capable of “caring for them.”107 One such rare garden with lemon and orange trees, as well as “other plants … and vegetables” belonged to the merchant Hagi Ianuş Costa Petru and was located at his estate Ianuşeşti (in Oltenia). The owner hired the services of the gardener Petru, a “German subject” for the maintenance of the garden. For an annual salary of 570 thaler and 200 okka of flour,108 the gardener pledged in a number of written documents to look after the garden, to provide “good, honest labour and not steal.”109 Looking for a large garden, especially when it contained exotic plants like the lemon trees, must have been quite expensive. A suggestion that this was so is contained in a letter from Polihronie Costa Petru, sent on 10 September 1823 from Sibiu (Hermannstadt), where he was in temporary exile,110 to his trusted agent in Craiova (Oltenia). Giving details on the death of his brother Hagi Ianuş, who had been running the family business, he sent 1,000 obituary notices to be distributed to all those who had dealings with the house. But, alongside the announcement of such a momentous event, he did not omit to ask for Petru the gardener to be sent as a matter of urgency to the estate Ianuşeşti to look after the lemon trees which had so 102  Presumably this is a reference to the Franco-Russo-Austrian campaigns of 1799–1801. 103  Iorga, Scrisori de boieri, 38. 104  Ibid., 51. 105   O lume într-o carte de bucate, 165–6. 106  For the interest among Wallachian boyars for growing unusual or less easily available vegetables in their own gardens, see, for example, the attempt in 1778 by Dumitrana Ştirbei to procure seeds of “turnips, kohlrabi, German cabbage and curly lettuce.” Her son, Barbu Ştirbei, asked Hagi Constantin Pop in 1799 to send “seeds for the garden” complete with written instructions on “how to plant [the seeds] for each variety.” Iorga, Scrisori de boieri, 3, 36, 44. 107  Ibid., 4. 108  Tr. okka: old measuring unit = 1¼ litres or kilograms. 109  ANIC, Fonds Hagi Ianuş, XCVIII/99 and CXI/38. 110  In the early 1820s, members of the Romanian elites who supported joint Greek-Romanian anti-Ottoman movements found refuge in Transylvanian cities such as Braşov and Sibiu. For a reference to this period in the present volume, see Angela Jianu’s comments on the writings of the Comte de Marcellus in her contribution.

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far cost him, Polihronie, “thousands of Groszen” (“mii de groşi”) to grow and maintain.111 Given the high prices and exotic character of such fruits, they were often ordered by members of the elites not solely for display and consumption at banquet tables, but also as prestigious, special gifts.112 Thus, in a letter to Hagi Contantin Pop dated 15 January 1778, the merchant Antonie Nicolantin from Oltenia gave him details on the regrettable delays in a court case he was involved in against the Abbot of Argeş Monastery. In order to speed up the “proceedings,” Nicolantin asked for a power of attorney document to be drawn up in his name, but also ordered “200 fine pears and 20 bottles of good Frontiniac” [sic]113 as gifts for some of the parties involved in the court case: “you know full well what is needed to open boyars’ doors”, he wrote.114 By the 17th century, in Western Europe the previously copious use of spices was already in decline, as expensive, imported spices were replaced by less costly, native ones, but also as a consequence of obvious changes in “culinary tastes.”115 By contrast, in Wallachia the “spice mania”, to borrow another of Fernand Braudel’s phrases,116 remained in vogue not only throughout the

111  ANIC, Fonds Hagi Ianuş, CXVII/18. A letter dated November 1824 informed Polihronie Costa Petru that the garden looked beautiful, especially the lemon and orange trees and was promised a delivery of high-quality, ripe fruits for Easter. ANIC, Fonds Hagi Ianuş, CXXVI/52. 112  For the practice of ruling princes offering foreign visitors food allocations, see the information provided by Anton Maria Del Chiaro in Călători străini, vol. 8, 381–3. For similar practices at the princely courts and in the noble households of the Romanian lands, see in greater detail Matei Cazacu, The Story of Romanian Gastronomy, trans. Laura Beldiman (Bucharest: 1999), 59–83. For a comparison with France, see Philippe Meyzie, “Les cadeaux alimentaires dans les Sud-Ouest aquitain au XVIIIe siècle: Sociabilité, pouvoirs et gastronomie,” Histoire, Economie & Société 25 (1) (2006): 33–50. 113  Frontignac wine. 114  Furnică, Din istoria comerţului, 59–61. 115  Jean-Louis Flandrin, “Diferenţierea prin gust,” in Istoria vieţii private, vol. 3: De la Renaştere la Epoca Luminilor, eds. Philippe Ariès and Georges Duby, trans. Constanţa Tănăsescu (Bucharest: 1995), 333–4. See also idem, “La diversité des goûts et des pratiques alimentaires,” Revue d’histoire moderne et contemporaine 30 (1) (1983): 66–83; Massimo Montanari, Foamea şi abundenţa: O istorie a alimentaţiei în Europa, trans. Elena Caraboi (Iaşi: 2003), 117. 116  Fernand Braudel, Structurile cotidianului: Posibilul şi imposibilul, vol. 1, ed. and trans. Adrian Riza (Bucharest: 1984), 254.

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17th and 18th centuries,117 but endured as late as the mid-19th century,118 as demonstrated, for example, by the aforementioned cookery book used by members of the Cantacuzino and Brâncoveanu families.119 Demands for spices, and especially for pepper,120 featured prominently in the orders placed by topranking boyars with the Hagi Pop house. In 1774, Constantin Argetoianu wrote to his “godson Costandin,” ordering, among other items, cinnamon, cloves and “saffron from Beci” (Vienna).121 Several years later, on behalf of the Bengescu family, the merchant Zamfirache Hagi Gheorghe from Râmnicul Vâlcea (in Oltenia) wished to procure pearl barley, cinnamon,122 and “alerlai pepper” (word adapted from the German expression allerlei Pfeffer, meaning a mix of several varieties of pepper).123 Details on the amounts of pepper sent by Hagi Constantin Pop to be sold in Wallachia are also offered in letters of acknowledgement by his business partners Nicoliţă Iovipali and Tudoran Mihai in 1779 and 1786 respectively.124

A Refined Cuisine: “Knowledge and Praxis”

The commercial correspondence of the period’s major trading houses is a confirmation of the increasing sophistication of tastes at elite level, both in terms of the variety of the foodstuffs ordered and of the table layout and service. Dowry papers from the Romanian lands include recurrent references to dinnerware and table manners under the generic term “table service” 117  A series of commodities from the spice category were listed in the register of the customs at Câineni in 1691, during the reign of Constantin Brâncoveanu. Iorga, Studii şi documente cu privire la istoria românilor, vol. 5 (Bucharest: 1903), 364–7. For the large-scale use of spices in the Wallachian cuisine, see the comments of Matei Cazacu in his introduction to O lume, 58–9. For the trade in spices in the period considered, see Mária Pakucs-Willcocks, Sibiu-Hermannstadt: Oriental trade in sixteenth-century Transylvania (Cologne-WeimarVienna: 2007). 118  Vintilă-Ghiţulescu, Patimă şi desfătare, 41–5. 119  Constantinescu and Cazacu (eds.), O lume. 120  Zigmond S. Pach, “La route du poivre vers la Hongrie médiévale (Contribution à l’histoire du commerce méditerranéen au XVe siècle),” in Mélanges en l’honneur de Fernand Braudel, vol. 2 (Toulouse: 1973), 449–58. 121  Furnică, Din istoria comerţului, 31–2. 122  In 1781, another boyar, Zamfir Jianu, ordered “cinnamon butter, the kind they call in Latin ” Iorga, Scrisori de boieri, 7. 123  Furnică, Din istoria comerţului, 74. 124  Idem, Documente, 53–4, 124–6.

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(Rom. “rânduiala mesei”) which entitle us to speak, starting from the late 17th century, of a “culinary civilization” in which Eastern and Western elements mingled125 until the mid-19th century.126 The letters exchanged by high Wallachian dignitaries and members of the elites with the aforementioned merchant Hagi Constantin Pop allow us fascinating insights into these cultural shifts: gradually, these elite households replaced their native cooks with experienced chefs, preferably hired from abroad via the intermediary of the merchant houses. In 1807, Radu Golescu was looking for an experienced “female cook” who should be able to prepare at least three courses, as well as make “a good roast” and “various assortments of cakes”. A member of the Brăiloiu family was more demanding: the female cook he was looking to hire was to be a “Saxon,” “clean” and possessing “knowledge and praxis” in the preparation of dishes ranging from “uscături (starters), made meals and zaharica (sweets, desserts).” He also specified that the cook should come from a “boyar’s house,” not from the household of “some uneducated plebeian.”127 An important indicator of “gastronomic refinement,”128 but also of a desire to display status among the nobility of Wallachia (and elsewhere129) in the period was the value and diversity of vessels and cutlery and the style of service. For Wallachia, the Transylvanian merchant Hagi Constantin Pop was on the frontline of the new trends, catering for a demanding clientele who ordered everything from textile, fashions, jewellery to foodstuffs and kitchen utensils. In 1781, for instance, the wealthy serdar Barbu Ştirbei, ordered the purchase of a complete table set for 24 diners “with all that was needed,” while in 1792 Dumitrache Fălcoianu was looking for a dinner set comprising “12 knives and forks, 19 spoons, 1 serving spoon, and 24 saucers.”130 The purchase and use of such dinnerware had been attested before these dates,131 but in time they became so widespread that such items are to be found not only in the household inventories of important noble families such as the Văcărescu family,132

125  V. Barbu, Ordo amoris, 226. 126  Vintilă-Ghiţulescu, Patimă şi desfătare, passim. 127  Iorga, Scrisori de boieri, 29, 42. 128  Alain Girard, “Le triomphe de ‘la cuisinière bourgeoise’: Livres culinaires, cuisine et société en France aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles,” Revue d’histoire moderne et contemporaine 24 (4) (1977): 497–521. 129  Sylvie Girard, Histoire des objets de cuisine et de gourmandise (Paris: 1991). 130  Ibid., 6, 22. 131  For further details, see Barbu, Ordo amoris, 224–7; Vintilă-Ghiţulescu, Patimă şi desfătare, 140–7. 132  Carataşu, Documentele Văcăreştilor, 59, 81.

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in inventories of monastic establishments,133 but also in those of affluent merchants.134 This illustrates the ways in which emulation in gastronomy turned affluent merchants into ‘consumers’ rather than simply ‘purveyors’ of luxury items to the elite boyar class. Moreover, the acquisition of new implements and utensils for culinary use illustrates the impact of ‘civilising’ processes which gradually transformed the tastes, and implicitly the status, of non-noble elites in old-regime Romania. Conclusions The predominantly agrarian and export-oriented character of the Wallachian economy explains to a large extent why cereals and animals dominated foreign trade, especially trade with areas south of the Danube, compared to imports of foodstuffs destined for domestic consumption. Moreover, the imported foodstuffs tended to be luxury items destined for groups which, while powerful economically, represented only a tiny top section of the population. Changes became more noticeable from the latter half of the 18th century when a growing clientele started to use the services of ‘professionals of commerce’ to acquire commodities for daily use. In our view, an indirect evidence for this socio-economic trend arising from the period’s documents is the growing number of grocers (Rom. bǎcani) and petty, itinerant vendors (Rom. precupeţi) involved in the ‘small’ retail trade and catering for modest, ordinary customers.135 The increase in the numbers of such small-scale retailers, mentioned sporadically in documents starting with the early 17th century, led to the incipient institutionalization of the trade by the early 18th century, when a master of the grocers’ guild (Rom. vătaf de băcani) was created. The creation of an 133  For example, and 1837 inventory of the Cotroceni Monastery included “86 porcelain platters, of which 36 were in the English style.” Mariana Lazăr, “Mănăstirea Cotroceni în prima jumătate a secolului al XIX-lea,” in Miscellanea historica in honorem Professoris Marcel-Dumitru Ciucă septuagenarii, 657. 134  Gheorghe Lazăr, Catastife de negustori din Ţara Românească (secolele XVIII–XIX) (Iaşi: 2016). 135  As a suggestion of the variety of produce traded by grocers, a list of “what was purchased in Istanbul” for the noble lady Maria Argetoianu in the mid-18th century comprises: soap, varieties of textiles, oil and rice. (ANIC, Collection E. Vîrtosu, I/499). For the increasing importance of this category of traders, see the decree issued by prince Alexandru Moruzi (r. 1793–1796) in August 1793 in which he ordered inspectors to check whether the grocers in Bucharest ensured that they had “plenty” of goods to cater for the “needs of the populace” and whether they sold them for a “due and proper price.” Furnică, Din istoria comerţului, 160–1.

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independent corporation of food retailers136 dates from the last quarter of the 18th century.137 The itinerant vendors took longer to organize as a regulated profession, possibly because they were often accused of “damage and swindling” by re-selling food produce at a higher price.138 They only earned the right to have their own isnaf (guild) in 1805.139 Undoubtedly, in both cases the princely decree was motivated by the perceived need for the regular provisioning of the capital city, as the population increased whereas the urban plots,140 which had supplied some of daily staples until then, were in decline in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. It is left for future archival research to uncover some of the data which might make possible a more systematic approach to the themes and trends outlined in the present survey. Bibliography Archival Sources Bucharest, Arhivele Naţionale Istorice Centrale (ANIC) [The National Archives of Romania]: Fonds Hagi Ianuş; Fond Mitrop. Ţ. Rom. [Fonds Metropolitanate of Wallachia]. Galaţi, Serviciul Judeţean al Arhivelor Naţionale Galaţi (SJAN Galaţi) [The National Archives, Galaţi county archives]: V.A. Urechia Collection. Published Primary Sources Cantacuzino, Mihail, Genealogia Cantacuzinilor [The genealogy of the Cantacuzino family] ed. N. Iorga (Bucharest: 1902). Călători străini despre ţările române [Foreign travellers on the Romanian lands], vol. 6, eds. Maria M. Alexandrescu-Dersca Bulgaru and Mustafa Ali Mehmet (Bucharest: 1976); vol. 8, eds. Maria Holban, Maria M. Alexandrescu-Dersca Bulgaru and Paul

136  Lazăr, Les marchands en Valachie, 161; Simion Câlţia, Aşezări urbane sau rurale? Oraşele din ţările române de la sfârşitul secolului al 17-lea la începutul secolului al 19-lea (Bucharest: 2011), 407–411. 137  Dumitru Z. Furnică, Industria şi dezvoltarea ei în ţările române (Bucharest: 1926), 40. 138  Urechia, Istoria românilor, vol. 1 (Bucharest: 1891), 436–8; vol. 6 (Bucharest: 1893), 663; vol. 11, 356–7. 139  Ibid., vol. 11, 358–9. 140  On this aspect, see Câlţia, Aşezări urbane, 272–315. It is, however, difficult to measure the contribution of the urban plots to the provisioning of the city in this period.

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Cernovodeanu (Bucharest: 1983); vol. 91 and vol. 102, eds. Maria Holban, Maria M. Alexandrescu-Dersca Bulgaru and Paul Cernovodeanu (Bucharest: 2000, 2001). Carataşu, Mihail, Documentele Văcăreştilor [Documents of the Văcărescu family] (Bucharest: 1975). Catalogul documentelor Ţării Româneşti din Arhivele Statului [Catalogue of documents from Wallachia in the National Archives], vol. 2 (1601–1620), eds. Maria Soveja, Doina Duca-Tinculescu and Reghina Dragomir (Bucharest: 1974). Constantinescu, Ioana and Matei Cazacu (eds.) O lume într-o carte de bucate: Manuscris din epoca brâncovenească [A world in a cookbook: a manuscript from the Brâncoveanu era] (Bucharest: 1997). Documenta Romaniae Historica, B, Ţara Românească, vol. 23 (1630–1632), ed. Damaschin Mioc (Bucharest: 1969). Documente economice din arhiva casei comerciale Ioan St. Stamu [Economic documents from the archive of the Ioan St. Stamu commercial house], vol. 1 (1714–1876), eds. Dumitru Limona and Natalia Trandafirescu (Bucharest: 1983). Furnică, Dumitru Z., Documente privitoare la comerţul românesc (1473–1868) [Documents regarding Romanian trade (1473–1868)] (Bucharest: 1931). Furnică, Dumitru Z., Din istoria comerţului la români, mai ales băcănia: Publicaţiune de documente inedite. 1593–1855 [Documents regarding Romanian trade, in particular the trade in groceries, 1593–1855] (Bucharest: 1908). Guboglu, Mihail, Catalogul documentelor turceşti [Catalogue of Ottoman documents in the National Archives], vol. 1 (Bucharest: 1960). Hauterive, count of, Mémoire sur l’état ancien et actuel de la Moldavie présenté à S.A.S. le prince Alexandre Ypsilanti hospodar régnant en 1787 (Bucharest: 1902). Iorga, N., Corespondenţa lui Dimitrie Aman, negustor din Craiova [The correspondence of the merchant Dimitrie Aman from Craiova] (Bucharest: 1913). Iorga, N., Scrisori de boieri şi negustori olteni şi munteni către casa de negoţ sibiiană Hagi Pop [Letters of boyars and traders from Oltenia and Wallachia to the Hagi Pop trade house in Sibiu] (Bucharest, 1906). Iorga, N., Studii şi documente cu privire la istoria românilor [Studies and documents related to the history of the Romanians], vol. 5 (Bucharest: 1903). Istoria Cotrocenilor în documente (secolele XVII–XX) [A documentary history of the Cotroceni Monastery 17th–20th centuries] (Bucharest: 2001). Laurençon, F.G., Nouvelles observations sur la Valachie, sur ses productions, son commerce, les mœurs et les coutumes des habitants, et sur son gouvernement (Paris: 1822). Lazăr, Gheorghe, Documente privitoare la negustorii din Ţara Românească [Documents relating to Wallachian merchants], vol. 1 (1656–1688) (Iaşi: 2013); vol. 2 (1689–1714) (Iaşi: 2014). Lazăr, Gheorghe, Catastife de negustori din Ţara Românească (secolele XVIII–XIX) [Trade registers of Wallachian merchants, 18th–19th centuries] (Iaşi: 2016).

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Potra, George, Tezaurul documentar al judeţului Dâmboviţa (1418–1800) [Documents relating to Dâmboviţa county] (Muzeul judeţean Dâmboviţa: 1972). Potra, George, Din Bucureştii de ieri [The Bucharest of yesteryear], vol. 1 (Bucharest: 1990). Potra, George, Documente privitoare la istoria oraşului Bucureşti, 1634–1800 [Documents on the history of the city of Bucharest (1594–1821)] (Bucharest: 1982). Urechia V.A., Istoria românilor [History of the Romanians], vol. 1 (Bucharest: 1891); vol. 4 (Bucharest: 1892); vol. 5 (Bucharest: 1893); vol. 6 (Bucharest: 1893); vol. 9 (Bucharest: 1900); vol. 13 (Bucharest: 1901). Secondary Literature Alexandrescu-Dersca Bulgaru, Maria M., “Le régime du sel valaque exporté dans l’Empire ottoman (XVIe–XVIIIe siècles)” in V. Milletlerarası Türkiye Sosyal ve Iktisat Tarihi Kongresi. Tebliger. Istanbul 21–25 August 1989 (Ankara: 1990), 441–51. Alexandrescu-Dersca Bulgaru, Maria M., “Les rapports économiques de l’Empire ottoman avec les Principautés Roumaines et leur réglementation par les khatt-i serif de privilèges (1774–1829)” in Economie et société dans l’Empire ottoman ( fin du XVIII edébut du XX e siècle). Actes du colloque de Strasbourg (1–5 July 1980), eds. Jean-Louis Bacqué-Grammont and Paul Dumont (Paris: 1983), 317–26. Barbu, Violeta, Ordo amoris: O istorie a instituţiei căsătoriei în Ţara Românească în secolul al XVII-lea [Ordo Amoris: a history of the institution of marriage in 17th-century Wallachia] (Bucharest: 2011). Braudel, Fernand, Structurile cotidianului: Posibilul şi imposibilul, vol. 1, trans. Adrian Riza (Bucharest: 1984). Braunstein, Philippe, “Livres de comptes et routes commerciales dans les Alpes orientales et les Balkans au XVIe siècle,” in Annales. Economies, sociétés, civilisations 29 (1) (1972): 247–55. Brătianu, George I., Etudes byzantines d’histoire économique et sociale (Paris: 1938). Brătianu, George I., Marea Neagră: De la origini până la cucerirea otomană, trans. Michaela Spinei, vol. 2 (Bucharest: 1988). Cazacu, Matei, “Prince, Etat et Église en Valachie et en Moldavie aux XVe–XVIe siècle,” in Histoires des idées politiques de l’Europe Centrale, eds. Chantal Delsol and M. Maslowski (Paris: 1998) 152–170. Cazacu, Matei, The Story of Romanian Gastronomy (Bucharest: 1999). Câlţia, Simion, Aşezări urbane sau rurale? Oraşele din ţările române de la sfârşitul secolului al 17-lea la începutul secolului al 19-lea [Rural or urban settlements? Towns in the Romanian Lands from the late 17th century to the early 19th century] (Bucharest: 2011). Cernovodeanu, Paul, “Les marchands balkaniques, intermédiaires du commerce entre l’Angleterre, la Valachie et la Transylvanie durant les années 1660–1714,” in Actes du Ier Congrès des études balkaniques, Sofia, 1966, 3 (Sofia: 1969), 649–58.

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Constantinescu, N., L’histoire de l’économie roumaine: De l’origine jusqu’à la deuxième guerre mondiale (Bucharest: 1996). Cvetkova, Bistra, “Les celep et leur rôle dans la vie économique des Balkans à l’époque ottomane (XVe–XVIIe s.),” in Studies in the Economic History of the Middle East from the Rise of Islam to the Present Day, ed. M.A. Cook (London-New-York-Toronto: 1974), 172–92. Flandrin, Jean-Louis, “Diferenţierea prin gust” [Social distinction through taste], in Istoria vieţii private: De la Renaştere la Epoca luminilor, vol. 5, trans. Constanţa Tănăsescu (Bucharest: 1995), 325–75. Flandrin, Jean-Louis, “La diversité des goûts et des pratiques alimentaires,” Revue d’histoire moderne et contemporaine 30 (1) (1983): 66–83. Furnică, Dumitru Z., Industria şi dezvoltarea ei în ţările române [Industrial development in the Romanian lands] (Bucharest: 1926). Girard, Alain, “Le triomphe de ‘la cuisinière bourgeoise’: Livres culinaires, cuisine et société en France aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles,” Revue d’histoire moderne et contemporaine 24 (4) (1977): 497–521. Girard, Sylvie, Histoire des objets de cuisine et de gourmandise (Paris: 1991). Giurescu, Constantin C., “Relaţiile economice dintre români şi ruşi până la Regulamentele Organice” [Trade relations between Romanians and Russians until the Organic Regulations] Revista istorică română 16 (1–2) (1947): 1–53. Iacob, Dan Dumitru (ed.) Avere, prestigiu şi cultură materială în surse patrimoniale: inventare de averi din secolele XVI–XIX [Fortune, prestige and material culture in patrimonial sources: estate inventories in 16th–19th centuries] (Iaşi: 2015). Lazăr, Gheorghe, “Cheltuielile de înmormântare a unei jupânese de altădată: Cazul Mariei Greceanu” [The burial expenses of a lady from the past: the case of Maria Greceanu] in Mihai Dim. Sturdza la 80 de ani: Omagiu [A tribute to Mihai Dim. Sturza on his 80th birthday], eds. Mircea Ciubotaru and Lucian-Valeriu Lefter (Iaşi: 2014), 777–97. Lazăr, Gheorghe, “Contribuţii privind activitatea şi averea negustorului Hagi Dumitrache Papazoglu” [New data on the activity and assets of the merchant Hagi Dumitrache Papazoglu] in Miscellanea historica et archaeologica in honorem Professoris Ionel Cândea, eds. Valeriu Sârbu and Cristian Luca (Brăila: 2009) 499–509. Lazăr, Gheorghe, Les marchands en Valachie. XVII e–XVIII e siècles (Bucharest: 2006). Lazăr, Gheorghe, “Les marchands de luxe, le luxe des marchands en Europe Orientale: Le cas de la Valachie (XVIIe–XVIIIe siècle)” in Le commerce du luxe: Production, exposition et circulation des objets précieux du Moyen Age à nos jours, eds. Natacha Coquery and Alain Bonnet (Lyon: 2015) 251–9. Lazăr, Gheorghe, “Un testament şi o poveste de viaţă: Cazul negustorului Cernea Popovici” [A testament and a life narrative: the merchant Cernea Popovici] in Miscellanea historica in honorem Professoris Marcel-Dumitru Ciucă septuagenarii,

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eds. Cristian Luca, Claudiu Neagoe and Marius Păduraru (Brăila-Piteşti: 2013) 597–624. Lazăr, Mariana, “Mănăstirea Cotroceni în prima jumătate a secolului al XIX-lea: Catagrafia de la 1837,” [The Cotroceni Monastery in the early 19th century. A register of 1837], in Miscellanea historica in honorem Professoris Marcel-Dumitru Ciucă septuagenarii, ed. Cristian Luca, Claudiu Neagoe and Marius Păduraru (Brăila-Piteşti: 2013) 631–71. Limona, Dumitru, Negustorii “greci” şi arhivele lor comerciale [The “Greek” merchants and their commercial archives] ed. Loredana Dascăl (Iaşi: 2016). Maxim, Mihai, “Le statut des pays roumains envers la Porte Ottomane aux XVIe– XVIIIe siècles,” Revue roumaine d’histoire 24 (1–2) (1985): 29–50. Maxim, Mihai, “Ottoman Documents Concerning the Wallachian Salt in the Ports on the Lower Danube in the Second Half of the Sixteenth Century,” Revue des étudessud-est éuropéennes 26 (2) (1988): 113–122. Mehmed, Mustafa A., Documente turceşti privind istoria României [Turkish documents related to Romanian history], vol. 1 (Bucharest: 1976) vol. 2 (Bucharest: 1983). Meşteşugari şi neguţători din trecutul Craiovei: Documente (1666–1865) [Artisans and merchants in the past of Craiova: documents] eds. Al. Bălintescu and Ioan PopescuCilieni (Bucharest: 1957). Meyzie, Philippe, “Les cadeaux alimentaires dans le Sud-Ouest aquitain au XVIIIe siècle: sociabilité, pouvoirs et gastronomie,” Histoire, Economie & Société 25 (1) (2006): 33–50. Mircea, Ion-Radu, “Constantin Brâncoveanu. Însemnări de taină,” [Constantin Brâncoveanu. Secret diary] Manuscriptum, 4 (1985): 10–33. Montanari, Massimo, Foamea şi abundenţa: o istorie a alimentaţiei în Europa [Famine and plenty: a history of food supply in Europe], trans. Elena Caraboi (Iaşi: 2003). Murgescu, Bogdan, Ţările Române între Imperiul Otoman şi Europa creştină [The Romanian Lands between the Ottoman Empire and Christian Europe] (Iaşi: 2012). Oţetea Andrei, Pătrunderea comerţului românesc în circuitul internaţional (în perioada de trecere de la feudalism la capitalism) [The Romanian trade in the international commercial circuit (during the period of transition from feudalism to capitalism] (Bucharest: 1977). Pach Z.S., “La route du poivre vers la Hongrie médiévale (Contribution à l’histoire du commerce méditerranéen au XVe siècle)” in Mélanges en l’honneur de Fernand Braudel, vol. 2 (Toulouse: 1973), 449–58. Pakucs-Willcocks, Mária, Sibiu-Hermannstadt: Oriental trade in sixteenth-century Transylvania (Cologne-Weimar-Vienna: 2007). Papacostea, Şerban, Geneza statului in Evul Mediu românesc [State Formation in the Romanian Middle Ages] (Cluj: 1988).

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Papacostea, Şerban, La Mer Noire, carrefour des grandes routes intercontinentales, 1204– 1453 (Bucharest: 2006). Penelea, Georgeta, Les foires de la Valachie pendant la période 1774–1848 (Bucharest: 1973). Pippidi, Andrei, “Centre et périphérie dans le Sud-Est de l’Europe,” Revue des études sud-est européennes 31 (3–4) (1993): 263–79. Pippidi, Andrei, Tradiţia politică bizantină în ţările române în secolele, XVI–XVIII [The political heritage of Byzantium in the Romanian Lands, 16th–17th centuries] (Bucharest: 1983). Vintilă-Ghiţulescu, Constanţa, În şalvari şi cu işlic: Biserică, sexualitate, căsătorie şi divorţ în Ţara Românească a secolului al XVIII-lea [Şalvars and içlik: church, sexuality, marriage and divorce in Wallachia, 18th century] (Bucharest: 2004). Vintilă-Ghiţulescu, Constanţa, Evgheniţi, ciocoi, mojici: Despre obrazele primei modernităţi româneşti, 1750–1860 [The well-born, the arriviste, the plebs: on the characters of Romania’s first modern age 1750–1860] (Bucharest: 2013). Vintilă-Ghiţulescu, Constanţa, Patimă şi desfătare: Despre lucrurile mărunte ale vieţii cotidiene în societatea românească, 1750–1860 [Passion and delight: everyday things in Romanian society 1750–1860] (Bucharest: 2015).

Part 4 Cooking between Tradition and Innovation: Food Recipes Old and New

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Chapter 12

Two South-East European Manuscript Recipe Collections in their 17th-Century Historical Context Castilia Manea-Grgin Introduction Early modern manuscript recipe collections are, in the words of David Goldstein, a “multifarious and complex genre.”1 They were generally unstandardized, sometimes anonymous, sometimes having several authors, and often featured not only culinary but also other types of recipes (medicinal, cosmetic, alchemical, recipes for distillation and brewery, for the preparation of household cleaning agents, etc.). The compilers gained knowledge from various sources, ranging from personal social networks (relatives, friends, neighbours) to purchased (printed) books. To these, they added their own creations, much like today’s housewives.2 This chapter deals with two 17th-century anonymous recipe collections which have received little attention from scholars, being published in their entirety only in the last decades. The earlier one, A Short Compendium on the Preparation of Day-to-Day Dishes,3 is mainly written in Hungarian and partly in Latin.4 It belonged to Nikola Zrinski (1620–1667), a member of a CroatianHungarian magnate family.5 A Short Compendium is most probably a clean 1  David Goldstein, Eating and Ethics in Shakespeare’s England (Cambridge: 2013), 143. 2  Ibid., 141–2, 147, 150, 158–60; Rachel Laudan, Cuisine and Empire: Cooking in world history (Berkeley: 2013), 178; Robert Appelbaum, Aguecheek’s Beef, Belch’s Hiccup, and Other Gastronomic Interjections: Literature, culture, and food among the early moderns (Chicago: 2006), 70–71; Sandra Sherman, Invention of the Modern Cookbook (Santa Barbara, CA: 2010), 1–3, 32. 3  Hereafter Short Compendium. 4  A kőz-étkeknek főzéséröl való rövid jegyzés, the Zagreb National and University Library (NSK), R 3496. [Original title of the ms: Az köz Etkeknek fözeseröl Valo rovid iegzes.] The shorter subtitle De communi coctione ciborum (p. vi) also refers to “ordinary dishes,” i.e. what nobles considered regular food. Domenico Romoli also had “Ordinary meals day by day” in his cookbook for noble households (1560), Ken Albala, Food in Early Modern Europe (Westport, CT: 2003), 126–7. 5  Nikola Zrinski, writer, Croatian ban (viceroy) from 1647, and leading military figure in the wars against the Ottomans. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi 10.1163/9789004367548_014

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copy and was mentioned in the 1662 catalogue of Nikola’s famous Bibliotheca Zriniana.6 The other manuscript considered here was written in Romanian with Cyrillic letters and is entitled A Book in which Dishes of Fish, Crayfish, Oysters, Snails, Vegetables, Herbs, and Other Dishes for Fast and Non-fast Days are Written. In Their Due Order.7 It would appear to be a copy written in 1749 of an older book which had belonged to a Wallachian noblewoman, referred to as spătăreasa Stanca—most probably Stanca Brezoianu, the wife of the mare spătar Radu (c. 1680/82–1715), born into the Romanian-Greek aristocratic family Cantacuzino.8 In 1675–77, his father Constantin (c. 1640/50–1716) had been mare stolnic (Great Steward), in charge of the Wallachian ruler’s table, and remained known to posterity as Stolnicul. Thus, it is indeed possible, as Matei Cazacu has suggested, that the Book was originally a tool of the trade he used in his official role at court, and that it ended up in the hands of his daughterin-law Stanca.9 Europe witnessed, at least in some areas, a cookbook explosion in the 17th century. Especially in the second half of the century, recipe collections became in general more numerous.10 It is most probably in this larger context that we should approach the two manuscripts, which are not only the earliest Croatian and Romanian, but also more generally, the earliest South-East European recipe compilations known so far. They draw on early modern western European best-sellers in the field of household management, as shown through analysis 6  Zriniana’s catalogue can be consulted at: URL: http://db.nsk.hr/HeritageDetails.aspx?id= 891, the Zagreb NSK; Sándor Iván Kovács, “A gyomros matéria,” in Szakácsmesterségnek könyvecskéje: A csáktornyai Zrínyi-udvar XVII. századi kéziratos szakácskönyve és a Tótfalusi Kis Miklós által kiadott kolozsvári szakácskönyv, ed. Erzsébet Király (Budapest: 1981), 5–141 (published in Croatian as “Želučana materia (ulomak),” in Zrinski i Europa, ed. and trans. Jadranka Damjanov (Zagreb: 2000), 347–50, 355–6). 7  Carte întru care să scriu mâncările de péşte, raci, stridii, melci, legumi, erburi şi alte mâncări de sec şi de dulce, dupre orânduiala lor, Biblioteca Academiei Române [the Library of the Romanian Academy, Bucharest [hereafter BAR], Rom MS. 1120 [Hereafter the Book]. 8  BAR Rom. MS 1120, fol. 64. The mare spătar was the commander of the Wallachian cavalry and commander-in-chief of the army in the absence of the ruler. For the identification of spătăreasa Stanca, see Matei Cazacu, “Studiu introductiv,” in O lume într-o carte de bucate: Manuscris din epoca brâncovenească, eds. Ioana Constantinescu and Matei Cazacu (Bucharest: 1997), 55 (the edition contains the integral text of the recipe collection). 9   Cazacu, “Studiu,” 11, 16–7, 20–3, 38–57, 55; Ioana Constantinescu, “Prefaţă,” in Constantinescu and Cazacu (eds.), O lume, 83. A polymath and refined courtier, Constantin Stolnicul was also de facto in charge of the Wallachian foreign policy during the reigns of Constantin Brâncoveanu (r. 1688–1714), his nephew, and of his son Ştefan (r. 1714–16). All three were executed on the order of the sultan because of their anti-Ottoman policies. 10  With France and England in the forefront. Applebaum, Aguecheek’s Beef, 110–1.

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and comparison in the present study. As such, they are also foundational texts for the history of gastronomy in the two cultures and in the region, within the broader context of European gastronomy.11 They feature large sections of cookery recipes: 393 out of the 453 entries in the Short Compendium, and 250 out of 293 in the Book. The present study will deal only in passing with the two texts as cookbooks,12 focusing instead on the other categories of instructions in both manuscripts. These pertain to pomiculture and vinification (in the Croatian-Hungarian collection), as well as to the making of aromatic alcoholic drinks, and to the preparation and uses of household cleaning chemicals and gunpowder in contexts also mainly connected with food (in the Romanian text).13 These supplements suggest that the two recipe collections could belong to a possible Ménagier de Paris genre, as they contain directions for both “feeding and caring for the household and its guests.”14 Finally, we will attempt to assess the overall contribution made by all the categories of recipes and household guidelines in both texts and place them in the larger context of early modern European manuscript recipe collections.

The Form of the Recipe Collections

In terms of style and outline, both collections appear as typical for their period. They share a number of conventions, some of them dating back to mediaeval 11   The cookbook of the Prince of Transylvania’s Chef, most probably dating from the second half of the 16th century, seems to be the earliest one in Hungarian. See József Lukács, “Începuturile literaturii gastronomice din Transilvania,” Apostrof 24 (2) (2013): 15–19. 12  This topic is extensively treated in my forthcoming paper “Italian-Inspired Cookbooks for Romanian and Croatian Aristocracy: A reality of the 17th century?”, to be published in a conference proceedings volume in the series “Interdisziplinäre Studien zum Östlichen Europa” at Harrassowitz/Wiesbaden. 13  The food and the wine sections of the book were first published integrally in Hungarian in Szakács, ed. Király, 145–263. The food section was published in Croatian in Kuharska knjiga Čakovečkog dvora obitelji Zrinski: Iz vremena Nikole Zrinskog Ban hrvatski 1647–1664, eds. Zlatko Puntijar and Matea Puntijar (Zagreb: 2007). Darko Varga has published the viniculture and pomiculture section in Croatian in Hrana, kuhinja i blagovanje u doba Zrinskih (Zagreb: 2016), 178–80, 230–3, and the pomiculture section also in the original Latin, 428–30 (these are popular editions, with errors). 14  A reference to the famous late 14th-century Ménagier de Paris, a treatise on domestic morality and economy for the “good wife.” Matei Cazacu has given the name of the French Ménagier to the entire genre, including the Romanian manuscript in the same volume. Cazacu, “Studiu,” 58. The quotation (not directly connected with the Ménagier) is from Goldstein, Eating, 137.

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times: the recipes do not include lists of ingredients and do not always specify quantities and cooking times (only very rarely in Zrinski’s manuscript); some entry titles still include the verb “to make” in the name of the dish; the recipes do not have their own individual pages, and in Zrinski’s manuscript the food recipes are not presented in a very orderly manner15 (the Romanian collection has a clearer structure). Moreover, in the spirit of the time, they often include multiple recipes for the same dish. Some recipes end with the author’s comment that “it will be good/very good,” or that it is “better as written below,”16 and, rarely, that the respective dish is healthy.17 ‘Healthy’ was most probably understood in terms of the still popular theory of the balance of the four humours, blood, phlegm, yellow and black bile (to be gradually replaced with chemical and mechanical theories only in the late 17th century). The paratextual apparatuses of the two manuscripts contain a few subject divisions and short annotations on their margins. In addition, the Short Compendium has an alphabetic index (although not complete) of the dishes described; the epistle to the reader,18 along with the brevity of the recipes, suggests that not only the compiler, but also the target readership were professional, elite cooks.19 In the case of the Book, its lengthy title—fashionable at the time—could serve

15  “All of these characteristics, plus many others having to do with the language of the recipes themselves, are standard attributes of the genre in the 17th century, whether a manuscript or a printed book.” Goldstein, Eating, 142–43. On medieval cookbook conventions see Bruno Laurioux, Manger au Moyen Âge (Paris: 2002), 260. 16   A kőz étkeknek, passim. BAR Rom MS. 1120, fols. 23v, 61r. The formula was common in 14th-century Italian cookbooks and is akin to “and it is a proved remedy” in medicinal recipes. Many 17th-century English manuscripts also contain “proved by me” (Lat. probatum est) on their margins. Goldstein, Eating, 148, 159–60; Appelbaum, Aguecheek’s Beef, 75; Sherman, Invention, 3, 50–1. 17  For instance, BAR Rom. MS. 1120, fol. 20; A kőz étkeknek, 62. 18  On the paratexts in printed and manuscript cookbooks of the period, see Goldstein, Eating, 142, 150; Appelbaum, Aguecheek’s Beef, 85–6. 19  “Recruited from the ranks of learned men, raised in social status,” they were sometimes even writers of cookery books: Appelbaum, Aguecheek’s Beef, 71–3. In continuity with the Middle Ages, elite cooks were mostly male; their professionalization started with the 18th century. Raffaella Sarti, Živjeti u kući: Stanovanje, prehrana i odijevanje u novovjekovnoj Europi (1500–1800.), trans. Ana Badurina (Zagreb: 2006), 181–6, 216–8; Laurioux, Manger, 214, 243–48; C.M. Woolgar, “Ospăţ şi post: Mâncare şi gust în Europa medievalǎ,” in Istoria gustului, ed. Paul Freedman, trans. Raluca Cimpoiaşu, Andra Stoica and Mădălina Tureatcă (Bucharest: 2008), 186–7; Brian Cowan, “Lumi noi, gusturi noi: Moda culinară după Renaştere,” in Istoria, ed. Freedman, 210–2, 227. For the brevity of recipes, see Goldstein, Eating, 141; Appelbaum, Aguecheek’s Beef, 73.

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as a sort of preface as well.20 The recipes called “teachings” (Rom. învăţături) are longer and more detailed than in the Short Compendium. The compiler appears to address the reader as cook or servant primarily, but sometimes also as a consumer of the final product, which might perhaps indicate that the compiler himself was not simply a cook or servant.

The Food Sections

First of all, a few features link both recipe collections to the late medieval cuisine.21 For example, the recipes are divided into fast days (when only fish, vegetables, starchy staples, fruits, and oil where allowed) and meat days.22 The abundant use of spices (and herbs), sugar (along with the spices, a luxury foodstuff used in savoury dishes and considered as a medicine), sweet-and-sour sauces (based on vinegar, wine, acidic juices made of citrus, or/and verjuice) is a characteristic shared by both collections with the mediaeval culinary traditions. The frequent use of saffron and cinnamon, the recipes for green or grey sauces and stews, blue soup and fish show that their compilers still considered colouring foods as fashionable.23 Moreover, bread, the most common thickening agent in the Middle Ages (and later), often appears in the preparation of sauces and stews.24 In the 17th century, the Italian elite cuisine was based on the abovementioned elements of late mediaeval refined cooking, to which it added Renaissance and Baroque tastes and innovations of its own.25 According to the 20  See, in general, Appelbaum, Aguecheek’s Beef, 97–109, especially 98. 21  See, for instance, the main characteristics of the mediaeval cuisine in Laurioux, Manger, 17–40, 101–23. 22  See in general Laurioux, Manger, 67–71; Woolgar, “Ospăţ,” 165–7, 171–2; Sarti, Život, 198, 215; Ken Albala, Food: A cultural culinary history (Chantilly, VA: 2013), 96; Cazacu, “Studiu,” 27–30; Ioana Constantinescu, “Postfaţă,” in O lume, ed. eadem, 188. 23   A kőz-étkeknek, 15, 16, 20, 49; BAR Rom. MS.1140, fols. 4, 44, 48v–49r, etc. The colouring of foods, as well as a taste for fairly large amounts of spices is sometimes considered an inheritance of Arabic culinary cultures. Woolgar, “Ospăţ,” 181–4; Cowan, “Lumi,” 199–200. However, there is still “substantial disagreement about how direct was the dependence of European medieval preferences on the cuisine of Islamic cultures.” Paul Freedman, “The Medieval Spice Trade” in The Oxford Handbook of Food History, ed. Jeffrey M. Pilcher (New York: 2012), 328. 24  See Albala, Culinary History, 103. 25  For a brief presentation of the main features of 17th-century Italian cuisine, see TaccuiniStorici.It, the official online journal of the Accademia Italiana di Gastronomia

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literature, Italy held the culinary supremacy in the 16th century, which it lost in the early 1600s in favour of Spain, followed by France in the mid-17th century.26 Changes were, however, relatively slow, and Italy still remained influential on the culinary map of 17th-century Europe for some time. There is much evidence for this in the culinary sections of the two recipe collections under scrutiny here:27 sugar is present in almost every preparation;28 fish is an important food, the preferred meat is veal, and a fondness for offal and for cuts such as calf’s (or pig’s) boiled head is obvious;29 foods for meat days were cooked with butter rather than oil, and lard was also used;30 a few recipes for fresh pasta appear in the Short Compendium;31 many fashionable and expensive vegetables and fruits were included.32 Storica e Gastrosofia [accessed 20 June 2016], at: URL: http://www.taccuinistorici.it/ ita/news/moderna/dieta-dietetica/Caratteristiche-della-cucina-barocca.html. See also, for example, Albala, Culinary History, 106. 26  Ken Albala, Food in Early Modern Europe (Westport, CT: 2003), 117. The first 17th-century French culinary ‘best-seller,’ La Varenne’s Le Cuisinier françois (Paris: 1651), started to change culinary fashions throughout Europe and initiated the above-mentioned explosion in the publication of cookbooks. Cowan, “Lumi,” 224–9; Appelbaum, Aguecheek’s Beef, 110–1. 27  Similar evidence can be found in other European cuisines and cookbooks such as The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Knight Opened (London: 1669), which has “a conscious Italianate bent.” Ken Albala, “Cookbooks as Historical Documents,” in The Oxford Handbook, ed. Pilcher, 231–2. 28  Cheaper molasses was also used in A kőz-étkeknek. On the use of molasses in general, see Laudan, Cuisine, 191, 238. 29  Albala, Food in Early Modern Europe, 117, 126, 128, 133; Appelbaum, Aguecheek’s Beef, 93, 95: fish dishes were served in spectacular fashion in the 16th–17th centuries, and not only in Italy. In the Middle Ages, small birds and poultry were preferred to veal (Laurioux, Manger, 133, 257), which became the favourite meat already in Bartolomeo Scappi’s cookbook of 1570, on which more below. Albala, Culinary History, 140. 30  In Italian mid-16th-century cookbooks, butter became equally important to lard in cooking: Albala, Culinary History, 110; Alberto Capatti and Massimo Montanari, Italian Cuisine: A cultural history, trans. Aine O’Healy (New York: 2003), 105; Woolgar, “Ospăţ,” 173–75; TaccuiniStorici.It. 31   A kőz-étkeknek, 54–6. Although known in earlier periods, in 16th- and 17th-century Italy fresh pasta became an important item in the menu: TaccuiniStorici.It; Laurioux, Manger, 58. 32  No tomatoes, peppers, potatoes, or corn are mentioned in the two manuscripts. Although meat and fish were generally considered more nutritious (Cowan, “Lumi,” 203), garden ingredients started being appreciated long before the French gastronomic revolution of the mid-17th century, especially in the Italian cuisine, as important ingredients during Lent: Cappatti and Montanari, Italian Cuisine, 108; Laurioux, Manger, 60; Woolgar, “Ospăţ,”

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It is not surprising, though, that the two manuscripts should reflect, at least partly, the tastes and fragrances of the Baroque Italian cuisine: both Zrinski and Cantacuzino had strong connections with Italy. In 1635–37, the former took a long educational tour (a Grand Tour?) across the Italian Peninsula; later he exchanged luxury foodstuffs with, among others, the ruler of Florence.33 In his turn, Cantacuzino was the only Romanian noble of his generation to study in Italy, at Padua, in 1667–1669 (his son Radu later followed his example). Historians have argued that the marked Italian influence on the culture of Brâncoveanu’s court could have been a trend started by Constantin Stolnicul himself.34 Although cookery recipes in the manuscripts are not attributed to individuals, I have established, on the basis of other specialists’ research and of a random choice of recipes from the sources, that the two texts were inspired by the most important early modern Italian cookbooks, published before the new French cooking asserted its supremacy. The Opera dell’arte del cucinare of Bartolomeo Scappi, published in Rome in 1570 (he was chef to two popes and several cardinals) and running into eight editions before 1643, became famous across Europe35 and exerted an influence on both manuscripts. It was even listed in the 1662 catalogue of the Zriniana.36 However, the Hungarian-Croatian 181; TaccuiniStorici.It. The two cookbooks discussed here included many recipes based on vegetables, those common to the two compilations being asparagus, artichokes, hops, chicory, endives, borage, lettuce, carrots (the earlier, purple variety or the orange ones developed by the Dutch growers at the end of the 16th century?), kohlrabi, and especially the relatively new Jerusalem artichoke. See also Albala, Early Modern, 27–31, 122; Idem, The Banquet: Dining in the great courts of late Renaissance Europe (Illinois: 2007), 11, 74–7; Cowan, “Lumi,” 198; Ivan Day, Cooking in Europe, 1650–1850 (Westport, CT: 2009), 23. Exotic fruits were also present: raisins, agrumes and figs (the last only in Zrinski’s book), along with almond milk, floral flavours (of roses, etc.) and pine nuts, which were also typical of the Italian cuisine. 33  Kovács, “Želučana,” 347–50. 34  See for example Neagu Djuvara, O scurtă istorie ilustrată a românilor (Bucharest: 2013), 201; Ştefan Ionescu and Panait I. Panait, Constantin Vodă Brâncoveanu: Viaţa, domnia, epoca (1969; 2nd ed., Bucharest: 2014), 472, 476. 35  Albala, Food in Early Modern Europe, 120, 131; Terence Scully, The Opera of Bartolomeo Scappi (1570) (Toronto: 2008), 73–4. 36  See the aforementioned Zriniana catalogue (inventory no. BZ 276). The last section in A kőz-étkeknek, “Healthy food for the sick” (Betegeknek egesseges eledel) is the counterpart of Scappi’s “Sixth Book,” “De’ convalescenti.” Both contain, for example, recipes for panata, a variety of bread soup; moreover, the recipes for cooked chicory, asparagus, and hops are in the same order in both the Italian and the Croatian-Hungarian text. Salads and egg dishes are also similar, and the pinnata is a vessel illustrated in Scappi’s book.

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collection also bears the imprint of Central-European culinary traditions: German (10 entries), Polish (5), Czech (2), Transylvanian (2), and Hungarian (1). Altogether, these outnumber the ten entries with an obvious Italian flavour. The ‘German-style’ dishes and ingredient terms can perhaps be explained by geographic proximity, by the fact that Zrinski studied in Graz and Vienna, and, quite importantly, by the Austrian (or partly Austrian) aristocratic lineage of his two wives.37 One must remember, however, that the major influence on 17th-century Austrian cuisine also came from Italy. On the other hand, it is interesting that the recipe for pumpkin in the Croatian-Hungarian compilation is similar to those from the very important and aforementioned La Varenne’s Le cuisinier françois, which Zrinski had in his library.38 The Romanian text did not draw only on Scappi’s cookbook,39 but also on Bartolomeo Stefani’s L’Arte di ben cucinare (Mantua, 1662). Stefani was a Bolognese chef at the court of the Gonzagas of Mantua, and his L’Arte also ran into seven editions before 1748.40 Leonardo Fioravanti, a 16th-century Bologna-born physician and alchemist whose books and remedies were still popular in the 1600s, was considered “one of history’s first medical celebrities.”41 His popular handbook Del Compendio de’ Secreti rationali (Venice 1564), which In Zrinski’s manuscript, there are also a few Italian and Latin terms of plants and vegetables (some could be both). Kovács, “Želučana”, 356, 358, 360–1. I have used the edition Bartolomeo Scappi, Opera di Bartolomeo Scappi M. dell’arte del cucinare […] (Venice: 1610). 37  Varga, Hrana, 369–77, followed Borbála Benda, Étkezési szokások a 17. századi főúri udvarokban Magyarországon, unpublished PhD thesis (Budapest: ELTE, 2004), 20–2, in claiming, without clear evidence, that in Zrinski’s cookbook the German influence is more important than the Italian one. The question whether culinary recipes were also taken from other bestsellers which Zrinski possessed in his library, such as Vincenzo Tanara’s L’economia del cittadino in villa (1644) and Johannes Coler’s Oeconomia, ruralis et domestica (1591–1606, 8 volumes) remains open for now. 38   Az kőz-etkeknek, 25; La Varenne, Le cuisinier, 156, 243, 284. 39  I have discovered that in the Book some fish recipes, recipes for sirloin, hare, green sauce, candied peels, and the section on fruit compotes were borrowed from Scappi. 40  Cazacu, “Studiu,” 64–5, 82, quoting Emilio Faccioli (ed.), L’Arte della cucina in Italia: Libri di ricette e trattati sulla civiltà dal XVI al XIX secolo (Torino: 1987), 651. See also Scully, The Opera, 74; Day, Cooking, 20. Cf. in the Book, the veal and sauce sections, and the recipe for salami frânceşti (Italian salami) were taken from Stefani. Similarities between the veal section in the Book and Stefani’s work were first identified by Cazacu, “Studiu,” 64–6. 41  William Eamon, The Professor of Secrets: Mystery, medicine, and alchemy in Renaissance Italy (Washington: 2010), 10. Fioravanti’s books went through many editions and were translated into French, English, and German well into the 18th century; some of his remedies were still being used in the 19th century: Piero Camporesi, La miniera del mondo: Artieri, inventori, impostori (Milan: 1990), 18, 21–2, 27, 54–5; Idem, Camminare il mondo:

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contains medicinal, chemical-alchemical, cosmetic and cookery recipes, was the third source for the Romanian compilation.42 The 19th-century catalogue of what was left of Constantin Cantacuzino’s impressive library, which was dismantled after his death, included two 17th-century editions of Fioravanti’s treatises on surgery, one of them being inscribed with the ex libris in Italian of Radu Cantacuzino.43 This strongly suggests that most probably other works by Fioravanti were well known to the Cantacuzinos and that the Book originally belonged to them. Moreover, one of the editions of Del Compendio, as well as Stefani’s second edition of L’Arte, appeared in Venice in 1666, one year before Constantin arrived in Padua. One can presume that he became acquainted with these texts and that, possibly, he was not only the original owner of the Book,44 but its author. Compiling a recipe collection was a fairly common activity among aristocrats at the time.45 The aforementioned catalogue of Cantacuzino’s library includes also a Mensa gaelorum opus, possibly a French cookbook translated into Latin.46 The manuscript Book contains several Turkish and Greek terms referring to metal kitchenware and to various ingredients (vegetables, spices, other plants, etc.), which obviously reflect the respective influences on the Romanian cuisine. However, only two dishes in the recipe collection bear Turkish names: chiftele (Tr. köfte = flat meat balls, with an alternative: the Romanian roundish perişoare) and iahnii (Tr. yahni, a type of stew).47 The term chiftele makes a purely lexical appearance here as the dish itself, oddly made of veal liver vita e avventure di Leonardo Fioravanti medico del Cinquecento, 1st ed., 1997 (Milan: 2007), 263–4; Eamon, The Professor, 12, 303–14. 42  The recipes in question are one each for candied peel and dulceaţă (a soft jam), and two for rose water. The “books of secrets” revealed were very popular in Western Europe in the 16th–18th centuries: see for example Goldstein, Eating, 141; Appelbaum, Aguecheek’s Beef, 102–7. Gheorghe Chivu was the first to suggest that Fioravanti’s impact on the Romanian recipe collection should be explored: Gheorghe Chivu, “Cuvinte de origine italiană întrun manuscris românesc din prima jumătate a secolului al XVIII-lea,” Studii şi cercetări lingvistice, 34 (4) (1983): 341–6; Idem, “Cartea de bucate, un manuscris singular în scrisul vechi românesc,” in Gabriel Ştrempel la 80 de ani: O viaţă închinată cărţii, eds. Anca Bogdan, Gabriela Dumitrescu and Luminiţa Kövári (Satu-Mare: 2006), 123–35. 43  Corneliu Dima-Drăgan, Biblioteca unui umanist român, Constantin Cantacuzino Stolnicul (Bucharest: 1967), 181, 184. 44  As suggested by Cazacu, “Studiu,” 55, 64–6. 45  For 17th-century aristocrats who compiled cookery books, see, for instance, Goldstein, Eating, 153–68. 46  Cazacu, “Studiu,” 53. 47  Ibid, 61–2; Constantinescu, “Prefaţă,” 85, 89.

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or fish, was inspired from Scappi.48 The chiftele made with cryfish as well as the iahnie of snails (also very different from the contemporary one, which is made exclusively of beans and preserved pork) could also reveal a non-Turkish origin of the recipes.49 Scappi and Stefani have many recipes based on these two ingredients. The collection does not contain any of the Turkish- or Greekinspired dishes which later became staples in the Romanian cuisine, being also shared, as suggested in the “Introduction” to this volume, with the other South-East Europeans: ciorbă (sour soup), pilaf, sarmale (meat and cabbage rolls), ciulama (poultry or mushrooms in a white sauce), mici (grilled mincemeat sausages with garlic, South-Slavic ćevapi), etc.50 Thus, one can conclude, as in the case of Zrinski’s manuscript, that today’s traditional dishes linked with the Ottoman kitchen (or at least some of them) either appeared later in the two cuisines, or that the authors of the two cookbooks chose not to describe them.51 Both manuscripts contain several culinary terms of Slavic origin as well.

The Supplements

Wine and Pomiculture in the Croatian-Hungarian Recipe Collection According to the literature, the Zrinski family possessed many vineyards and cellars on their domains. Moreover, Nikola Zrinski himself had very large and beautiful gardens in Čakovec (Hung. Csáktornya, Ger. Tschakturn, in today’s northern Croatia),52 where he had his court. He even described his orchard (in Croatian and Hungarian) on the blank pages of Vincenzo Tanara’s book, with references to the locations of the vine and of various types of fruit trees (apples, Spanish cherries, pears, quinces, plums, etc.), and to those of his servants who were acquainted with the “science of gardening.”53 It is not surprising, therefore, that the Short Compendium should contain supplements related to 48  See BAR Rom MS. 1120, fols. 12v–13r, 15v, 19v, 31r–31v, 40v (iahnii and chiftele); Opera di Bartolomeo Scappi, 21v–22, 77v. On fish balls in Western cuisine see Woolgar, “Ospăţ,” 175. 49  I would like to thank Vjeran Kursar for this information. 50  Cazacu, “Studiu,” 59–62, 67; Constantinescu, “Prefaţă,” 85, 89–90. On the presence of these and other Ottoman Turkish-inspired dishes in 19th-century Bulgarian cookbooks, see Stefan Detchev’s contribution to this volume. 51  On Ottoman influences being kept out of 19th-century Greek cookbooks, see Anna Matthaiou’s contributions to this volume. 52  For Zrinski’s vineyards, gardens, and orchards see, for example, Varga, Hrana, 169–77, 227–2, 234. 53  Kovacs, “Želučana,” 347; Varga, Hrana, 229–30.

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wine and pomiculture: Az Pinczeröl (The cellar) and De arborum plantationibus et insitionibus, respectively.54 It is worth remembering that, in 16th- and 17th-century Europe, largely owing to the revival of classical culture, gardening, that is horticulture, became a popular pastime among the elites.55 Authors such as Giovanni Stefano Menochio, whose Institutiones Oeconomicæ (1627) Zrinski had in his library, wrote that “labouring the field does not bring prejudice to the nobility.”56 His ideas were based on the work of André Tiraqueau, who quoted church teachings as well as ancient Roman and Greek authorities.57 Almost all agronomic literature of the early modern period makes reference to ancient, especially Roman, authors as ‘guarantors’ of its technical and scientific legitimacy.58 In the historiography of food, the Roman-Greek classical tradition is linked to farming and the domination of nature, while Germanic culture is associated to the forest, and with gathering and hunting.59 In the early modern European society, still nurtured by the ideals of classical civilization, selective breeding for obtaining certain qualities in both plants and animals started to rival “hunting for food as the ideal noble pursuit. Hunting became more of a ‘sport,’ while gardening was seen as a genteel preoccupation, as well as something that affords delight to all the senses, the mind, and even the stomach.”60 The agricultural literature expanded and became more firmly grounded in science. In the 16th century, new editions of translations from the classics (Columella, Varro, 54   A kőz étkeknek, 81–6, 87–92. 55  Albala, The Banquet, 28. 56  “Il lavorar la terra non pregiudica alla nobiltà.” Dell’Agricoltura, e quanto sia lodevole, e dilettevole, Cap. III. See the Italian translation of Giovanni Stefano Menochio, Economica Christiana (Venice: 1656), 294–300. This is probably the aforementioned edition in the Zriniana catalogue. 57  André Tiraqueau, De nobilitate, et iure primigeniorum, 3rd ed. (Lyon: 1573), 354–57 (“An Agricultura Nobilitati deroget.” Cap. 37). 58  Albala, The Banquet, 28–9, who quotes Mauro Ambrosoli, The Wild and the Sown (Cambridge: 1997); Ennio Ferraglio, “Il vino nella tradizione agronomica rinascimentale,” in La civiltà del vino: Fonti, temi e produzioni vitivinicole dal Medioevo al Novecento, ed. Gabriele Archetti (Brescia: 2003), 733. Richard Bradley’s Survey of the Ancient Husbandry and Gardening, published in 1725 in London, is a fairly late example of the endurance of this tradition. 59  For Albala’s brief presentation of Montanari’s argument, see Albala, The Banquet, 29, quoting Massimo Montanari, The Culture of Food (Oxford: 1994). See also Ferraglio, “Il vino,” 750. 60  Albala, The Banquet, 28–9. Labouring in the fields and vineyards was deemed to uncover the secrets of the germination of plants and to grant the labourer participation in the great mathematical order of the universe. Ferraglio, “Il vino,” 747–9.

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Pliny the Elder, Cato, Palladius) and anthologies of agricultural texts were published, with increasing circulation. Agricultural manuals written ex novo also appeared (especially in Italy, France, and Germany), laying the foundations of the modern agricultural economy. The modern discipline of agronomy thus constantly hovered between reference to the classics and the need for renewal. Viticulture and horticulture, in particular, increasingly assumed the role of intensive farming models.61 Zrinski was obviously up to date with what was happening in the field, as suggested—besides the aforementioned books by Tanara and Coler—by the presence in his library of the best-sellers by Charles Estienne, Praedium rusticum (1554), translated into Italian, and Giovanni Battista Barpo, Le Delitie, & i frutti dell’agricoltura (1633).62 The Cellar In the Middle Ages and the early modern period “wine was the universal drink for much of Europe.”63 Some scholars have claimed that people depended on wine because water supplies were often contaminated up to the 19th and even the 20th centuries. In fact, many people did drink water, but physicians warned against it, most likely from fear of diseases and because of their allegiance to Galenic medicine: water was considered a qualitatively cold liquid that would upset the above-mentioned humoral balance of the body, leading to colds. On the contrary, wine was viewed as qualitatively hot and moistening, similar to blood and thus easily converted into it through digestion. Compared to current parameters, great quantities of wine (and in general alcohol) were normally consumed, but most wine was probably low in alcohol content and usually diluted with water. People of all ages drunk it, even children, at every meal, but moderation was asked: inebriation was seen as half of the sin of gluttony. Wine was also considered a universal remedy for all kinds of diseases, first of all as an aid to digestion. This was also rooted in the Greek and Roman medical culture (Hippocrates and Galen) as well as in the Christian tradition. Wine was closely 61  For the entire paragraph, see Ferraglio, “Il vino,” 715–50. See also Albala, The Banquet, 105–17. 62  Among the very important authors of the period who wrote about vines, wine production and/or fruit growing mention should be made of: Gabriel Alonso de Herrera, Agostino Gallo, Konrad Heresbach, Olivier de Serres, John Evelyn, and Jean-Baptiste de la Quintinie. Andrea Bacci devoted an entire book to wine in 1595. See Ferraglio, “Il vino,” 715–50. On fruit-growing, see Antonio Saltini, Storia delle scienze agrarie, vol. 1: Dalle origini al Rinascimento (Bologna: 1984), 158, 285, 302, 319–31, 414, 445–68, 489; vol. 2: I secoli della rivoluzione agraria (Bologna: 1987), 33–48, etc. 63  Albala, “Stimulants and Intoxicants in Europe, 1500–1700,” in The Routledge History of Food, ed. Carol Helstosky (London: 2015), 43–4.

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connected to food in the period also because the aforementioned preference for sour in the cuisine required wine as well as vinegar as key ingredients in food recipes.64 However, another element of continuity with Antiquity and the Middle Ages was the fact that the most prized wines were the sweet ones.65 On the other hand, it has been claimed that wine was generally “drunk young, usually within a year of the vintage,”66 because it could easily turn into vinegar due to its preservation in wooden barrels. Vintage wines, known to the Roman world (as the discovery of sealed amphorae suggests), reappeared only in the 17th century, when glass bottles started being stoppered with cork.67 It has been also stated that in the 16th–17th centuries old wine was not yet highly valued and was mixed with new ones to rejuvenate it.68 However, as early as 1554, Charles Estienne wrote in his bestseller Praedium rusticum that wine “is more respected when aged,” but also that “some wines are better older than new, while others are better when freshly made”—an idea still accepted by wine specialists.69 In the 17th century, special care had to be taken to prevent wine from spoiling, much like today. The Cellar (the supplement in Zrinski’s collection) includes a few recipes for improving wine by adding boiled wine or must but also various plants (elder, cinnamon or galangal). For the preparation of aromatic wines 64  Albala, “Stimulants,” 43–5; Albala, The Banquet, 105–7, 114–5; see also Massimo Montanari, “Introduzione. Il vino e la tavola,” in Alfredo Antonaros, La grande storia del vino (Bologna: 2006), 15–6; Antonaros, La grande storia, 83, 129, 139–41; Ferraglio, “Il vino,” 737–45; Fabienne Henryot, À la table des moines: Ascèse et gourmandise de la Renaissance à la Révolution (Paris: 2015), 93. 65  See for example Montanari, “Introduzione,” 13; Antonaros, La grande storia, 158; Albala, The Banquet, 107. 66  Tim Unwin, Wine and the Vine: An historical geography of viticulture and the wine trade, 3rd ed. (London & New York: 2004), 55. See also Montanari, “Introduzione,” 12; Antonaros, La grande storia, 110, 158. 67  Unwin, Wine, 13, 55. On the appearance in the 17th century of corked glass bottles, see also for example Montanari, “Introduzione,” 13; Antonaros, La grande storia, 160–3. 68  Antonaros, La grande storia, 158–9. One of the sources for this might have been Guglielmo Grataroli’s De vini natura (Strasbourg: 1565). He wrote that a seven-year-old wine is only good for medicinal uses, not with a meal. Albala, The Banquet, 110. 69  Charles Estienne, L’agricoltura e casa di villa di Carlo Stefano (Venice: 1623), 186, 324 (translation of Praedium rusticum, 1554): the wine “è più stimato per la sua vecchiezza” and “un vino è migliore vecchio che nuovo, l’altro subito che è fatto.” America’s most famous wine teacher, Kevin Zraly, founder of the “Windows on the World Wine School”, still argues that not all wines improve with age and that more than 90 per cent of wines are consumed within a year of production. See URL: http://www.kevinzraly.com/faqs.html [accessed 3 June 2016].

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(made with licorice, anise, nutmeg, and sugar or molasses) the custom was for the plants to be placed in small canvas bags and hanged from the mouth of the barrel.70 Boiled wine was the drink of elites: it contained little water and more sugar, making it less susceptible to deterioration (it lasted up to three or four years). It would appear that the practice of adding boiled wine to regular wine was already common in the 16th century.71 Besides the use of boiled wine, treaties on agriculture contained other recipes for improving ordinary ones, based largely on the usual cellaring instructions for “correcting” spoiled wine.72 In The Cellar thirteen out of a total of eighteen recipes are for preventing wines from turning bad or for ‘curing’ them, using a number of ingredients.73 The compiler of the Short Compendium could find a large part of these ingredients (egg whites, almonds, peach seeds, gravel, sage, burning-hot bread) in Estienne’s book in Italian, where he presumably also came across the suggestion that the cellar should be protected from wind and its windows oriented towards the north.74 Ingredients such as goat’s milk and unglazed clay bowls (probably of smaller dimensions) might seem equally surprising.75 However, substances that have historically been used as wine-clarifying (-fining) agents, for example egg whites, milk casein, and bentonite clay, have been found to be very efficient. They can remove particles such as polymerized tannins, colouring phenols, and proteins from wines.76 In addition, the compiler of The Cellar, like other authors, instructed the reader to hang hops in the barrel as a preservative, which is also their role in beer (apart from giving it its astringency). Hops have been in use in brewing since the late Middle Ages and early modern period.77 Some of the methods used in the early modern period to prevent wine from going bad were not very different from ours, as suggested by a recipe entered 70  Varga, Hrana, 178–9. 71  Montanari, “Introduzione,” 12–3; Antonaros, La grande storia, 158–9. 72  See among others Montanari, “Introduzione,” 12; Antonaros, La grande storia, 158; Albala, “Stimulants,” 43. 73  Varga, Hrana, 178–180. 74  Estienne, L’agricoltura, 334–42. 75  Grataroli also listed the use of pieces of salted pork suspended in the mouth of the barrel, egg whites, bitter almonds, hot clay tiles or charcoal, wormwood, and other ingredients, which Ken Albala finds “strange.” See Albala, The Banquet, 111. 76  Jancis Robinson (ed.), The Oxford Companion to Wine, 4th ed. (Oxford: 2015), 281. In the last centuries of the Middle Ages, a white wine called “claret” (not to be confused with today’s “claret,” which in Britain denotes Bordeaux red wine), clarified with egg whites, was a very fashionable drink on the tables of the nobility. See Montanari, “Introduzione,” 13. 77  See for example Albala, The Banquet, 116. According to Bacci, winemakers added hops to wine for this purpose. See also Idem, “Stimulants,” 46.

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under the title “In order to retain the colour of wine.” The recommended items may look strange at first glance: gálickő and sal armonyakum bought from the apothecary, as well as tartar and “fried” (i.e. desiccated) salt, which had to be ground and thrown into the wine. It is not very clear whether the term gálickő, obviously the exact translation into Hungarian of the German Galitzenstein (stone from Galicia, the Spanish region), refers to the yellow sulphur stone (brimstone) itself or to a sulphur compound. Both gálickő and Galitzenstein are the archaic, common names of certain metallic sulphates (and their hydrates) in Hungarian and German, and were well-known to alchemists. When heated, both sulphur and sulphates liberate sulphur dioxide (SO2).78 The recipe was obviously taken from Coler’s Oeconomia (“Household management”), where Salarmoniac, Galitzenstein, and Weinstein are mentioned in one recipe from chapter sixty, Von der Farbe des Weins, which matches the recipe’s title in The Cellar.79 Sulphur dioxide is a natural product of yeast fermentation, but it is also added in diverse forms and at various stages in the wine-making process. It is a cheap multi-action agent which acts as an antioxidant (it helps preserve the wine’s colour and flavour and increases its strength in contact with the air) and as an inhibitor of the growth of microorganisms such as bacteria, moulds and fungi in foods. Wine producers cannot do without it—no other product that can totally replace it has been found so far. Sulphur dioxide was given the internationally agreed code number 220 (E220 in the EU) and it is used widely in other food industries as well.80 The disinfectant and preservative powers of sulphur (SO2) were probably already known to Greek and Roman winemakers. It was originally used to disinfect cellars and vessels, then to preserve wines and treat the “sick” ones as documented in Zrinski’s manuscript. It was only in the 20th century that is started being used on a large-scale in the technology of wine-making (to protect barrels, must, and wine).81

78  The Croatian term galica and the Romanian one, galiţcă, are both derived from the Hungarian galickö. These sulphates were called vitriols (from the Lat. vitreolum, meaning ‘glassy,’ as their crystals resemble pieces of coloured glass). For vitriols and the alleged use of chemicals by Jewish tavern-keepers in old-regime Romania, see the contribution by Andrei Oişteanu in this volume. 79  Coler, Oeconomia, vol. 1 (Mainz: 1645), 288. 80  See Unwin, Wine, 47, 50; Yair Margalit, Concepts in Wine Technology: Small winery operations, 3rd ed. (San Francisco: 2015), 213–26; John Emsley and Peter Fell, Was It Something You Ate? Food Intolerance: What causes it and how to avoid it, 3rd ed. (Oxford: 2002), 85–91, 120; Andrew L. Waterhouse, Gavin L. Sacks and David W. Jeffery, Understanding Wine Chemistry (Chichester, West Sussex: 2016), 140–6. 81  Unwin, Wine, 48–9, 53–4. See for example Antonaros, La grande storia, 110–1.

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Sal armoniacum mentioned in Zrinski’s compilation (ammoniacum, var. armeniacum in medieval Latin) is a mineral substance known as ammonium chloride (NH4Cl). In its pure form a white crystalline salt, it is commonly used in households.82 It would appear that it was first sourced in Central Asia. Already known in Antiquity, it was later regarded as one of the four alchemical spirits, along with mercury, arsenic, and sulphur. In alchemy it was a key to the preparation of the Philosopher’s Stone, but as alchemy gave way to medical chemistry, it became indispensable in the preparation of various elixirs, tinctures, and powders.83 During the Renaissance it was one of the more important exotic substances traded by the Italians, particularly by the Venetians, who also had factories for its purification, “thus effectively compounding the secret of its origin.”84 In the food industry sal ammoniac is known as E510 today.85 Given that it forms a slightly acidic solution when mixed with water,86 in Zrinski’s manuscript it was probably recommended as an acidifying agent (making SO 2 more effective),87 for seasoning or for its refrigerating properties.88 The third chemical of interest in the recipe under discussion here is tartar: tartaric acid or its salt potassium bitartrate (KC4H5O6), known in cooking as cream of tartar, and naturally found in many fruits and in wine lees. Like ammonium chloride, discussed above, it had its own alchemical symbol. The most important acid existing in grapes and wine, and known as food additive E334 today, it is primarily used as an antioxidant, pH regulator and 82  Ammonia is readily soluble in water; the solution is called sal ammoniac. 83  See, for example, C.J.S. Thompson, Alchemy and Alchemists, republication (Mineola, NY: 2002), 39; Stanton J. Linden (ed.), The Alchemy Reader: From Hermes Trismegistus to Isaac Newton (Cambridge: 2003), 104–5. 84  Robert P. Multhauf, “Sal Ammoniac: A case history in industrialization,” Technology and Culture 6 (4) (Autumn 1965): 569. For elixirs and similar products, see for example John Quincy, Pharmacopoeia Officinalis & Extemporanea: or, A Complete English Dispensatory (London: 1782). 85  In North European countries, ammonium chloride is called salmiak and is still used in baking, and in the preparation of sweets called salty liquorice and alcohols (vodkas). 86  See for instance Henry J. Hannan, Technician’s Formulation Handbook for Industrial and Household Cleaning Products (Waukesha, WI: 2007), 44–45; Robinson (ed.), The Oxford Companion to Wine, 300. 87  Emsley and Fell, Was It, 89; Robinson (ed.), The Oxford Companion to Wine, 549. 88  For a 17th-century article on its refrigerating properties, see: “A New Frigorifick Experiment Shewing, How a Considerable Degree of Cold May be Suddenly Produced without the Help of Snow, Ice, Haile, Wind, or Niter, and That at Any Time of the Year,” Philosophical Transactions, 1 (18 July 1666): 255–61. See also Hannan, Tehnician’s Formulation, 45.

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preservative.89 Added to wine, tartaric acid lowers the pH of fermenting must to a level where many spoilage bacteria and a few types of fungi cannot live, and also acts as a preservative after fermentation.90 Not surprisingly, in another entry of The Cellar crushed tartar was recommended for obtaining a “sweet, mild, and tasty” wine.91 Salt (NaCl) was probably also used here, among other things, as an antioxdant in order to preserve the colour and taste of wine. Fruit Growing or Pomiculture The supplement De arborum in Zrinski’s manuscript instructs the reader on the best times and locations for planting and grafting fruit trees and vine. Peaches received the most attention, as Zrinski’s orchard was famous for their cultivation; peach tree seedlings from the Croatian ban’s orchards were very much soughtafter. Nobles were known to send fruits to friends as gifts, or shoots of their fruit trees for grafting.92 Besides peaches and vine, directions are given on how to plant a large variety of trees for fruit such as: pears, figs, mulberries, walnuts, almonds, plums, sour cherries, and chestnuts. Although the grafting techniques are not described in any detail, there are brief descriptions of cross-breeding and its outcomes. Many of the suggestions for cross-breeding look odd, for example grafting muscat vine on cherry; apple on willow (not recommended in the text, obviously because of the less than satisfactory results) or red mulberry; pear on oak (also not recommended) or on red mulberry (and the other way round); peach on sweet almond or willow; fig on plane or both varieties of mulberries; sour cherry on plums, pears, and almonds; chestnut on apple, pear, walnut, beech or oak (even rose on apple, pear or chestnut). These experiments were performed with the aim of obtaining better fruits: “bigger,” “sweeter,” “softer,” “more fragrant,” and “longer-lasting.” Attempts were also made at obtaining fruit with different colour: red and blue peaches (or in other colours) could allegedly be obtained by pouring dyes on top of the kernels as they were placed in the ground. The supplement De arborum is also very important to the historian because it contains the only reference to one of the sources used by the compiler of the Short Compendium, namely “Columella 1. 3. c. 26,” cited in the entry linking grafting to phases of the moon.93 It is not clear which edition of Columella’s 89  In confectionery, fruit preserves, bakery products, and soft drinks. 90  Hannan, Technician’s Formulation, 37–8. See also Robinson (ed.), The Oxford Companion to Wine, 49, 199, 300, 662; Joseph A. Maga and Anthony T. Tu (eds.), Food Additive Toxicology (New York: 1995), 137–38. 91  Varga, Hrana, 179. 92  Ibid., 234, quoting Benda, Étkezési, 237, on shoots. 93  Varga, Hrana, 230 and 428.

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Res rustica (Agriculture),94 available in Italian translation in Zrinski’s library, was used.95 The compiler borrowed other ideas from Columella, for example that the vine should not be touched with iron implements from 13 December to 13 January.96 Moreover, the aforementioned bizarre cross-breedings in De arborum are most probably based on Columella’s idea that a branch can be grafted on any tree: he considered the belief that only branches from similar varieties of trees can be grafted to be an error of the “ancients.”97 In his aforementioned memoriale on the blank pages of Tanara’s book, Zrinski also noted the best times for the grafting of his fruit trees.98 The interest for experimentation and “genetic mutations” in vine and fruit trees evident in the Short Compendium, an interest which may have come from Zrinski himself, also fits with the growing interest in the selective breeding of plants and animals in the period. This demand was met by a growing number of publications devoted to the topic, such as Marco Bussato’s Prattica historiata dell’inestare gli arbori (1578).99 Further research is needed in order to establish whether De arborum may have had other sources. Zrinski was a member of the classically-educated European elites for whom the ancient authors dealing with agriculture were still the most authoritative texts one had to have in one’s library. He also owned an edition of the popular Constantini Caesaris selectarum praeceptionum or Geoponica, a collection compiled for Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus (905–59 AD) and based largely on ancient Greek and Roman texts on agriculture.100

94  Columella (4 AD–c. 70 AD) was the most important writer on agriculture in the Roman Empire. 95  The linkage between grafting and the phases of the moon appears indeed in Lutio Giunio Moderato Columella, De l’agricoltura libri XII. Trattato de gli alberi […] (Venice: 1564), part two: Il libro de gli alberi, chapter 26 (“De inestare (!) gli alberi.” Cap. 26), 261 (see also 107b). 96  Columella, De l’agricoltura, 255b, see also 87b, 250b, 259, etc. 97  Ibid., 260b, 262. 98  See for example Varga, Hrana, 229–30. 99  Ferraglio, “Il vino,” 736–7. 100  See, for example, Constantini Caesaris selectarum praeceptionum de Agricultura libri viginti, Iano Cornario Medico interprete […] (Lyon: 1541). For various editions of Geoponica, see for instance Ferraglio, “Il vino,” 728–31, 746. Zrinski also had in his library a copy of Giovanni Battista Ferrari’s Hesperides, a work on citrus fruit—probably the first edition published in Rome in 1646.

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Recipes for Alcoholic Beverages and Advice on Household Maintenance in the Romanian Recipe Collection The Romanian recipe collection contains, besides food recipes, sections on wines and cordials (liqueurs), writing ink, advice on washing silverware and pots, on cleaning weapons and caring for them to prevent rust, as well as on gunpowder.101 Wines In the 17th century, viticulture experienced a large growth in Wallachia as well as in other parts of our region, vineyards occupying vast tracts towards the end of the century. The Cantacuzinos were among the rich who bought vineyards and orchards in the main productive areas. Constantin Cantacuzino himself even added on his map of Wallachia a list of the regions producing good wines.102 Thus, the interest in wine showed in the Book is understandable: the respective section includes eleven recipes.103 However, unlike Zrinski’s collection, which focuses on wine preservation and treatment, the section in the Book dedicated to drinks contains instructions on the production of aromatic wines. Whereas Zrinski’s compiler took inspiration for his recipes in manuals of agriculture and household management, those in the Romanian manuscript were probably borrowed from cookbooks, pharmaceutical manuals or books of secrets which, with only one exception, we have not identified yet. Only four recipes contain sugar or honey, but they do include an abundance of spices: more than half of the recipes contain cinnamon and cloves, the sweet spices par excellence. In the early modern period wine was still perceived as a raw material (rather than a finished product like today) and the basis for other beverages. From ancient times, it was common practice to add honey, spices, herbs, and even flowers to wine, as Pliny and Apicius showed.104 Many of the mediaeval and early modern cookbooks also contained recipes for aromatic wines. However, this practice was not simply used to conceal the mediocre quality of the wine, it was also a matter of taste. Like food recipes, such practices expressed “a food culture for a long time dominated by the idea of artifice” regarding colour, 101  BAR Rom. MS. 1120, fols. 53–56r, 61–63r. 102  See for example Ionescu and Panait, Constantin Vodă, 94–9. The map was published in Greek and Latin in Padua in 1700 (the Latin title was Index geographicus celsissimi principatus Wallachiae). 103  “Invăţături de a face vinuri frumoase şi de folos” (Teachings for making beautiful and useful wines), BAR Rom. MS. 1120, fols.53v–55v. 104  See for example Montanari, “Introduzione,” 12; Albala, The Banquet, 105–6, 111–2, 115.

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taste, and texture.105 Wine mixtures were believed to be both superior in taste and good for health, varieties of medicated wine existing for every organ of the human body.106 The dosage of spices, which was the subject of a true science of plants, was primarily decided by apothecaries, and as early as mediaeval times recipes specified the amounts necessary to the elaboration of such wines.107 The Romanian collection contains recipes for recognisable types of aromatic wines. One of them is muselez (also musilez in the text), whose name, contrary to Cazacu’s suggestion, does not refer to a Moselle wine.108 Evliya Çelebi, Cantacuzino’s famous contemporary, mentioned muselles in his Book of Travel, among the various drinks Muslims drank in and around Sarajevo when he visited in 1660. According to Çelebi, muselles was an “immature wine” (“real wine” being forbidden to Muslims by their religion),109 possibly also mixed with spices by the Bosnian South-Slavic population who had adopted Islam and who tried to adapt their drinks to the new conditions in their society. The term muselez (as it was called in Bosnia) was translated as “cooked wine” (vino cotto) in the 1810 Italian-‘Illyrian’ [South Slavic]-Latin dictionary of Joakim Stulli from Dubrovnik (Ragusa).110 It was one of the now forgotten Bosnian aromatic alcoholic drinks made out of wine.111 When cooked, the alcohol evaporates, sugar is more concentrated and thus the resulting drink becomes halal.112 In this context, it is very intriguing that a red wine named museles is still being brewed in the rural households of the Muslim Uighurs, a population of Turkic descent from the Xinjiang region of China. According to the tradition, the grape juice 105  Montanari, “Introduzione,” 12–13. 106  See for example Estienne, L’agricoltura, 339–40 (“Discorso d’alcuni vini per uso della medicina”, Book 5, Ch. 54). See also Norman Foster, Jelo iza samostanskih zidina (Zagreb: 2013), 62; Ivan Day, Ypocras or Hippocras, s.p., URL: http://www.historicfood.com/ Hippocras%20Recipes.htm [accessed 10 June 2016]. 107  See for instance Fabienne Carme, La cuisine du Moyen Âge: Recettes pour aujourd’hui (Bordeaux: 2008), 20. 108  Cazacu, “Studiu,” 59. 109  Evlija Čelebi (Tr. Evliya Çelebi), Putopis: Odlomci o jugoslavenksim zemljama, ed. Hazim Šabanović (Sarajevo: 1957), 119. 110  Joakim Stulli, Vocabolario italiano-illirico-latino del P. Gioachino Stulli Raguseo, sacerdote de’ minori osservanti, L-Z, 2nd part, vol. 2 (Dubrovnik: 1810), 822. 111  Along with hardalija and ramazanija: Alija Lakišić, Bosanski kuhar: Tradicionalno kulinarstvo u Bosni i Hercegovini, 6th ed. (Sarajevo: 1999), 434, 437–38. In his 1665 bestselling account of the Ottoman Empire, the British diplomat and historian Paul Rycaut (Ricaut) described the Bosnian hardali as a wine drunk during Ramazan and masked with “Cinamon or other spices” in order to “take off the scandal.” Paul Rycaut, The History of the Present State of the Ottoman Empire […] (London: 1686), 247–8. 112  I thank Arkadiusz Blaszczyk for this explanation.

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is boiled with sugar and an equal volume of water until the original volume of the juice is reached. Various ingredients are added subsequently: traditional Uighur herbal medicines or goji, mulberries, saffron, cloves, and even animal blood and raw meat. Although the date when the Uighurs started producing museles is still unclear, during the Tang dynasty (618–907 AD), at what was considered as the peak of the Chinese civilisation, poets raved about this “Western nectar” (it would appear that the vine had been brought over by Greek settlers around the 4th century BC).113 In the Romanian manuscript, the ingredients for muselez are indicated as sweet must, cinnamon and cloves, with no extra sweetener or water. The must had to be cooked down to two thirds of its original volume.114 It is perhaps this division into thirds which explains the wine’s name in Arabic, muselez ‫)ا �ل���مث���ل� ث‬. However, it would appear that ancient Romans meaning “triangle” (� (as well as Greeks) also used musts reduced according to thirds in their cuisine: carenum and sapa were boiled down to two-thirds and one-third respectively (defrutum was reduced to half the original volume).115 Before cheaper sugar became available, these kinds of products provided an alternative to sugar and honey in countries with grape-growing traditions.116 Grape syrups are still in use in such regions: the Italians call them sapa, saba, vincotto, the Spanish rob vini, arrope (from the Hispanic Arabic arrúbb), the French raisiné, vin cuit, the Turks and Arabs call them pekmez, bekmes, or dibs, the Greeks petimezi, epsima, and the Bulgarians petmez.117 In the Romanian recipe collection muselez is used in three meat recipes taken from the collections by Scappi and Stefani, to replace the use of mosto cotto (“cooked must”) or sapa present in the original recipes.118 The extent to which muselez was used in 17th-century Romanian cuisine and the origins of the recipe for it in the Romanian compilation remain open questions. However, muselez is obviously yet another Ottoman Turkish 113  Patrick E. McGovern, Uncorking the Past: The quest for wine, beer and other alchoholic beverages (Berkeley-Los Angeles: 2009), 95. 114  BAR Rom MS. 1120, fol. 55r: “Take 30 gallons of sweet must and boil it until it reduces to 10 gallons.” (Rom. Să iai must dulce, vedre 30, şi-l fiarbe până ce va scădea vedre 10). 115  Pliny the Elder, The Natural History, eds. John Bostock and H.T. Riley (London: 1855), Chap. 11 (9). See also Albala, The Banquet, 106–7, 116. The difference between the various syrups is, however, not fully known: Alan Davidson, The Oxford Companion to Food (Oxford: 2014), 360. 116  Davidson, entry on “Pekmez” in The Oxford Companion to Food. 117  See among others Davidson, The Oxford Companion to Food, 253, 787. On the Bulgarian petmez, see Stefan Detchev’s contribution to this volume. 118  BAR Rom MS. 1120, fols.34v–35r, 38v–39r, 51v–52r. Scappi, Opera, 14a, 33; Stefani, L’Arte, 33–4.

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culinary term shared by the Romanians with the South Slavs, but lost in the meantime, after the product it referred to became obsolete in the respective food cultures. In contrast, from the 14th century onwards, recipes for hippocras (var. hypocras) (Lat. vinum hippocraticum), another type of wine mixed with sugar or honey and spices, can be found in many West-European cookbooks or other works containing a mix of food and medical recipes. It is the best-known example of medicinal wine, used at the end of meals for its (alleged) digestive properties. It was still being prescribed by doctors in the 18th century and was also deemed to have aphrodisiac properties. The “gallant hippocras” was very popular at banquets all over Europe, but recipes for it varied.119 It was made of white and red wine alike, the main spice being usually cinnamon, but cloves and ginger were also often included. Whether it was drunk cold or heated is still a matter of debate. Hippocras would keep for several years both because it contained spices and because a woollen or cotton conical filter called a “hippocras bag” or “Hippocrates’ sleeve” (Lat. manicum hippocraticum) was used for its preparation. Some believe that Hippocrates invented the sleeve to filter water and thus it was named after him probably along with the wine, but this, too, is still a matter for debate.120 To complicate matters further, other aromatic wines, the descendants of hippocras,121 were also produced using the sleeve. One of them was the vin des dieux (“wine of the gods”),122 which is also another proof that in the 17th century the French started to add fruit (apples, oranges, almonds) as well as musk and/or ambergris (the most expensive among spices) to aromatic wines. Hippocras is therefore closely connected with contemporary drinks such as sangria, mulled wine, or even vermouth and punch.123 The recipe for vin ipocratic in the Romanian collection reflects the slight confusion referred to above about the fact that the mix of spices varied according to the recipes, but also according to changes in time. The Romanian recipe contains only cinnamon, cloves, thyme and no sugar, and does not require the use of Hippocrates’ sleeve. However, both sugar and the sleeve are 119  Day, Ypocras or Hippocras, s.p. (see n. 105). 120  See, for instance, ibid., s.p.; Andrew Dalby, entry on “Hippocras” in The Oxford Companion to Sugar and Sweets, ed. Darra Goldstein (Oxford: 2015), 333. 121  Albala, The Banquet, 111. 122  See for example the instructions in the French anonymous best-selling L’Escole parfaite des officiers de bouche (Paris: 1662; various reprints until 1742), 245: mix the ingredients into the wine and “passés-le dans vn chausse comme l’ypocras, si vous voulez ambrés-le & le musquez aussi comme l’hypocras.” 123  See also Montanari, “Introduzione,” 13; Albala, The Banquet, 114. Recipes for hippocras can be found until the 19th century.

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used in another recipe containing an infusion of ten ingredients, besides sugar.124 The instructions read thus: “make soup [!] out of this wine in the morning and drink a glass of it instead of coffee because it is very good, it strengthens the head and the stomach, or drink a glass after a meal instead of vutcă.”125 We shall explain the term vutcă below, but it is important to keep in mind that this wine was recommended as a medicine (as prescribed by doctors). The first recipe in this section is even called “Medicinal and royal wine” (Vin doftoresc şi crăiesc), while the section itself is entitled “Teachings for making beautiful and useful wines” (Invaţături de a face vinuri frumoase şi de folos), which clearly suggests that, in the spirit of the time, these wines were believed by the compiler to have therapeutic effects. Cordials126 Hippocras was still very en vogue in 17th-century Europe, as a precious gift item. It was similar to jam and other fruit preserves, and was enjoyed, for example, by Louis XIV. But the French king acquired a taste for another drink, which became a favourite: rossolis, a particular variety being even named Rossolis du Roi.127 In a letter of 1677, the Italian scientist, ambassador, and poet Lorenzo Magalotti wrote about this type of drink: “[…] now rosolis is the fashionable seal to all of the most noble tables.”128 Most probably, the owner of the Romanian compilation wanted it on his table too, because the collection includes a recipe for rosolin franţozesc (“French rosolin”),129 which must have appeared more appealing than its Italian original(s). In fact, rossolis (variants rossoli, rosolio) 124  Angelica, galangal (similar to ginger), Acorus calamus (also called sweet flag, calamus), cinnamon, cubeb (tailed pepper, Lat. Piper cubeba), cloves, bay, cardamom, Seville orange (old Rom. năramză) and lemon peels. In other recipes the spices were hanged in little sacks, in the same way as in Zrinski’s recipe collection. 125  BAR Rom MS. 1120, fols. 54r–54v: “[…] şi de acest vin fă supa dimineaţa şi bea un păhar în loc de cafea, că iaste foarte bun, că întăreşte capul şi stomahul, au dupe mâncare bea un păhar în loc de vutcă.” 126  BAR Rom MS. 1120, fols. 55v–56v. 127  See for example P.J.-B. Le Grand d’Aussy, Histoire de la vie privée des françois, depuis l’origine de la nation jusqu’à nos jours, vol. 3 (Paris: 1815), 90–1; Eugéne Despois, Le théatre français sous Louis XIV (Paris: 1874), 152–53. 128  “[…] adesso il rosolis [è] il sigillo alla moda di tutte le tavole più nobili”. Wolfgang Schweickard, “Spiritosaggini,” in Lexikon, Varietät, Philologie: Romanistische Studien. Günter Holtus zum 65. Geburtstag, eds. Anja Overbeck, Wolfgang Schweickard and Harald Völker (Berlin: 2011), 593, quoting Andrea Dardi, Dalla provincia all’Europa: L’influsso del francese sull’italiano tra il 1650 e il 1715 (Florence: 1992), 228. 129  BAR Rom MS. 1120, 56b–57.

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belongs to the category of stronger, distilled and infused cordials, the ancestors of our modern liqueurs, which gradually displaced ordinary wine, especially at the end of the meal.130 In the early modern period distilled alcohol became widely available for the first time (and consequently alcoholism became a serious social problem). Considerable disagreement exists over who invented it: was it the Greeks (and Romans), the Arabs or the mediaeval Chinese? In Europe, until the end of the 15th century distilled wine seems to have been almost exclusively used as a medicine as well as for ensuring longevity. Given the widespread belief that wine generated blood, had medicinal properties and prolonged life, distillates (concentrated wines) were viewed as the elixir of life itself: aqua vitae or “water of life.” Producing alcohol was relatively simple, and the first distillation manuals were published as early as the end of the 15th century. The recreational use of alcohol appeared too, at first among the rich, but increasingly among common people as well. Distillates also spread to regions with no viticulture and to European colonies overseas. The raw materials were as various as the resulting beverages: brandy, whiskey, vodka, grappa, gin, calvados, slivovitz, rum. There were many spiced aromatic compounds as well, and authors offered hundreds of recipes. Distillates and flavoured wines were not to meet serious competition until the arrival of coffee and tea.131 To return to rossolis, the recipe in the Romanian manuscript includes distilled wine, white pepper, long pepper, bay, cloves, thyme, anise, cardamom (old Rom. caculea, from Tr. kakule), lemon juice, sugar, and musk. It is possible that only a/the French variant contained pepper. The recipe here is obviously taken from Le Confiturier françois, considered to be another La Varenne bestseller (1st ed. 1660). Their ingredients are not identical: La Varenne’s rossoly contains, besides esprit de vin, white pepper, long pepper, massis (?), cinnamon, cloves, ginger, anise, coriander, lemon juice, sugar, amber gris and musk. However, the procedure for obtaining the drink (for instance, by filtrating it twice through Hippocrates’ sleeve) and the general tone of the two recipes are almost identical.132 It is interesting that in the Romanian manuscript the only 130  Albala, The Banquet, 106, 114; Day, Ypocras or Hippocras, s.p. (see note 105 above). The name of the Italian rossolio or rosoli(o), a sweet liqueur, was said to come from the dew of the sun (ros solis). Antonaros, La grande storia, 145. 131  Fernand Braudel, The Structures of Everyday Life: The limits of the possible, trans. Siân Reynolds (London: 1981), 227, 247; Albala, “Stimulants,” 48–50; Idem, The Banquet, 106, 112–15; Unwin, Wine, 236. 132  François Pierre de La Varenne (?), Le Confiturier françois (Troyes: 1664), 13–14. The very similar recipe for rossolis in Alexandre Dumas’ Le grand dictionnaire de cuisine (Paris: 1873), 956–57 was obviously taken from L’Escole, 241–242, which shows its long-lasting popularity.

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other recipe that has the country-of-origin label on it is the aforementioned one for salami frânceşti, i.e. Italian salami, which is Stefani’s recipe for wild boar salami. Besides rosolin franţozesc, there are ten other similar recipes in the chapter “Teachings to make many types of vutci.”133 Vutca (Rom. sg.) should not be confused with today’s Rom. votcă (vodka). It was the generic name for the distilled and sweetened alcoholic drinks made from plants and fruit, still fashionable in the Romanian lands (and beyond) in the 18th and 19th centuries.134 Each variety of spirits was in general distinguished by its basic component, several of which are listed in the Romanian compilation.135 The recipe for “Vutcă useful for the stomach and the head,” which is almost a counterpart of the aforementioned flavoured wine, is just one example amidst a wide range of evidence that cordials were on their way to displacing spiced wines as medicinal drinks.136 Even the recipe for rosolin franţozesc is relatively similar to that of the aromatic wine mentioned before, in terms of the ingredients used and of the need to use Hippocrates’ sleeve. According to the recipe for the same wine, vutca was served at the end of meals, in recognition of its proven or alleged digestive properties. In the medieval and early modern period, not only food, but also drinks were subject to colouring, and cordials were no exception. The chapter “Teachings for colouring vutca”137 in the Book contains instructions on how to use natural dyestuffs: red sandalwood or cochineal dye for a red tint, yellow sandalwood or carlina extract for yellow, and a “must” of cyclamen leaves for green. The most interesting of these is cochineal dye (also called carmine dye), made from the crushed body of a small insect from South and Central America. It was very highly prized throughout Europe in the early modern period; today it is 133  BAR Rom MS. 1120 fols. 55v–56v: “Invaţături de a face multe feliuri de vutci.” 134  See for example Sorin Iftimi, “Ceremoniile curţii domneşti la Crăciun, Anul Nou şi Bobotează (secolele XVII–XIX).” in Spectacolul public între tradiţie şi modernitate, eds. Constanţa Vintilă-Ghiţulescu and Mária Pakucs-Willcocks (Bucharest: 2007), 51. Dumas, Le grand dictionnaire, 956, presented rossolis as a liqueur “which was usually drunk at the end of meals” in the previous century. 135  Schweickard, “Spiritosaggini,” 590. As a primary source, see for example Estienne, L’agricoltura, 276–81. The Romanian manuscript lists a few such key ingredients: juniper grains, cinnamon, grapefruit and lemons, Seville orange peels, angelica, lily-of-the-valley (Rom. flori de mărgăritărel), rose, anise, and cloves. 136  BAR Rom MS. 1120 fols. 56r–56v: “Vutcă de stomah şi de cap folositoare”; Albala, The Banquet, 114, 115: “cordial originally meant a heart medicine, and aperitif something to open up clogs in the body’s passages.” 137  BAR Rom MS. 1120 fol.56r: “Invaţături de a văpsi vutcile.”

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known as food additive E120 (present in Coca-Cola, among other food items).138 A distilled sweet drink called alkermes (var. alchermes), based on spices and rosewater and coloured with cochineal or kermes (both bitter and derived from similar insects) was first recorded by the Persian physician Yūhannā Ibn Māsawaih (777–857), who cited the kermes-based drink. The name of the drink comes from the Arabic al-qirmiz, meaning cochineal, but legend has it that alkermes was created in Florence.139 In the Romanian recipe collection, the term used for cochineal is crămăzu (contemp. cârmâz) from the Turkish kırmız, ­although most probably the recipe itself is not Turkish.

Chemical Recipes for Making Ink, Cleaning Pots and Weapons, and Producing Gun Powder The presence of these chemical recipes in the Romanian manuscript raises the question whether they had their models in the so-called “books of secrets” (containing medical recipes, household hints, and technical recipes of all kinds) or in recipe collections which were predominantly culinary. The only source disclosed by the compiler in the entire collection comes in one of his ink-making recipes, under the subtitle “The teaching of Fior Avanti.” Indeed, some of the chemical recipes were borrowed from Fioravanti’s Compendio.140 The compiler of the Romanian manuscript also borrowed from the Compendio one recipe each for cleaning silverware, for tin pots, for brass and for bronze pots.141 The recipe for cleaning silverware, for example, contains lye (caustic soda or sodium hydroxide, NaOH), which was recommended by certain authors for this purpose until modern times.142 Both these recipes as well as those for cleaning weapons and for making gunpowder were indirectly linked 138  It is also used in cosmetics, in the pharmaceutical industry, and for colouring fabrics. See, for example, Dominique Cardon, Le monde des teintures naturelles (Paris: 2003), 484–93. 139  One story has it that it was invented for the Medici family and taken to France by Catherine de Medici when she married the future Henry II in 1533. The other is that it was created by the Dominicans of the Santa Maria Novella convent: their Officina Profumo Farmaceutica still makes Alkermes according to a recipe from 1743. See for example Zona Spray Starks, “Alkermes,” in The Oxford Companion to Sugar and Sweets, ed. Darra Goldstein (Oxford: 2015), 9; Gillian Riley, “Alchermes,” in The Oxford Companion to Italian Food (Oxford: 2009), 9; Antonaros, La grande storia, 146. 140  For the ink recipe, see BAR Rom MS. 1120 fol. 61 (the name probably became Fior Avanti in the above-mentioned 1749 copy); Leonardo Fioravanti, Compendio de’ secreti rationali (Venice: 1666), 266. 141  BAR Rom MS. 1120 fols. 62r–63v; Fioravanti, Compendio, 131–3. 142  See a recipe in Sarah J. MacLeod, “Silver,” in House-cleaning Made Easier (Washington, D.C.: 1921), 18.

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to food, the second and third category via hunting. In one of the three recipes for gunpowder (old Rom. iarbă de vânat, literally “grass for hunting”), with which the manuscript ends and which are also taken from Fioravanti, the ingredients are not only the usual sulphur, charcoal and saltpeter, but also canfora (camphor tree, Lat. Cinnamomum camphora). Fioravanti explained that “this powder is very fast, […] perfect for hunters and trappers, because it shoots well before making a noise.”143 Some of Fioravanti’s explanations for his choice of recipes, also not present in the Romanian compilation, are interesting in other ways. For example, Fioravanti claimed that he wrote down the allegedly “wondrous secret” for cleaning silverware so that the great lords’ servants called credenzieri could keep the silverware neat and polished without incurring too much expense on behalf of their masters.144 Nevertheless, he was not above suggesting a little scam to the credenzieri, advertising his recipe at the same time: they could claim that the silverware needed cleaning by professional goldsmiths, but by using Fioravanti’s instructions instead, they could save the money and keep it for themselves. As a reward, Fioravanti quipped, they could offer him a drink when meeting him at some Italian court or other.145 We do not know what the anonymous Romanian compiler made of this: did he write from the servant’s or rather from the master’s point of view? Conclusions The two 17th-century recipe collections under scrutiny here do not belong within the usual category of domestic management texts produced by amateurs146 in a period of increasing literacy in Europe. Moreover, rather than being circulated or printed for a wider audience, the two manuscripts were aristocratic property, destined for the use of narrow circles of the elites. Nikola VII Zrinski’s manuscript was written by a professional cook. The Romanian collection, whose original most probably belonged to Constantin Cantacuzino 143  “Questa è polvere velocissima, […] perfettissima per cacciatori, & vccellatori, percioche fà la botta prima che si senta il rumore […].” Fioravanti, Compendio, 168–9. 144  Among many other roles related to food, the credenzieri had to guard and clean silverware. See for example June di Schino, Arte dolciaria barocca: I segreti del credenziere di Alessandro VII. Intorno a un manoscritto inedito (Rome: 2015), especially 87. 145  Fioravanti, Compendio, 132: “La qual truffa io hò voluta insegnarla accioche quando sarò in qualche corte, essi mi diano da bere volentieri.” 146  Such as, for instance, those analysed by Sherman in Invention, 18–19, 13.

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Stolnicul, may have been written by himself, although that cannot be proved. They are typical for the period not only in form, but also because the food-related material, which makes the bulk of both, is accompanied by other types of household instructions: pertaining to wine and pomiculture in the CroatianHungarian collection, or for making aromatic alcoholic drinks and for producing domestic cleaning chemicals and gunpowder in the Romanian text.147 Their cookery sections proper do not differ much (although I could not find identical recipes), and both reflect, at least partly, the practices of the Italian cuisine of the Baroque period, with its colourful and well-seasoned dishes. In addition, they mainly draw on major and widely-circulated Italian sources or texts translated into Italian, the cookery book of Bartolomeo Scappi being used in both cases. In Zrinski’s manuscript, Columella, the Roman writer on agriculture, was used from an Italian edition. So was Charles Estienne, who established himself in the same domain. In the case of the Romanian text, recipes were also inspired by Bartolomeo Stefani’s coobook and by the very popular “book of secrets” by Leonardo Fioravanti. The wine supplement of the Croatian-Hungarian manuscript also partly draws on Johannes Coler’s popular Oeconomia. However, best-selling contemporary books in French seem to be a source of inspiration, too: the Confiturier françois attributed to the famous François La Varenne in the Romanian case, and perhaps La Varenne’s cookbook in the Croatian-Hungarian case. The recipes were borrowed without acknowledgement, with one exception in each manuscript: Columella is cited in the section on pomiculture of Zrinski’s manuscript, and Fioravanti in the section on chemicals in Cantacuzino’s Romanian compilation. Whereas we know that Zrinski’s well-preserved library (the Zriniana) included all the best-selling volumes which served as sources for the recipe collection, we know much less about Cantacuzino’s dismembered library. However, two of Fioravanti’s books on surgery are listed in a catalogue of the library compiled later. Further research is needed on the sources and origins of many still unidentified recipes in both manuscripts. It is perhaps surprising that in the Romanian collection the Italian influence was apparently much stronger than the impact of 147  For similar 17th-century English and 18th-century Italian manuscripts, see Goldstein, Eating, 137, 141–42 and Gabriele Fabbrici, “Tradizione e innovazione: I ricettari domestici nella storia della gastronomia italiana,” in Arte culinaria in due ricettari storici di famiglie della Bassa Reggiana, eds. Alberto Cattania and Mario Folloni Bolognesi (Mantua: 2015), 5–6. The ‘cookery book’ as a genre found its definitive form only in the late 17th and the 18th centuries (in France and England at least). See Appelbaum, Aguecheek’s Beef, 75; William Woys Weaver, Sauer’s Herbal Cures: America’s first book of botanic healing, 1762– 1778 (New York: 2001), 11.

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cuisines from areas in Greece and the Ottoman world,148 which were geographically closer. This is perhaps due to the fact that the compilation was produced within the Italianate ethos of Cantacuzino’s environment in the Brâncoveanu era. Likewise, the Croatian-Hungarian collection bears the imprint of CentralEuropean and in particular Austrian-German culinary models, as suggested for example by a number of recipes identified as “German” and by a number of German terms for ingredients. In contrast, the role of Turkish and Greek culinary terms in the Romanian text appears to be purely lexical, because they cover (as much as we could detect) ingredients and dishes taken from Italian cookbooks. A few ingredient terms of Slavic origin were discovered in both manuscripts. Although it is well-known that plagiarism was not unusual in times when there was no copyright,149 most probably the two compilers-translators had no intention of publishing their texts. In addition, they also mention in the food sections that they took inspiration from other—unnamed—cooks or cookbook authors, writing down the best recipes after trying them themselves. However, the two manuscripts—the earliest known Croatian and Romanian, and more generally, South-East European, recipe collections—should be valued as more than mere derivative works. They are important because they document the existence of a Croatian and a Romanian aristocracy which showed an interest in new, foreign, luxury foodstuffs, in fashionable dishes and alcoholic drinks, as well as in growing their own ingredients and preparing food according to costly Western manuals.150 It may well be that Zrinski and Cantacuzino were motivated in their gastronomic pursuits by their personal tastes as affluent, well-educated gourmets. But it is quite possible, too, that both, as promoters of anti-Ottoman policies in the region, understood culinary art as a vehicle of culture, prestige151 and even of a “national” and religious identity.152 It is also important to place the two recipe collections on the culinary map of early modern Europe, alongside similar manuscripts and the earliest cookery books to be printed in East-Central Europe in the 16th–17th centuries: in Czech in 1535, in Polish in 1682, and in Hungarian (in Transylvania) in 1695. The two 148  As claimed by Cazacu in “Studiu,” 66. 149  See, for instance, Capatti and Montanari, Italian Cuisine, 179–80. 150  This also shows that there was more variety in the diets of the Croatian and Romanian aristocracy, in parallel to other parts of Europe. For similar processes in Britain, see Joan Thirsk, Food in Early Modern England: Phases, fads, fashions 1500–1760 (London: 2007), 83, quoted in Goldstein, Eating, 150, 243. 151  Possibly in the same way in which Apicius viewed Roman food. Appelbaum, Aguecheek’s Beef, 83. 152  On the wide range of culinary options in the region, including the adoption of and resistance to the Ottoman cuisine, see the Introduction to this volume.

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manuscripts are also valuable as sources for an understanding of the long-term impact of the Italian and Austrian/German cuisines—including their culinary vocabulary—on the food cultures of Eastern Europe in general.153 In South-East Europe, they had to compete with the more pervasive Ottoman Turkish and Greek gastronomic traditions. To some extent, the two manuscript collections are also proof of an emerging French influence in the region. Finally, if considered in an even broader context, both could provide insights into the circulation of books and of scientific ideas in a rapidly changing 17th-century Europe. Bibliography Archival Sources Bucharest, Biblioteca Academiei Române (BAR) [The Romanian Academy Library]: Rom. MS. 1120: Carte întru care să scriu mâncările de péşte, raci, stridii, melci, legumi, erburi şi alte mâncări de sec şi de dulce, dupre orânduiala lor [A book of instructions for dishes of fish, crab, oysters, vegetables, herbs and other dishes for flesh days and fast days, in their due order]. Zagreb, the Zagreb National and University Library (NSK), R 3496: Az köz Etkeknek fözeseröl Valo rovid iegzes [sic] [A short compendium on the preparation of day-to-day dishes]. Published Primary Sources “A New Frigorifick Experiment Shewing, How a Considerable Degree of Cold May be Suddenly Produced without the Help of Snow, Ice, Haile, Wind, or Niter, and That at Any Time of the Year,” Philosophical Transactions 1 (18 July 1666): 255–61, URL: http:// rstl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/1/1-22/255.full.pdf+html [accessed 20 June 2016]. L’Escole parfaite des officiers de Bouche (Paris: 1662). Le Ménagier de Paris (1392–94). Bradley, Richard, Survey of the Ancient Husbandry and Gardening, collected from […] the most Eminent writers among the Greeks and Romans (London: 1725). Coler, Johannes, Oeconomia, ruralis et domestica, vol. 1 (Mainz: 1645) (first published 1591–1606), 8 volumes. Columella, Lutio Giunio Moderato, De l’agricoltura libri XII. Trattato de gli alberi […] (Venice: 1564). 153  In contrast, Capatti and Montanari, in Italian Cuisine, 197, wrote this about “the refined language of Scappi and Stefani”: “Despite borrowings and adaptations, this language did not exert influence outside Italy […].”

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Constantini Caesaris selectarum praeceptionum de Agricultura libri viginti, Iano Cornario Medico interprete […] (Lyon: 1541). Digby, Kenelm, The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Knight Opened (London: 1669). Estienne, Charles, L’agricoltura e casa di villa di Carlo Stefano (Venice: 1623) (trans. of Praedium rusticum, 1554). Ferrari, Giovanni Battista, Hesperides […] (Rome: 1646). Fioravanti, Leonardo, Compendio de’ secreti rationali (Venice: 1666) (1st ed. 1564). La Varenne, François Pierre (de), Le Cuisinier françois […] (Paris: 1651). La Varenne, François Pierre (de) [?], Le Confiturier françois […] (Troyes: 1664). Menochio, Giovanni Stefano, Economica Christiana (Venice: 1656). Quincy, John, Pharmacopoeia Officinalis & Extemporanea: or, A Complete English Dispensatory (London: 1782). Rycaut, Paul, The History of the Present State of the Ottoman Empire […] (London: 1686) (1st ed. 1665). Scappi, Bartolomeo, Opera di Bartolomeo Scappi M. dell’arte del cucinare […] (Venice: 1610) (first published 1570). Tanara, Vincenzo, L’economia del cittadino in villa (Bologna: 1644); 2nd ed. 1651. Tiraqueau, André, De nobilitate, et iure primigeniorum, 3rd ed. (Lyon: 1573). Secondary Literature Albala, Ken, Food in Early Modern Europe (Westport, CT: 2003). Albala, Ken, The Banquet: Dining in the great courts of late Renaissance Europe (Illinois: 2007). Albala, Ken, “Cookbooks as Historical Documents,” in The Oxford Handbook of Food History, ed. Jeffrey M. Pilcher (New York: 2012), 227–40. Albala, Ken, Food: A cultural culinary history (Chantilly, VA: 2013). Albala, Ken, “Stimulants and Intoxicants in Europe, 1500–1700,” in The Routledge History of Food, ed. Carol Helstosky (London: 2015), 42–60. Antonaros, Alfredo, La grande storia del vino (Bologna: 2006). Appelbaum, Robert, Aguecheek’s Beef, Belch’s Hiccup, and Other Gastronomic Interjections: Literature, culture, and food among the early moderns (Chicago: 2006). Benda, Borbála, Étkezési szokások a 17. századi föúri udvarokban Magyarországon [Eating habits at the 17th-century aristocratic courts in Hungary], unpublished PhD thesis (Budapest: 2004). Braudel, Fernand, The Structures of Everyday Life: The limits of the possible, trans. Siân Reynolds (London: 1981). Camporesi, Piero, La miniera del mondo: Artieri, inventori, impostori (Milano: 1990). Camporesi, Piero, Camminare il mondo: Vita e avventure di Leonardo Fioravanti medico del Cinquecento, 2nd ed. (Milano: 2007).

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Capatti, Alberto and Massimo Montanari, Italian Cuisine: A Cultural History, trans. Aine O’Healy (New York: 2003). Cardon, Dominique, Le monde des teintures naturelles (Paris: 2003). Carme, Fabienne, La cuisine du Moyen Âge: Recettes pour aujourd’hui (Bordeaux: 2008). Cazacu, Matei, “Studiu introductiv” [Introductory study], in O lume într-o carte de bucate: Manuscris din epoca brâncovenească [A world in a cookbook: a manuscript from the Brâncoveanu era], eds. Ioana Constantinescu and Matei Cazacu (Bucharest: 1997), 5–82. Chivu, Gheorghe, “Cartea de bucate, un manuscris singular în scrisul vechi românesc” [The Cookbook, a singular manuscript among the old Romanian writings], in Gabriel Ştrempel la 80 de ani: O viaţă închinată cărţii [Gabriel Ştrempel at 80: a life devoted to scholarship], eds. Anca Bogdan, Gabriela Dumitrescu and Luminiţa Kövári (SatuMare: 2006), 123–35. Chivu, Gheorghe, “Cuvinte de origine italiană într-un manuscris românesc din prima jumătate a secolului al XVIII-lea” [Words of Italian origin in a Romanian manuscript from the first half of the eighteenth century”], Studii şi cercetări lingvistice 34 (4) (1983): 341–46. Constantinescu, Ioana, “Prefaţă” [Foreword], in O lume într-o carte de bucate: Manuscris din epoca brâncovenească [A world in a cookbook: a manuscript from the Brâncoveanu era], eds. Ioana Constantinescu and Matei Cazacu (Bucharest: 1997), 83–94. Constantinescu, Ioana, “Postfaţă” [Afterword], in O lume într-o carte de bucate: Manuscris din epoca brâncovenească [A world in a cookbook: a manuscript from the Brâncoveanu era], eds. Ioana Constantinescu and Matei Cazacu (Bucharest: 1997), 179–98. Cowan, Brian, “Lumi noi, gusturi noi: Moda culinară după Renaştere” [New worlds, new tastes: food fashions after the Renaissance], in Istoria gustului [Food: The History of Taste], ed. Paul Freedman, trans. Raluca Cimpoiaşu, Andra Stoica, Mădălina Tureatcă (Bucharest: 2008), 196–230. Čelebi, Evlija [Çelebi, Evliya], Putopis: Odlomci o jugoslavenksim zemljama [Travels: excerpts about the Yugoslav countries], ed. Hazim Šabanović (Sarajevo: 1957). Dalby, Andrew, “Hippocras,” The Oxford Companion to Sugar and Sweets, ed. Darra Goldstein (Oxford: 2015), 333. Davidson, Alan, The Oxford Companion to Food (Oxford: 2014). Day, Ivan, Cooking in Europe, 1650–1850 (Westport, CT: 2009). Despois, Eugéne, Le théatre français sous Louis XIV (Paris: 1874). di Schino, June, Arte dolciaria barocca: I segreti del credenziere di Alessandro VII. Intorno a un manoscritto inedito (Rome: 2015).

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Dima-Drăgan, Corneliu, Biblioteca unui umanist român, Constantin Cantacuzino Stolnicul [The library of a Romanian humanist, the stolnic Constantin Cantacuzino] (Bucharest: 1967). Djuvara, Neagu, O scurtă istorie ilustrată a românilor [A short illustrated history of the Romanians] (Bucharest: 2013). Dumas, Alexandre, Le grand dictionnaire de cuisine (Paris: 1873). Eamon, William, The Professor of Secrets: Mystery, medicine, and alchemy in Renaissance Italy (Washington: 2010). Emsley, John and Peter Fell, Was It Something You Ate? Food intolerance: what causes it and how to avoid it, 3rd ed. (Oxford: 2002). Fabbrici, Gabriele, “Tradizione e innovazione: I ricettari domestici nella storia della gastronomia italiana,” in Arte culinaria in due ricettari storici di famiglie della Bassa Reggiana, eds. Alberto Cattania and Mario Folloni Bolognesi (Mantova: 2015), 5–6. Ferraglio, Ennio, “Il vino nella tradizione agronomica rinascimentale,” in La civiltà del vino: fonti, temi e produzioni vitivinicole dal Medioevo al Novecento, ed. Gabriele Archetti (Brescia: 2003), 715–50. Foster, Norman, Jelo iza samostanskih zidina [Eating behind monastery walls/ Schlemmen hinter Klostermauern], trans. Micheline Popović (Zagreb: 2013). Freedman, Paul, “The Medieval Spice Trade,” in The Oxford Handbook of Food History, ed. Jeffrey M. Pilcher (New York: 2012), 324–40. Goldstein, David, Eating and Ethics in Shakespeare’s England (Cambridge: 2013). Hannan, Henry J., Technician’s Formulation Handbook for Industrial and Household Cleaning Products (Waukesha, WI: 2007). Henryot, Fabbiene, À la table des moines: Ascèse et gourmandise de la Renaissance à la Revolution (Paris: 2015). Iftimi, Sorin, “Ceremoniile curţii domneşti la Crăciun, Anul Nou şi Bobotează (secolele XVII–XIX),” [Ceremonies of the princely court at Christmas, New Year and Epiphany (18th–19th centuries)], in Spectacolul public între tradiţie şi modernitate [The public spectacle between tradition and modernity], eds. Constanţa Vintilă-Ghiţulescu and Mária Pakucs-Willcocks (Bucharest: 2007), 43–78. Ionescu, Ştefan and Panait I. Panait, Constantin Vodă Brâncoveanu: Viaţa, domnia, epoca [Constantin Vodă Brâncoveanu: his life, his reign, his time] (1969; repr. Bucharest: 2014). Király, Erzsébet (ed.), Szakácsmesterségnek könyvecskéje: A csáktornyai Zrínyi-udvar XVII. századi kéziratos szakácskönyve és a Tótfalusi Kis Miklós által kiadott kolozsvári szakácskönyv [Booklets on the craft of cookery: the 17th-century manuscript cookbook of Zrinski’s Čakovec court and the Cluj cookbook published by Nicholas Kis of Tăuţii de Jos] (Budapest: 1981). Kovács, Sándor Iván, “Želučana materia (ulomak) [Stomach materia (excerpt)],” in Zrinski i Europa, trans. and ed. Jadranka Damjanov (Zagreb: 2000), 346–61.

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Lakišić, Alija, Bosanski kuhar: Tradicionalno kulinarstvo u Bosni i Hercegovini [The Bosnian Cook: traditional cuisine in Bosnia and Herzegovina], 6th ed. (Sarajevo: 1999). Laudan, Rachel, Cuisine and Empire: Cooking in world history (Berkeley: 2013). Laurioux, Bruno, Manger au Moyen Âge: Pratiques et discours alimentaires en Europe aux XIV e et XV e siècles (Paris: 2002). Le Grand d’Aussy, P.J.-B., Histoire de la vie privée des français, depuis l’origine de la nation jusque à nos jours, vol. 3 (Paris: 1815). Linden, Stanton J. (ed.), The Alchemy Reader: From Hermes Trismegistus to Isaac Newton (Cambridge: 2003). Lukács, József, “Începuturile literaturii gastronomice din Transilvania” [The beginnings of gastronomic literature in Transylvania], Apostrof 24 (2) (2013): 15–19. MacLeod, Sarah J., “Silver,” in House-cleaning Made Easier (Washington, DC: 1921), 18. Manea-Grgin, Castilia, “Italian-Inspired Cookbooks for the Romanian and Croatian Aristocracy: A reality of the 17th century?” (forthcoming). Margalit, Yair, Concepts in Wine Technology: Small winery operations, 3rd ed. (San Francisco: 2015). McGovern, Patrick E., Uncorking the Past: The quest for wine, beer and other alchoholic beverages (Berkeley-Los Angeles: 2009). Montanari, Massimo, “Introduzione: Il vino e la tavola,” in Alfredo Antonaros, La grande storia del vino (Bologna: 2006), 9–17. Multhauf, Robert P., “Sal Ammoniac: A case history in industrialization,” Technology and Culture, 6 (4) (Autumn 1965): 569–86. Puntijar, Zlatko and Matea (eds.), Kuharska knjiga Čakovečkog dvora obitelji Zrinski: Iz vremena Nikole Zrinskog Ban hrvatski 1647.-1664 [The cookbook of the Zrinski family’s Čakovec court: from the times of Nicholas Zrinski, Ban of Croatia 1647– 1664] (Zagreb: 2007) (popular edition, with errors). Riley, Gillian, “Alchermes,” in The Oxford Companion to Italian Food (Oxford: 2009), 9. Robinson, Jancis (ed.), The Oxford Companion to Wine, 4th ed. (Oxford: 2015). Saltini, Antonio, Storia delle scienze agrarie, vol. 1: Dalle origini al Rinascimento (Bologna: 1984); vol. 2: I secoli della rivoluzione agraria (Bologna: 1987). Sarti, Raffaella, Živjeti u kući. Stanovanje, prehrana i odijevanje u novovjekovnoj Europi (1500.-1800.) [Vita di casa. Abitare, mangiare, vestire nell’Europa moderna], trans. Ana Badurina (Zagreb: 2006). Schweickard, Wolfgang, “Spiritosaggini,” in Lexikon, Varietät, Philologie. Romanistische Studien. Günter Holtus zum 65. Geburtstag, eds. Anja Overbeck, Wolfgang Schweickard and Harald Völker (Berlin: 2011), 589–603. Scully, Terence, The Opera of Bartolomeo Scappi (1570) (Toronto: 2008). Sherman, Sandra, Invention of the Modern Cookbook (Santa Barbara, CA: 2010).

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Spray Starks, Zona, “Alkermes,” in The Oxford Companion to Sugar and Sweets, ed. Darra Goldstein (Oxford: 2015), 9. Stulli, Joakim, Vocabolario italiano-illirico-latino del P. Gioachino Stulli Raguseo, sacerdote de’ minori osservanti, L-Z, part two, vol. 2 (Dubrovnik: 1810). Thompson, C.J.S., Alchemy and Alchemists (1932; Mineola, NY: 2002). Unwin, Tim, Wine and the Vine: An historical geography of viticulture and the wine trade, 3rd ed. (London: 2004). Varga, Darko, Hrana, kuhinja i blagovanje u doba Zrinskih [Food, kitchen and dining in the times of the Zrinskis] (Zagreb: 2016) (popular edition, with errors). Waterhouse, Andrew L. and Gavin L. Sacks, David W. Jeffery, Understanding Wine Chemistry (Chichester, West Sussex: 2016). Woolgar, C.M., “Ospăţ şi post: Mâncarea şi gustul în Europa medievalǎ [Feasting and Fasting: food and taste in Europe in the Middle Ages],” in Istoria gustului, ed. Paul Freedman, trans. Raluca Cimpoiaşu, Andra Stoica and Mădălina Tureatcă (Bucharest: 2008), 163–95. Woys Weaver, William, Sauer’s Herbal Cures: America’s first book of botanic healing, 1762–1778 (New York: 2001).

Chapter 13

From Istanbul to Sarajevo via Belgrade— A Bulgarian Cookbook of 1874 Stefan Detchev Historians of food, foodways and cuisines have often paid attention to the role of cookbooks and their importance as a historical source.1 Printed cookbooks remain some of the most abundant records of past cooking and of the key shifts in cuisines and eating patterns.2 It has been observed that, although they do not usually reflect the everyday practicalities of cooking, such books offer evidence of changing practices and tastes over time.3 In some cases, at the time of publication they recorded innovations introduced perhaps decades earlier, while in others, they reflected—or even anticipated—new fashions in cooking.4 In the modern period, such publications have become authoritative voices which legislate on taste, give advice on the various flavours and ingredients to use, as well as on up-to-date cooking equipment. In the course of the 19th century the idea emerged that women cooks could compete with men in the kitchen and even could overtake men in the sophistication of family cooking. This new image of the housewife was based on the key roles she played in areas such as the management of household provisions, the conservation of food and the preparation of desserts.5 This was the reason why across Europe the publication of cookbooks for the use of housewives in the family or written by professional chefs for the use of their peers increased significantly.6 A common characteristic of the majority of these editions was the dissemination of knowledge about cuisine among housewives from 1  Ken Albala, “Cookbooks as Historical Documents,” in The Oxford Handbook of Food History, ed. Jeffrey Pilcher (Oxford: 2012), 227–40. 2  Stephen Mennell, All Manners of Food: Eating and taste in England and France from the Middle Ages to the present, 2nd ed. (Champaign, Illinois: 1996), 166. 3  Jean-François Revel, Culture and Cuisine: A journey through the history of food, trans. Helen Rane (New York: 1982), 24. 4  Mennell, All Manners, 65. 5  Alberto Capatti and Massimo Montanari, Italian Cuisine: A cultural history, trans. Aine O’Healy (New York: 2003), 237–238. 6  Capatti and Montanari, Italian Cuisine, 238.

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the urban middle classes. This kind of literature had a major impact on the democratization of taste beyond the narrow circles of the social elites.7 In the late 1860s and the beginning of the 1870s, the European interest in cookery books also reached the Bulgarians in the Ottoman Empire. In the 1870s, Petko R. Slaveikov8 in Istanbul9 and Dimitri Smrikarov-Samokovec10 in Belgrade11 were the first to publish cookbooks in the Bulgarian language. These publications marked the first stages in the creation of the still missing modern Bulgarian housewife. However, while in the first years after the fall of the communist regime Slaveikov’s book was republished several times,12 Smrikarov’s is less well-known among the broader public and even among specialists. One of the reasons could be that he was not as famous as Slaveikov, who was, and still is, celebrated as the most prominent Bulgarian man of letters, journalist, newspaper editor and politician. Moreover, as Slaveikov’s was the first book to be published in Bulgarian, it has already received considerable attention.13 Consequently, this study will focus on the second book. Although relatively well-known to specialists in the social and cultural history of Bulgaria as well as to ethnographers and folklorists, Smrikarov’s book has never been the subject of special investigation. Those who have studied his life and activity glossed over the publication of his cookbook altogether.14 The few studies which covered the development of consumer culture among the Bulgarians in the last decades of the Ottoman period and looked at the role of cookbooks mentioned the title,15 without, however, going into its content 7  Mennell, All Manners, 266. 8  Petko R. Slaveikov (1827–95), Bulgarian writer, journalist, folklorist and politician. 9  Petko Slaveikov, Gotvarska kniga ili nastavlenia za vsiakakvi gostbi spored kakto gi praviat v Tsarigrad i razni domashni spravi. Sŭbrani ot razni knigi (Istanbul: 1870). 10  Dimitri Smrikarov (1810–76), Bulgarian tradesman and inn-keeper. 11  Dimitri h. Jonov Smrikarov, Dodatŭci na zlatnia izvor (Belgrade: 1874). 12  Petko Slaveikov, Gotvarska kniga (Shoumen: 1991) (repr. Varna: 1992; Sofia: 2001). Idem, Gotvarski recepti (Shoumen: 1994). 13  For the first cookbook published in Bulgarian, see Stefan Detchev, “Mezhdu vishata osmanska kukhnia i Evropa: Slaveikovata kniga ot 1870 g. i pŭtjat kŭm modernoto gotvarstvo,” Littera et lingua, 3 (2014), URL: http://www.slav.uni-sofia.bg/naum/lilijournal/ 2014/11/3/dechevs [accessed 17 December 2016]. See also Stefan Detchev, “‘Procession of Civilization’: The first Bulgarian cookbook (1870) and the road to modernity,” in Rethinking Late Ottoman Civilization, eds. Samy Ayoub and Jeannette Okur (Edinburgh: 2018, forthcoming). 14  Khristo Semerdzhiev, Samokov i okolnostta mu (s.l.: 1913), 87–93, esp. 87–9. 15  Maria Todorova, “Lichnoto stopanstvo na bŭlgarina prez 19 v.,” Balkanistica 1 (1986): 123. In her study on Bulgarian modern urban culture, Raina Gavrilova made more references to the recipes included in the two books. See Raina Gavrilova, Koleloto na zhivota:

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or making any references to the recipes. Notwithstanding this relative neglect, Smrikarov’s cookbook can rightly be regarded as a contribution to the development of an “ethos of rationality, methodical work, industriousness, and thrift.”16 Both cookbooks have been occasionally mentioned in the literature, for instance by Raina Gavrilova. In her study of modern Bulgarian urban lifestyles, she wrote: “From the middle of the 19th century onwards, the modernization of society and lifestyles led to the birth of classical culinary art: several cookbooks that were published contained recipes for sauces, meals and desserts that would have satisfied even the most sophisticated tastes.”17 However, she used only a small number of the recipes and guidelines included in the two publications and solely in order to illustrate everyday urban practices in the period. In most cases, she assumed that these recipes and guidelines had reached the audience of female urbanites who were their target readers. But Smrikarov’s cookbook deserves an in-depth analysis because it broadens our perspective and showcases the period’s cultural-culinary entanglements within the South-East European regions of the Ottoman Empire and their links with nonOttoman Europe (the Serbian principality and Habsburg Vojvodina). Moreover, it was the first publication which included detailed outlines of what we might call the future Bulgarian ‘national’ dishes, although they were still referred to simply as dishes from “our lands” or from “our places.” In this study, I draw on primary sources and secondary literature to place Smrikarov’s book in the context of broader processes of modernization in 19th-century Europe, including the Balkans. I shall address the key issue of the intellectual and social contribution this cookbook made to the creation of a modern urban food culture among the Bulgarians. There were unintended consequences, too, as the publication unwittingly contributed to nation-building processes at the time in Bulgaria. One has to wait, however, for the 1920s and 1930s for ‘national dishes’ as such to be conceptualized in Bulgarian culture and practised by ordinary Bulgarians in their daily lives. My analysis of the book will also address shifts in culinary trends, eating patterns, practices and tastes, as well as the significant role of local merchants like Dimitri Smrikarov himself in popularizing new alimentary practices in the society. Arguably, merchants helped disseminate gastronomic trends, knowledge vsekidnevieto na Bŭlgarskia vŭzrozhdenski grad (Sofia: 1999), 86–87, 79, 91, 93, 96, 94, 103, 105, 106, 107, 108, 110, 117, 123, 124, and 127. [English-language edition: Bulgarian Urban Culture in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries (Cranbury, NJ: 1999)]. 16  Todorova, “Lichnoto stopanstvo,” 123. 17  Gavrilova, Koleloto, 70.

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of new ingredients, culinary expertise, tastes and fashions across the Ottoman Empire as well as across state borders. I shall trace the ways in which dishes from different cuisines made their way from the pages of Smrikarov’s book into Bulgarian homes. I shall attempt to identify the putative readership targeted at the time of the book’s publication as well as assess the extent to which the book contributed to the modernization of cooking in the modern Bulgarian urban household. Moreover, I shall try to situate the content and the role of this book in a broader South-East European perspective. Lastly, an attempt will be made to evaluate the role, it any, of the cookbook in the forging of a national cuisine and of a modern housewife. By and large, the theory and expertise outlined in the book were at odds with the culinary practices of most Bulgarians at the time of publication. I have based my research on primary sources such as cookbooks (including Serbian, Romanian, and Greek cookbooks), travel writings, contemporary narratives, the periodical press, personal correspondence, and literary classics. The lack of real-life, contextual information in the cookbooks have been compensated for by recourse to life narratives and travel writings. Contemporary narratives, the periodical press, personal correspondence, and literary classics have allowed me to answer questions concerning the social diffusion of culinary practices mentioned in the cookbook as well as the effect of its publication. Fiction, as a genre which pays greater attention to local habitus, has helped me reconstruct the historical reality outside the pages of the cookbook. Early ethnographic descriptions have been extremely valuable sources for the reconstruction of food practices from the 1870s’ to the early 20th century. Secondary studies as well as cookbooks from neighbouring countries have been important sources for placing the Bulgarian culinary culture in the broader context of Ottoman as well as non-Ottoman, Mediterranean and European alimentary traditions. Fieldwork done by Bulgarian ethnographers in the beginning of the 20th century has been an especially important source, as was the literature on agronomy and animal husbandry. One important issue is that of the cookbook’s readership, especially female readership. For insights into this aspect, I have relied on a mix of contemporary accounts, as well as on the first modern Bulgarian census (1880). Moreover, as far as Smrikarov’s rambling book has allowed it, I have attempted to disentangle propaganda and reality in matters of food consumption. In terms of theoretical debates around the importance of cookbooks as a historical source, I have explored the inter-relations between cooking traditions, key shifts and new fashions in cuisines and eating patterns, the everyday practicalities of cooking, on the one hand, and legislative prescriptions

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on foods and taste, on the other. This has given me an opportunity to use the Bulgarian case study to address broader issues, such as modernization in the late Ottoman Empire, national movements within its borders, as well as nation-building processes in South-East Europe and in the Ottoman Empire in general.

Cookery Books in 19th-Century South-East Europe

The publication of Smrikarov’s cookbook is inseparable from cultural developments in South-East Europe—and more generally, in Europe—at the time.18 Among the Austrian Serbs and the Greeks in the Mediterranean, cultural exchanges in the realm of food and gastronomy started with simple, literal translations of German and Italian cookbooks early in the 19th century.19 Later, this process widened, with more compilations published in the Romanian Principalities,20 among the Habsburg Serbs21 and in the Serbian principality itself.22 These initiatives popularized among the elite and the urban middle classes new ways of cooking, the diversification of meals as well as a rational organization of the kitchen. The culinary culture these publications promoted was that of an international, cosmopolitan cuisine dominated by the French, German (Habsburg) and Italian traditions. Initially, the Ottoman cuisine and other Eastern influences were to a great extent left behind or marginalized. The above-mentioned cookbooks taught the readers how to use various spices, citrus fruit, yeast for baking, and recommended the use of fairly large amounts of flour, butter, lard, and eggs in cooking. The readers were given instructions for a greater variety of recipes for beef, roasts, dishes with various fillings, sophisticated meals invented by professional chefs, a greater range of cakes, chocolate, sweets, creams, and jellies. The gradual penetration of novelty vegetables like 18  For earlier 16th–18th-century Transylvanian cookbooks and recipe collections, see the contributions by Kinga Tüdős and Margareta Aslan in this volume. On Romanian and Croatian 17th-century manuscript recipe collections, see Castilia Manea-Grgin’s chapter here. For 18th-century Ottoman manuscripts, see Özge Samancı and Margareta Aslan’s chapters. 19  Gavril Hranislav, Povarna kniga po nemeckom kochbuchu (Buda: 1805); I mageirike: Anonyme metafrase tou 1828 (Syros, 1828), ed. Anna Matthaiou (Athens: 1988). 20   K[ostake] N[egruzzi] and M[ichail] K[ogălniceanu], 200 reţete cerkate de bukate (Iаşi: 1841; repr. 1842, 1846); See also Maria Maurer, Carte de bucate: 190 de reţete alese şi încercate de o prietenă a tuturor femeilor celor casnice (Bucharest: 1849). 21  Jerotei Draganovich, Srbski kuvar (po nemachkomu cochbuchu) (Novi Sad: 1855). 22  Jerotei Draganovich, Srŭbski kuvar po nemachkom cochboch (Belgrade: 1865).

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the tomatoes and potatoes is also documented in these collections. However, due to the greater cost of new ingredients and the labour-intensive nature of some recipes which also required costly equipment, not all innovations were easy to introduce. The distance from the available urban markets was also a factor. The first modern printed Ottoman cookbook appeared in 1844, to be followed by others,23 but Ottoman cuisine, especially outside Istanbul, remained largely Eastern in character until the 1870s, in spite of the introduction of red tomatoes into the cooking of dishes such as yahni (meat stew with onions), dolması (stuffed peppers), pilâv (pilau), salatası [salad], and the adoption of a number of alla franca dishes.24 The influence of a more sophisticated French style of cooking became more pronounced in the 1880s.25 During the 1870s, the Serbian and Romanian cookbooks already expressed a striving towards Europeanization and modernization in cuisine, concurrently with subtler versions of meals from the ‘Ottoman culinary pool’ or of simple, supposedly native, dishes. The trend was towards a modern, international cuisine. Ottoman dishes from the past were re-invented later, once the period of Ottoman domination in South-East Europe and the Balkans receded in time. Recipe collections and cookbooks largely addressed elite and middle-class consumers and remained out of reach for the majority population in the region’s rural areas.26 One small shift was noticeable in the greater number of women authors of cookery books.

23  For further information, see Özge Samancı’s contribution in this volume. 24  Tülay Artan, “Aspects of the Ottoman Elite’s Food Consumption: Looking for ‘staples,’ ‘luxuries,’ and ‘delicacies’ in a changing century,” in Consumption Studies and the History of the Ottoman Empire 1550–1922, ed. Donald Quataert (New York: 2000), 112, 114, 152, 165, 183, and 184. See also Özge Samanci’s chapter in the present volume. 25  Artan, “Aspects,” 152, 183, and 184. See also Özge Samanci’ chapter in this volume. 26   Ecaterina Steriady (Colonelu), Buna menajeră (Galaţi: 1871; repr. Bucharest 1874); Hr. L., Veliki srpski kuvar (Panchevo: 1878); Katarina Popović-Midžina, Veliki srpski kuvar (Novi Sad: 1878). It would appear that a similar process occurred in Greece. There, according to Anna Matthaiou, almost until the end of the 19th century, the European fashion in cookbooks prevailed and it was only towards the end of the period that some Ottoman dishes were appropriated, integrated and Hellenized. Anna Matthaiou, “Apo tis ‘koinotites tis omoiotitas’ sta fagita tis siopis,” Historica 56 (2012): 82. See also Anna Matthaiou “Brillat-Savarin kai to psari tou archinavarchou Kanari: Ta ellinika vivlia mageirikis tou 19ou aiona,” Historica 28–29 (1998): 109–22, as well as her contribution in this volume.

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The Emergence of the Sophisticated Bulgarian Female Cook in the longue durée

Until quite late in the period under consideration—certainly at least until the 1860s—Bulgarian mothers and grandmothers were not known to possess special culinary expertise and skills. Although it was essentially a female’s activity, cooking at home remained entrenched in tradition and routine and the range of meals was limited and often basic. Women were indeed the ones supposed to be ‘kneading and cooking’ both in the Muslim and in the Christian communities of the Ottoman Empire, but we lack detailed written evidence for the preparation of meals and the service at table in both rural and urban environments. When specific dishes appear in the written sources, they are usually associated with professional cooking and the food trade in large cities. The almost complete lack of more than ordinary cooking technologies among the Bulgarians is evidenced in the classic menu that Ottoman state officials usually ordered to be provided by local Christians. In the popular memory of earlier times, such provisions usually included roast fowl, loaves of bread, pitta, banica (dough rolled out in filo pastry and baked with a layer of cheese or fat on top), and fried eggs. The more sophisticated ingredients in the written sources are butter, honey and petmez (Tr. pekmez = grape molasses).27 In terms of cooking techniques the most widespread were boiling and stewing, followed by roasting. Frying was extremely rare in the period considered here.28 It is also noteworthy that the scholar Ami Boué (1794–1881), writing in the 1830s, did not single out Bulgarian women for any special culinary expertise.29 Apart from kneading bread, the rest of the cooking was left to experienced male cooks, especially when large numbers of diners had to be catered for.30 Nevertheless, the lack of even modest standards of culinary ‘know-how’ should not surprise. In rural areas, most kitchens were very poorly equipped. Often

27  Michai Grekov, Kak nie osvobozhdavahme Bŭlgaria, 2 vols., (Sofia: 1990), vol. 1, 144, 162, vol. 2, 411; Mincho Kŭnchev, Vidrica, 2nd. ed. (Sofia: 1985), 47, 69, 220–1, 317, 323, 355, and 544; Stoian Zaimov, Minaloto (Sofia: 1986), 195. For further details on the use of grape juice as sweetener in the early modern period, see Castilia Manea-Grgin’s chapter in the present volume. 28  Lilia Radeva, “Hrana i hranene,” in Pirinski krai, eds. Veselin Hadzhinikolov et al. (Sofia: 1980), 366. 29  Bistra Cvetkova (ed.), Frenski pŭtepisi za Balkanite (Sofia: 1981), 311. The richness of Ami Boué’s work as a source for food history is explored by Anna Matthaiou in her contribution to this volume. 30  Ilia Blŭskov, Spomeni (Sofia: 1975), 48.

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there was no separate room or space available for a kitchen.31 But even in towns, mothers and grandmothers who could cook well were rare. In a well-known travel writing by Ivan Bogorov,32 published in 1869, the modern housewife as a role model was conspicuously absent even in the more important towns, such as Rouse, Svishtov, Тŭrnovo, Haskovo, Stara Zagora and Sliven.33 The figure of the woman as good housewife and cook did not make an appearance even in the life narratives and memoirs by the first generation of educated Bulgarian girls who grew up in the 1850s and 1860s.34 The image of mothers and grandmothers who did not spent much time on kitchen or domestic chores was quite common in culinary and women’s literature. Such representations were still available in the ethnographic studies of rural communities in the late 20th century, which suggests that changes happened only very gradually, in the longue durée.35 In fact, until the 1850s and 1860s, the great majority of women, including urbanites, were not able to learn new culinary skills even through the available foreign culinary literature or from the relevant pages in the periodical press. Significantly, in his diary about the town of Gabrovo, the future man of letters and Bulgaria’s first Prime Minister, Todor Burmov (1834–1906), wrote: “There was not one single mother even among Gabrovo’s wealthy families, who could read and write in the years between 1860 and 1870.”36 This comment did not come as a surprise. Even the census of 1880, the first in modern Bulgaria, was quite telling. The number of literate women in towns was barely 2 per cent and in the villages only 0.1 per cent.37 Perhaps this was the impetus needed for the start of a ‘social construction’ of the modern Bulgarian housewife via processes of adaptation of foreign models to local conditions. Foreign ­influences—German, Austrian, Hungarian, Czech, Italian, Serbian, Romanian and others—played a significant role. Often, it was women from some of these foreign nations who served as templates for the new accomplished housewives

31  Nikolai Zhechev (ed.), Avtobiografii na At. Ivanov, Il. R. Blŭskov, J. Nenov (Sofia: 1979), 51–2. 32  Ivan Bogorov (1818–1892), Bulgarian man of letters, had a degree in chemistry from Leipzig University (1845–47) and obtained a degree in medicine in Paris (1855–58). 33  Svetla Giurova (ed.), Vŭzrozhdenski pŭtepisi (Sofia: 1969), 119, 120, 123–4, 128, 132, 140–1, 148, 153. 34  Rada Kirkovich, Spomeni (Sofia: 1927) 3–5. 35  Rumiana Urumova, “Hrana i hranene,” in Strandzha, ed. Siranush Taneiljan (Sofia: 1996), 214. 36  Todor Burmov, Dnevnik: Spomenite mi (Sofia: 1994), 89. 37  Georgi Danailov, Izsledvania vŭrhu demografiata na Bŭlgaria (Sofia: 1931), 78.

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and cooks.38 On the rare occasions when Bulgarian women themselves stood out for their domestic skills, they were usually urbanites or village women who acquired skills from their male kin returning from seasonal work abroad. Some of them had contacts with the urban markets, had lived in Istanbul—with or without their male kin—or had acquired some expertise from Ottoman Turkish and Greek culinary sources,39 notably in the areas of dessert-making and the use of more nutritious ingredients.40 Such cases were rare, however, as illustrated by the observations of Michail Grekov (1847–1922), an ethnic Bulgarian who returned from Romanian Bessarabia in the early 1870s. Writing about the Bulgarian town Sliven, he commented: “In S. Raynov’s house we were well fed, but because the Bulgarian cuisine was too poor, they soon refused to cook for us because there was nothing left to cook […]”41

From the First to the Second Bulgarian Cookbook

In this context, the two aforementioned cookbooks by Petko. R. Slaveikov (1870) and Dimitri Smrikarov (1874) were important sources of culinary knowledge in the process of educating the new Bulgarian housewives. As in other parts of Europe, the demands of a burgeoning urban middle class in the Ottoman Empire eventually brought the proliferation of cookbooks, which played an important role in the diffusion of foreign dishes and new ways of cooking. Usually, such books in Europe reflected both the high culinary aspirations of the populations and the actual foodways of specific communities.42 As far as the Ottoman case is concerned, most of the 19th-century cookbooks reflected court or urban elite cooking practices.43 The above-mentioned cookbook by Petko Slaveikov (1870), the first of its kind in Bulgarian, was in a large measure no exception. As reflected in its subtitle, “As they Prepare them in Istanbul,” it details the culinary practices of the Ottoman capital in the early second half of the 19th century.44 Slaveikov’s 38  Giurova (ed.), Vŭzrozhdenski, 142, 154, 343; Nikola Vankov, “Materiali po uchebnoto delo v Bŭlgaria,” Uchilishten pregled 7 (1903): 790. 39  Tcani Ginchev, Izbrani proizvedeniia, vol. 1 (Sofia: 1986), 233; vol. 2, 38; Blŭskov, Spomeni, 1976, 104; Zaimov, Minaloto, 381, 515; Grekov, Kak nie, vol. 1, 482. 40  Vankov, “Materiali,” 790. 41  Grekov, Kak nie, vol. 1, 487. 42  Мennell, All Manners, 65. 43  Artan, “Aspects,” 152. 44  On the cuisine of Istanbul in the 19th century, see further details in Özge Samancı’s contribution in this volume.

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recipes include: chorba (Tr. çorba = soup), kebap (Tr. kebab = roast meat), kiulbastia (Tr. külbastı = roast filleted meat, usually chicken, lamb, veal, beef or fish, after that braised with union, garlic and different spices), kazŭrtma (Tr. kizartma = a type of stewed meat), different types of yahnia (Tr. yahni = stew), dolma (stuffed peppers and vegetables), pilav (pilau), hoshaf (Tr. hoşaf = stewed dried fruit), burek (cheese pasty, from Tr. börek = pastry), rahat lokum (Turkish delight), baklava, kadayıf (Turkish syrup-soaked shredded sweet pastry), and helva (a sweet, generally made of sesame seeds, sugar and nuts). These terms were very specific to the Ottoman context. Slaveikov’s book was an attempt to popularize among the Bulgarian reading urban public dishes that were typical for the Ottoman capital in the 1850s and 1860s. The name ‘Istanbul’ was placed in the title to make the book more marketable among the Bulgarians despite the fact that there were some non-Ottoman data, especially on the consumption, processing and conservation of pork. There were other Turkish terms in the book, which over time became unfamiliar to the broader public. This explains why, when the first post-communist edition of this work appeared in 1991, it included the translations of some Turkish entries into Bulgarian and a new special glossary for Turkish borrowings, as well as for archaisms and dialect. In 1992, the translations were further expanded because many readers had difficulties understanding the numerous Turkish words.45 Despite the fact that he was a famous Bulgarian patriot, Petko Slaveikov made no attempt at defining a specifically ‘Bulgarian national cuisine’ or even at including ‘national dishes’ in his cookbook. Although his interests in gathering folklore are well known, he made no effort to familiarize his readers with traditional dishes prepared by the ‘Bulgarian’ mothers and grandmothers of the capital. In fact, his goal was quite the opposite: he tried to popularize more modern and ‘professional’ ways of cooking, fashionable in the Ottoman capital and in other parts of Europe. The book contained, for example, practical ‘supplements,’ including varieties of what are now defined as ‘national’, ‘popular’, or ‘Bulgarian’ dishes or ingredients, such as slanina (pork fat, rendered lard).46 These preparations, however, were based on the more sophisticated and modern professional pork conservation practices from elsewhere in Europe.47 The same professional skills were important as far as certain dairy products 45  See Slaveikov, Gotvarska, 1991; Slaveikov, Gotvarska, 1992. 46  For the importance and barter value of lard (Rom. slănină) in the alimentation of oldregime Romania, see Maria Magdalena Székely’s chapter in the present volume. 47  It is very telling that in a book published in 1939, in a section on “the centenarian tradition of our people” of slaughtering a pig for Christmas, the author notes that “rarely can one find households where they know how to cut or cure a pig in the right manner

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were concerned. There were special recipes for kiselo mliako (yogurt),48 and for a delicacy called siuzma (Tr. süzma, which was yogurt-based),49 but the book contained no recipes, for example, for the more popular and ubiquitous sirene, called there “home-made cheese” or “ordinary rural cheese.” Significantly, when the book does mention more typical dishes consumed by the Bulgarian population, they are described as dishes available “at home” (po nas or u nas) but not as ‘Bulgarian.’50 The second cookbook in Bulgarian which concerns us here was published in 1874 in Belgrade. It was entitled Additions to the Golden Source because it appeared as a follow-up of a popular book on household management published—also in Belgrade, in 1870—under the title A Golden Source. The volume of 1870 was definitely a part of a growing trend in the literature on household management which was oriented towards the development of a modern household and culinary culture. The original had been published in English some decades earlier, followed by a translation into German the following year. In 1833—based on the German edition—a translation was published in Serbian.51 This edition later became the basis for the Bulgarian-language edition of 1870.52 However, as we will see, it did not influence the later cookbook in any way. A note at the back of the 1870 volume announced that another book in Bulgarian was forthcoming, with guidance for cooking and many practical recipes. Smrikarov himself published a preliminary, detailed outline of the future book, starting with hams and finishing with sherdens (stuffed abomasum, i.e. stuffed sheep’s stomach).53 According to his note, the future book was to be the result of more than thirty years of gatherings and experience in household and cooking.54 In 1874, the promised cookbook appeared under the somewhat cumbersome title Additions to the Golden Source or different and preserve it for a longer time.” See Stefan Zikhirev, Zaklanoto prase: Kak da izpolzvame mesoto mu i predpazim ot zarazi (Plovdiv, 1939), 5. 48  Slaveikov, Gotvarska kniga, 1870, 128–9. 49  Ibid., 129–30. 50  Ibid., 29, 111. 51  The original Serbian title was: Zlatnii izvor domostroitelstva ili londonski familiarni recepti i novoizobreteni taine prirode (Belgrade: 1833) The translator explained the aim of the book as coming to the assistance of “poor households amongst our people,” Zlatnii izvor zaradi domashno urezhdanie ili londonski domochadni potrebi i novoiznajdeni tajni na estestvoto (Bulgarian-language edition, Belgrade: 1870), vi. 52  Manio Stoianov, Bŭlgarska vŭzrozhdenska knizhnina (Sofia: 1957), 222. 53   Zlatnii izvor, 113–126. 54  Ibid., 111.

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economic, didactic and very useful instructions for housekeeping, cooking, and medicine. Issued as an original book with labour and expenses by Dimitrij h. Joanov Smrikarov—from Samokov. First edition. Part two. Belgrade: Governmental printing-house, 1874.55 The new cookbook was different from the first one in other ways. To a certain extent, this was due to the many obvious Serbian borrowings and translations as well as to the mixed life experiences of the publisher. Dimitri Smrikarov, also known as Dimitŭr h. Yoanich Smrikar (1810–1876), was born in the town of Samokov. He spent some time as a novice at Rila Monastery. In the 1820s he studied in Gabrovo and in 1827 he became a pupil of the famous man of letters Neofit Rilski (1793–1881) in his native town of Samokov. In 1831 he married, and, for a certain period, helped his father in the family business. Later, the young Smrikarov opened his own shop, buying animal fat from the region of Trŭn and selling it across the Ottoman Empire. From 1837 onwards Smrikarov dealt with braiding and trade. In 1840 he moved to Sarajevo and in the next ten years he travelled between the Bosnian town and the capital of Istanbul for his commercial interests. From 1850 to 1857 he settled in Istanbul for a continuous period. After 1857, Smrikarov lived in the town of Dupnitsa for a few years, where he managed an inn belonging to the Rila Monastery. After 1865 he moved back to the Ottoman capital, where he spent the last years of his life until his death in 1876.56 There were some similarities between Slaveikov’s book and Smrikarov’s in terms of the shared Ottoman Turkish culinary style and the Eastern context of the meals. Smrikarov’s collection had additional instructions for the cooking and conservation of pork and for producing good-quality wine, which were evidently coming from non-Muslim sources. A closer look at various recipes in the book demonstrates how Smrikarov’s stay in a Bosnian culinary environment in Sarajevo also left its traces. Some recipes using pork are evidence of Serbian influence, but there are recipes which stem from a Bosnian Muslim tradition. Moreover, Smrikarov had spent quite a long time in the Ottoman capital. This, together with Slaveikov’s influence, suggests that he was familiar with the culinary practices of Istanbul. Furthermore, between the capital of the empire and the town of Sarajevo there were permanent culinary exchanges due to the common Muslim traditions as well as to the appointment of state officials from the central power. It is obvious that both Slaveikov and Smrikarov regarded their own activity as an attempt to popularize a more professional and sophisticated way 55  Dimitri Smrikarov-Samokovec, Dodatŭtsi na Zlatnia izvor (Belgrade: 1874). 56  Semerdzhiev, Samokov, 87–9.

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of cooking, to diversify menus, to introduce modern knowledge and science in the kitchen as well as to educate modern housewives. Their fusion of expertise and traditions from more advanced cuisines were meant to serve this overall goal.

“A Golden Source for Modern Housewives”

Smrikarov’s rather rambling collection of foodstuffs and recipes includes: meats such as slanina (pork fat, lard), pastŭrma (Tr. pastırma = dried beef), lukanka (flat sausage with chopped pork and beef); sweets, such as kadın gyubek and kadayıf, and dairy-based dishes like kurtmach or kurkmach (boiled milk condensed with flour, to which pieces of cheese were added), tаrator (a drink made with water, crushed garlic, oil, vinegar and crushed walnuts). It also includes Ottoman dishes like akŭtma (Tr. akitma = a kind of pancake made by mixing eggs, salt, flour, and milk, and served rolled with a filling of jam), chomlek (Tr. çömlek = stewed meat, usually lamb or mutton), pacha (Tr. paça = jelly from the trotters of sheep, pigs or bovines), tarkhana (Tr. tarhana: spiced dough from pure flour with yeast, let to rise in the sun, to be served with soups or other dishes), zelnik (cabbage pastry); meatless and meat-based sarma (stuffed vegetables); birek or burek (Tr. börek = pasty made of rolled out sheets of dough stuffed with meat or jelly), gevrek (sesame ring), and tikvenik (pumpkin pastry). This culinary range is an interesting mélange of dishes from Istanbul and Sarajevo (and regions in between), which can be variously defined as ‘Ottoman’ or ‘Balkan.’ The use of pork was common to the region as a whole, including Serbia, Croatia, Vojvodina, Banat and even Hungary.57 As reflected in this cookbook, the range of food in the Ottoman Balkans was as culturally complex as its population. Smrikarov placed special emphasis on the preparation of desserts. People were urged to use more and more sugar and starch, as well as to prepare Oriental-style confectionery products professionally. Many dessert recipes in the collection are based on fruit: cherries, currants, raspberries, quinces, roses, lemons and oranges.58 There were also instructions on how to make 57  Historically, the Bulgarians have tended to eat less pork than people in neighbouring countries such as Serbia and Romania, and as a result both were more advanced in its preparation and conservation. Khristo Tachev, Svinevŭdstvo (Sofia: 1903), 10. Tachev was more emphatic in his judgment: “All our neighbours: Serbs, Romanians, Hungarians, etc., have 3 to 4 times more pigs than us.” Tachev, Svinevŭdstvo, 9. 58  Smrikarov, Dodatŭtsii, 41–3.

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“syrups from raspberries, currants, cherries, strawberries, lemons etc.”,59 and treacle from squashes or quinces.60 Ottoman Turkish sweets were not forgotten. Apart from several recipes for petmez (Tr. pekmez: grape molasses),61 one could come across rahat lokum,62 kadın göbeği and tel kadayif,63 ekmek kadayif,64 malebie,65 mafish.66 sutljash (rice milk),67 and two recipes for halva (Tr. helva): “How to make halva with honey and sugar” and “halva from rice.”68 The collection includes several recipes for simple, supposedly native meals. However, in such cases, the author recommended the use of more elaborate, professional techniques for obtaining a better-quality product. This was the case of recipes such as, for example, lean and greasy tarkhana, zelnik, several types of tikveniks (pumpkin pies),69 as well as varieties of banitsa, which normally was cheese pastry, but it could be re-invented as meat pastry. Here are some examples: “banitsa made with several sheets of pastry and cheese,” “round banitsa,” “banitsa with chicken,” “swirled banitsa.”70 Such dishes were quite elaborate for ordinary people to prepare in their own kitchens. There were other, equally complex, instructions on “How to knead pumpkin pie,” how to make “Better pumpkin pie only with butter”, how to fry “tiganici” in a pan, or make tiganici with black and red caviar, as well as tutmanik (a kind of cheese-cake).71 Tarhana, originally a Turkish liaison agent of soup made of dried curs and flour, was also subject to innovation in Smrikarov’s collection. He gave instructions, for instance, on “How to knead meatless tarkhana,” and “How to knead fat tarkhana”.72 It is interesting to note that Smrikarov’s recipe for “Lenten sop” (Bg. popara = sop made with boiled water or milk with morsels of bread, 59  Ibid., 47, 63. 60  Ibid, 119–20. 61  Ibid, 32–3. 62  Ibid, 136. 63  Ibid, 85. 64  Ibid, 86. 65  Ibid, 96. 66  Ibid, 97. 67  Ibid, 120. 68  Ibid, 128. For futher details on Ottoman sweets such as kadayif and helva, see Özge Samancı’s chapter in the present volume. For their preparation in the Transylvanian cuisine, see Margareta Aslan’s contribution. 69  Ibid, 124, 80–1, 52, and 122. 70  Ibid, 73–4. 71  Ibid, 122–3, 125. 72  Ibid, 124.

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to which could be added cheese, fat or tarkhana) contained many ingredients which were out of the reach of ordinary men and women in their kitchens, especially in rural environments: olives, sesame oil, walnut oil (sharlagan), ground and baked sesame seeds, walnuts, chick-peas, and even almonds.73 The cookbook also encouraged the use of noodles (Gr. fidés) from the market as liaison for çorba,74 although a recipe for “homemade noodles” was also included.75 Even the humble beans destined to become the favoured ingredient for the ‘democratic’, ‘national’ dishes of the future—were subjected to a more elaborate treatment using flour-based thickening, red peppers, and tomatoes.76 The fact that this collection was meant for a higher, urban and professional cuisine for the regions lying between Istanbul and Sarajevo, is illustrated by recommendations for subtler treatments targeting not only native dishes, but also those introduced from the Ottoman cuisine. One came across, for example, recipes for “meat-less sarma” or “greasy sarma with chopped meat.”77 Improvements and enhancements were also recommended for börek (pastry) with meat and jelly, “banitsa with chicken,” as well as for the “simple gevreks.”78 The same trend for popularizing the high end of the urban and professional cuisine of the Ottoman Empire and the East is discernible in recipes for “akŭtma” (Tr. akitma)79 “chomlek”80 “kebapi papas jahnia” (potted kebab monk’s stew),”81 and “sarma with liver.”82 The book also popularized innovations on ways of preparing Ottoman meals such as kiufteta (Tr. köfte = meat-ball),83 kebaps (including tas-kebap),84 “kiulbastia, barzola (a dish made,

73  Ibid, 137. 74  Ibid, 127. 75  Ibid, 87. 76  Ibid, 104, 149, 150. 77  Ibid, 121. 78  Ibid., 72, 73, 77. 79  Ibid, 71. 80  Ibid, 129. 81  Ibid, 129. 82  Ibid, 120. The above-mentioned Serbian book by Katarina Popović-Midžina entitled Veliki srpski kuvar, includes recipes for “stuffed green peppers” and “sarma with lamb’s liver.” Popović-Midžina, Velikisrpski kuvar, 60, 62. 83  Smrikarov, Dodatŭtsi, 87–88. 84  Ibid, 90–1, 142.

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according to this recipe, with filleted roast meat, similar to steak),85 and kazŭrtma (Tr. kızartma).86 There were several other innovative aspects about Smrikarov’s guidelines for modernizing the South-East European cuisine, notably in the area of food preservation, in which the availability of up-to-date technology was crucial. There were special recipes for delicacies which could not be made at home, such as: “[l]ukanki with mixed pork and beef meat,” “[l]ukanki—the other way,” “[s]ujuci—good and cost-effective,”87 “[g]reasy pastŭrma” (made in this case with a mix of cow and ox meat),88 “[b]rine for cheese, olives, pastarma etc.,”89 “pork hams,”90 “salted bacon to last 2–3 years,”91 “[s]ŭzdŭrma for winter” (Tr. sizdirma = corned meat with different variants, including fat beef, mutton, and goat).92 The book comprised a number of recipes for some unusual urban delicacies with guidelines on how “to salt beef and buffalo tongues,”93 how to prepare “buffalo, beef and every kind of tongue,”94 how “to cook tongue—another way.”95 It also tried to encourage the cooking of edible offal: kidneys, liver, heart,96 tongue, milt, dug,97 brain,98 “offal from sheep,”99 “paça from legs of beef, mutton, goat, pork, etc.,”100 “belly and tripe,”101 and “pig’s head, whole.”102 Another usage which Smrikarov tried to popularize was a recipe for “French eggplant (tomato)”—puréed into a paste and preserved in glass bottles (Tr. şişe)103—a practice which was still highly unusual at the time. This went 85  Ibid, 91. 86  Ibid, 104. 87  Ibid, 23–4. 88  Ibid, 25. 89  Ibid, 38. 90  Ibid, 39. 91  Ibid, 45. 92  Ibid, 61–2. 93  Ibid, 25. 94  Ibid, 131. 95  Ibid, 132. 96  Ibid, 75. 97  Ibid, 77–9. ‘Dug’ designates the pap or udder of female mammalia. See entry in The Oxford English Dictionary (2017). 98  Ibid, 99. 99  Ibid, 144. 100  Ibid, 106–7. 101  Ibid, 136. 102  Ibid, 145. 103  Ibid, 69.

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hand in hand with the author’s attempt to popularize the latest French and Italian trend for using tomatoes and tomato paste to season or thicken dishes and soups.104 The book also tried to popularize new ways of making pickled vegetables.105 Special emphasis was placed on less well-known usages of beef and fish in the kitchen. For example, instructions for cooking beef went under the heading: “[o]x and what to make with it after slaughter.”106 They included detailed descriptions on how to prepare ox for stews, soups, kavŭrma (Tr. kavurma), sŭzdŭrma (Tr. sizdirma), and pilaf (Tr. pilâv)107 A great variety of recipes teach the potential reader “[h]ow to cook fresh fish,” how to prepare “[m]eatballs from fish,” and “[w]hat to make from fish eel,” or shellfish.108 There were recipes for cooking sturgeon, carp, tuna, bonitos, dried mackerel, pickerel,109 as well as crabs, oysters, octopus110 and “small fresh sardines (not salted).”111 One of the distinctive features of the book is the recommendation to make a thickening brown sauce using butter, lard (or olive oil),112 and bone marrow (Tr. čerbiş, červiş). At that time, as well as in later decades, the great majority of the Bulgarian population would have added the fat in the last stages of cooking. Using a thickening agent made of fat, onions, red peppers and flour was not yet routine practice,113 and this is an area where Smrikarov’s book made a lasting impact. Apart from new techniques for frying, the cookbook also popularized the preparation of stuffed meat and fowl with recipes for “[s]tuffed grilled turkey,”114 “stuffed [s]uckling pig,”115 “grilled [l]amb” (stuffed with its own offal and rice),116 and guidelines on “[h]ow to fill different types of fish,”117 “[h]ow to 104  David Gentilcore, Pomodoro! A History of the Tomato in Italy (New York: 2010), 89–90, 96–7. 105  Smrikarov, Dodatŭtsci, 92–5. 106  Ibid, 77–8. 107  Ibid, 77–8, 112. 108  Ibid, 115. 109  Ibid, 116–8. 110  Ibid, 139–40. 111  Ibid, 143. 112  On the ways in which olive oil was marginalized in the Ottoman cuisine until almost the beginning of the 20th century, see Hedda Reindl-Kiel’s contribution in this volume. 113  Radeva, “Hrana” (Plovidiski), 178. 114  Smrikarov, Dodatŭtsci, 97. 115  Ibid, 108. 116  Ibid, 134. 117  Ibid, 116.

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fill carp with mincemeat,”118 how to prepare “[s]tuffed mackerels,” etc.119 The cookbook also encouraged the use of novelty ingredients such as tomatoes,120 potatoes,121 okra,122 string beans,123 and home-made yufki (Tr. yufka), a type of filo pastry.124 It is worth noting that many of the recipes in the collection depended on the availability of bakeries, so were most probably addressed to urbanites who were within reasonable distance to them. Also important was the ready availability of a town market, where items such as sugar, cinnamon, allspice, vanilla, starch, black pepper, olive oil, lemons, walnuts, almonds, artichokes, pasta, peanuts, laurel, and ground sesame-seed, as well as kitchen pots and utensils could be purchased.

The ‘National’ Dishes of the Future

While cookbooks from this period did not primarily promote a “Bulgarian national cuisine,” they contained a sense of a national mission. The explicit goal of Smrikarov’s book was to assist in the shaping of modern households through a modern culinary culture. He considered the achievement of this goal as a patriotic task, as expressed in the book’s inscription: “To our dear mother Bulgaria, to her industrious sons.” In this respect, he looked to his undertaking as a patriotic activity which mixed a modernizing impulse with a compatible contribution to the nation-building process.125 His patriotism did not see a contradiction between modern culinary expertise, technologies and novelty ingredients on the one hand, and the legacy of Ottoman practices from places which he called “our lands” and “our places”, i.e. Serbia, Vojvodina, Bosnia, and Istanbul, on the other. These borrowings from different culinary pools were later to be subsumed to the common label ‘Balkan cuisine’ as a ‘melting pot’ of

118  Ibid, 142. 119  Ibid, 166. 120  Ibid, 69, 111. 121  Ibid, 147. 122  Ibid, 75. 123  Ibid, 84. 124  Ibid, 86–7. For the various uses of yufka in the Transylvanian cuisine see Margareta Aslan’s chapter in this volume. 125  In the middle of the 1850s the Serbian friar Jerotei Draganović also presented his activities as stemming from a wish to illuminate the Serbian society and to be useful to his “Dear Kin”. Draganović, Srbski kuvar, 1855, 4.

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traditions in the region.126 At the end of his first book on household management of 1870, as he announces the contents of the future cookbook, Smrikarov notes that some of the dishes were “cooked in our areas in Bulgaria.”127 While Smrikarov did not make any claims for a fully-fledged ‘Bulgarian national cuisine,’ the book nevertheless made a contribution to the creation of ‘Bulgarian dishes’ as a first step towards a ‘Bulgarian cuisine.’ On the one hand, this was possible with the integration of meals with pork, visibly borrowed from practices in Serbia and Vojvodina in Austro-Hungary. On the other, the creation of a national culinary tradition was achieved through the popularization of a professional Ottoman and Oriental haute cuisine, as practised in the large urban centres of the Empire.128 It is also worth mentioning that Additions to the Golden Source was the first cookbook published in Bulgarian which showcased what today are considered as typical, symbolic ‘Bulgarian national dishes’: “[c]homlek kebapi papas iahnia”129 “[s]arma with liver,”130 and tikveniks.131 There is another important way in which the book made a contribution to the emergence of a ‘Bulgarian national cuisine.’ This was the early popularization of classic dairy delicacies, which at that time were not perceived or presented as ‘Bulgarian.’ The book presented for the first time Bulgarian recipes for “katŭk made from kurtmach and fresh cheese”132 (Tr. katik = small portion of cheese, fat, jam, and especially yoghurt added to the bread), “kurtmach (hadeta),”133 “[t]arator with garlic and vinegar,”134 and “[c]heese in skin-bags—the way to preserve it.”135 To this can be added the showcasing of simple, everyday dishes such as “zelnik,”136 (cabbage pasty), “pickled cabbage in brine for the winter,”137 and others.

126  For the notion of a ‘Balkan cuisine’ see the “Introduction” to the present volume by Angela Jianu and Violeta Barbu. 127   Zlatnii izvor, 119. 128  See, for instance, the recipes for “meat-less sarma” or “greasy sarma with mincemeat.” Smrikarov, Dodatŭtsci, 121. 129  Ibid, 129. 130  Ibid, 120. 131  Ibid, 122. 132  Ibid, 18–9. 133  Ibid, 32. 134  Ibid, 126. 135  Ibid, 60. 136  Ibid, 80–1. 137  Ibid, 52.

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Last, but not least, what today is regarded as the cult Ottoman borrowing in the Bulgarian cuisine—the akŭtma138—was also first popularized in Smrikarov’s book. Akŭtma (or akitma) had been the result of a culinary experiment and had appeared in the elite Ottoman Turkish cuisine about two centuries earlier.139 The inclusion of the dish in Smrikarov’s collection can be regarded as the beginning of its journey towards its ultimate conversion into a ‘Bulgarian national dish.’ There had been an earlier instance of the preparation of kŭtma in 1827 for guests in the village of Beeni or Banevo, in the region of Burgas. On that occasion, the housewife had used mixture of water, flour and eggs, as noted by the English traveller Robert Walsh, who witnessed the preparation.140 The same traveller noted that kŭtmi were also served at table during his stay in the village of Lopushna, around Varna.141 The text does not say whether it was an ethnic Bulgarian or a Turkish home, although it was clearly an affluent one. The Turkish historian Tülay Artan has established that “akatma” (katma, akatma, kitma, akitma) was prepared at the Ottoman court in the 18th century.142 Exactly one hundred years after the appearance of the “akŭtma” in Smrikarov’s cookbook, one can read the following in a study by the Bulgarian ethnographer Hristo Vakarelski (1896–1979): “There are other bakery products, which serve as an addition to bread. These are called katmite (akatmite) in Eastern Bulgaria and are made with rare wheat porridge, poured over a hot stone or metal plate (sach, Tr. saç) greased with fat or butter. In the Rhodope mountains there are typical pancakes made of baked leavened dough, called marudnici (sing. marudnik), also baked on stone or metal plates, with the fat poured over them at the end of baking.”143 The ethnographer Lilia Radeva later confirmed Vakarelski’s observations in the second volume of the Ethnography of Bulgaria (1983), where she spoke of the kŭtmi (in the regions of Plovdiv, Kŭrdjali, and Dobrudja) and marudnici (Rhodope mountains) cooked on stone or sach.144 Most ethnographic descriptions of different regions of contemporary Bulgaria include references to such iconic food items of ‘Bulgarian popular culture’ as kŭtmi (Tr. akitma), marudnici, gjuzlemi (Tr. güzleme), jufki (Tr. yufka), peturki (Gr. petoura), trakhana (Tr. tarhana), usually listed one after another in 138  Ibid, 71. 139  Artan, “Aspects,” 165. 140  Maria Todorova, Angliiski pŭtepisi za Balkanite (Sofia: 1987), 635. 141  Todorova, Angliiski, 639–40. 142  Artan, “Aspects,” 165. 143  Hristo Vakarelski, Etnografia na Bŭlgaria (Sofia: 1977), 183. 144  Stoian Gentchev et al. (eds.), Etnografia na Bŭlgaria, vol. 2 (Sofia: 1983), 292.

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the same column.145 These dishes came from the Ottoman cuisine of the elites and only trickled down into popular, everyday cuisine in the so-called ‘ethnographic period’ which, in Bulgaria’s case, is situated between the 1850s and the 1930s. Conclusions The importance of Smrikarov’s book in the history of Bulgarian urban culinary practices and cuisine has been underestimated. But what conclusions can we draw if we look comparatively at similar publications in neighbouring countries? Most South-East European cookbooks are rather rambling and lack an organizing principle. The authors were male and, like Smrikarov, regarded their endeavours as patriotic acts meant to contribute to the nation-building process. Smrikarov, in addition, was a merchant, and, like most other merchants, had a key role in disseminating gastronomic trends, knowledge of new ingredients and culinary expertise. As a merchant, he also contributed to the dissemination of new culinary trends in the Ottoman Empire and across political borders.146 This study has also demonstrated the considerable intellectual and social role of cookbooks in the creation of a modern urban culture among Bulgarians. It has also uncovered some of the shifts in cuisine, eating patterns, practices and tastes in Bulgaria, although, admittedly, such shifts only affected a small number of Bulgarian urban households. The target audience was urban, literate and affluent, with easy access to markets. Despite recommendations of thriftiness and economy often made in the books, many ingredients were costly, and thus the meals were not easy to produce by the ordinary housewife. Because of the specific structure of the Bulgarian society (with a modest urban middle class of shopkeepers and artisans, and a rural majority) and of the strong Ottoman impact on lifestyles, the Oriental flavour of dishes prevailed as late as the 1870s. Smrikarov’s book shows no resistance to Ottoman food, as demonstrated by the significant degree of adaptation of Ottoman recipes. It would appear that he considered the Ottoman style of cooking as an inseparable part of modernity, rather than as a backward-looking tradition.147 145  Radeva, “Hrana” (Plovdivski), 172. 146  On the economic and social roles of merchants in the period, see the “Introduction” by Angela Jianu and Violeta Barbu and the chapter by George Lazăr in the present volume. 147  In her contribution to the present volume, Özge Samancı outlines the reverse process, whereby the cuisine of the elites in 19th-century Istanbul gradually left tradition behind

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In addition to Bulgaria, such an openness to the Ottoman style of cooking could only work in non-Ottoman areas of South-East Europe, such as Serbia and Habsburg Vojvodina, where pork was consumed. In many of these areas there were also a number of other culinary options between the resistance to and incorporation of the Ottoman tradition, as outlined in the “Introduction” to the present volume. Smrikarov’s cookbook is, to a great extent, a ‘multi-cultural’ compendium of cooking techniques and styles. As a work with an intended audience of Christian readers in an Ottoman context, it outlines a cuisine which differs occasionally from that of Serbia, Romania, and Habsburg Transylvania and Croatia. In many respects this cuisine is closer to the areas surrounding Istanbul. However, the adaptation of recipes made the book more acceptable to the ‘pork-eating,’ ‘modern’ Habsburg areas and the neighbouring Serbia and Vojvodina. The Bulgarians started their own journey to modernity with borrowings from both culinary traditions. Many dishes presented in the book were sophisticated and rich, still bearing an Eastern or Ottoman imprint. The cuisine lacked the more pronounced French, German or Italian influences one could detect in Serbian, Romanian or Greek cookbooks. In the Ottoman Empire itself around this period, the menus at official banquets were written simultaneously in French and Turkish, and the dishes on offer followed French recipes and used the new French language of gastronomy.148 But it would appear that until the 1870s, this practice was restricted to elite circles.149 The very last recipe listed in Smrikarov’s book is, tellingly, one for a so-called “Shtrudli-burek,”150 the name of which combines an Austrian and a Turkish term, but one which is slightly misleading. In Bulgaria the influence on desserts came largely from Istanbul, Sarajevo, Belgrade or Novi Sad, and Viennese pastries were marginal. In spite of the more pronounced ‘Oriental’ flavour, Smrikarov’s book shared with Slaveikov’s volume and with the other cookbooks in the region an impulse towards the modernization of cuisine through the use of greater varieties of meat and seasoning, the promotion of frying and the abundant use of butter, and embraced Western culinary styles in what was seen as a ‘forward-looking’ cultural shift. 148  Özge Samancı, “Pilaf and Bouchées: The modernization of official banquets at the Ottoman Palace in the nineteenth century”, in Royal Taste: Food, power and status at the European courts after 1789, ed. Daniëlle De Vooght (Aldershot: 2011), 112. 149  Artan, “Aspects,” 152. 150  Smrikarov, Dodatŭtsci, 212.

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sugar and eggs in making desserts. Like Slaveikov, Smrikarov promoted dishes which were ultimately at odds with the culinary practices of most Bulgarians. When a note on Slaveikov’s book appeared in the pages of Svoboda (Liberty), the newspaper of the Bulgarian revolutionary diaspora in Romania, the journalist and politician Liuben Karavelov (1834–1879) wrote ironically about its contribution to a ‘civilizing process’ meant to create modern Bulgarians. “From this day onwards,” he wrote, “the Bulgarians will not eat kachamak, millet-cake, onions, and leeks with salt and parsley anymore; instead, they will eat dishes as they prepare them in Istanbul. Happy Bulgarians! If you cannot catch up with other nations in other ways, at least you should learn how to eat better, because History will not wait.”151 To a certain extent, it would appear that Smrikarov’s book came too early. The next cookbook was not to be published before 1891 and presented a much more complex combination of ‘European’ and ‘Oriental’ dishes. Yet, one should give the collection its due and recognize that it contributed to the elevation and modernization of the cuisine of a tiny minority of Bulgarians, while also promoting a fusion of ‘Oriental’ high cuisine with the ‘national dishes’ of the future. Bibliography Published Primary Sources Anon., I mageirike: Anonyme metafrase tou 1828 [A cookbook: an anonymous translation from 1828], ed. Anna Matthaiou (2nd ed., Athens: 1992) (first published as Hī mageirikī,́ metafrastheîsa e̓k toû i̓talikoû, 1828). Burmov, Todor, Dnevnik: Spomenite mi [A diary: my memoirs] (Sofia: 1994). Blŭskov, Ilia, Spomeni [My memoirs] (Sofia: 1975). Draganovich, Jerotei, Srpski kuvar (po nemachkomu cochbuchu) [A Serbian cookbook based on a German Kochbuch)] (Novi Sad: 1855; repr. Belgrade: 1865). Drăghici, Manolache, Reţete cercate în număr de 500 în bucătăria cea mare [500 tested food recipes for haute cuisine] (Iaşi, 1846). Ginchev, Tsani, Izbrani proizvedeniia [Selected works], 2 vols. (Sofia: 1986). Hranislav, Gavril, Povarna kniga po nemeckom kochbuchu [Cookbook based on a German Kochbuch] (Buda: 1805). Karavelov, Ljuben, Knizhevni izvestia [Literary news], Svoboda 11 (13 March 1871): 86. Kirkovich, Rada, Spomeni [Memoirs] (Sofia: 1927). L., Hr., Veliki srpski kuvar [The big Serbian cookbook] (Panchevo: 1878). 151  Ljuben Karavelov. “Knizhevni izvestia,” Svoboda 11 (13 March 1871): 86.

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Maurer, Maria, Carte de bucate: 190 de reţete alese şi încercate de o prietenǎ a tuturor femeilor celor casnice [A cookbook: 190 selected and tested recipes by a friend to all housewives] (Bucharest: 1849). N[egruzzi] K[ostake] and K[ogălniceanu] M[ichail], 200 reţete cerkate de bukate [Two hundred tested food recipes] (Iаşi: 1841; repr. 1842, 1846). Popovič Midžina, Katarina, Veliki srpski kuvar [The big Serbian cookbook] (Novi Sad: 1878). Slaveikov, Petko, Gotvarska kniga ili nastavlenia za vsiakakvi gostbi spored kakto gi praviat v Tsarigrad i razni domashni spravi: sŭbrani ot razni knigi [A cookbook or directions for all kinds of dishes as they prepare them in Istanbul] (Istanbul: 1870; repr. Shumen: 1991; Varna: 1992; Sofia: 2001). Slaveikov, Petko, Gotvarski recepti [Cookbook recipes] (Shumen: 1994). Steriady (Colonelu) Ecaterina, Buna menajerǎ [The good housewife] (Galaţi: 1871; repr. 1874). Smrikarov-Samokovec, Dimitri h. Jonov, Dodatŭtsci na zlatnia izvor [Additions to the Golden Source] (Belgrade: 1874). Zlatnii izvor domostroitelstva ili londonski familiarni recepti i novoizobreteni taine prirode [The Golden Source for house-keeping, or familiar recipes from London and newly discovered secrets of nature] (Belgrade: 1833). Zlatnii izvor zaradi domashno urezhdanie ili londonski domochadni potrebi i novoiznajdeni tajni na estestvoto (Belgrade: 1870). Secondary Literature Albala, Ken, “Cookbooks as Historical Documents,” in The Oxford Handbook of Food History, ed. Jeffrey Pilcher (Oxford: 2012), 227–40. Artan, Tülay, “Aspects of the Ottoman Elite’s Food Consumption: Looking for ‘Staples,’ ‘luxuries,’ and ‘delicacies’ in a changing century,” in Consumption Studies and the History of the Ottoman Empire 1550–1922, ed. Donald Quataert (New York: 2000), 107–200. Capatti Alberto and Massimo Montanari, Italian Cuisine: A cultural history, trans. Aine O’Healy (New York: 2003). Cvetkova, Bistra, (ed.) Frenski pŭtepisi za Balkanite [French travel writings about the Balkans] (Sofia: 1981). Danailov, Georgi, Izsledvaniia vŭrkhu demografiiata na Bŭlgariia [Studies on the demography of Bulgaria] (Sofia: 1931). Detchev, Stefan, “Mezhdu vishata osmanska kukhniia i Evropa: Slaveikovata kniga ot 1870 g. i pŭtjat kŭm modernoto gotvarstvo [Between high Ottoman cuisine and Europe: Slaveikov’s book and the road to modern cooking], Littera et lingua 3 (2014), URL: http://www.slav.uni-sofia.bg/naum/lilijournal/2014/11/3/dechevs [accessed 17 December 2016].

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Detchev, Stefan, “‘Procession of civilization’: The first Bulgarian cookbook (1870) and the road to modernity,” in Rethinking Late Ottoman Civilization, eds. Samy Ayoub and Jeannette Okur (Edinburgh: 2018, forthcoming). Gavrilova, Raina, Koleloto na zhivota: Vsekidnevieto na Bŭlgarskiia vŭzrozhdenski grad [The Wheel of Life: everyday life in the Bulgarian Revival town] (Sofia: 1999). Gavrilova, Raina, Bulgarian Urban Culture in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries (Cranbury, N.J.: 1999). Gentilcore, David, Pomodoro! A History of the Tomato in Italy (New York: 2010). Genchev, Stoian, Anastas Primovski, Bagra Georgieva, Ganka Mihailova, Lilia Radeva and Maria Veleva (eds.), Etnografiia na Bŭlgariia [Ethnography in Bulgaria] vol. 2 (Sofia: 1983). Giurova, Svetla (ed.) Vŭzrozhdenski pŭtepisi [Travel writings from the revival period] (Sofia: 1969). Grekov, Michail, Kak nie osvobozhdavahme Bŭlgaria [How we liberated Bulgaria], 2 vols. (Sofia: 1990). Kŭnchev, Mincho, Vidritsa, 2nd ed. (Sofia: 1985). Matthaiou, Anna, “Brillat-Savarin kai to psari tou archinavarchou Kanari: Ta ellinika vivlia mageirikis tou 19ou aiona” [Brillat-Savarin and the fish of Admiral Kanaris: Greek cookbooks of the 19th century], Historica 28–29 (1998): 109–22. Matthaiou, Anna, “Apo tis ‘koinotites tis omoiotitas’ sta fagita tis siopis,” [From the ‘communities of similarities’ to the dishes of silence], Historica 56 (2012): 81–100. Mennell, Stephen, All Manners of Food: Eating and Taste in England and France from the Middle Ages to the Present, 2nd ed. (Urbana, Champaign: 1996). Radeva, Lilia, “Hrana i hranene,” in Pirinski krai [Food and nutrition in the region of Pirin] eds. Veselin Hadzhinikolov, Maria Veleva, Georgi Georgiev and Delcho Todorov (Sofia: 1980). Radeva, Lilia, “Hrana i hranene,” in Plovdivski krai [Food and nutrition in the region of Plovdiv] eds. Ganka Mihajlova, Margarita Vasileva, Maria Veleva, Anastas Primovski, Lilia Radeva and Hristo Hiliolchev (Sofia: 1986). Revel, Jean-François, Culture and Cuisine: A journey through the history of food, trans. Helen Rane (New York: 1982). Samancı, Özge, “Pilaf and Bouchées: The modernization of official banquets at the Ottoman Palace in the nineteenth century,” in Royal Taste: Food, power and status in European courts after 1789, ed. Daniëlle De Vooght (Aldershot: 2011), 111–42. Semerdzhiev, Khristo, Samokov i okolnostta mu [Samokov and its surroundings] (s.l., 1913). Stoianov, Manio, Bŭlgarska vŭzrozhdenska knizhnina [Bulgarian revival literature] (Sofia: 1957). Tachev, Khristo, Svinevŭdstvo [Swine-breeding] (Sofia: 1903).

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Todorova, Maria, “Lichnoto schetovodstvo na bŭlgarina prez 19 v.” [The personal accounts of the Bulgarians during the 19th century], Balkanistica 1 (1986): 119–33. Todorova, Mariia (ed.), Angliiski pŭtepisi za Balkanite [English travel writings about the Balkans] (Sofia, 1987). Urumova, Rumiana, “Hrana i hranene, Strandja” [Food and nutrition in the region of Strandja] ed. Siranush Taneiljan (Sofia, 1996). Vakarelski, Khristo, Etnografiia na Bŭlgariia [Ethnography in Bulgaria] (Sofia: 1977). Vankov, Nikola, “Materiali po uchebnoto delo v Bŭlgaria” [Studies on education in Bulgaria] Uchilishten pregled, 7 (1903): 788–802. Zaimov, Stoian, Minaloto [The past] (Sofia, 1986). Zhechev, Nikolai. (ed.), Avtobiografiii na At. Ivanov, Il. R. Blŭskov, J. Nenov [Autobiogaphies of At. Ivanov, Il. R. Blŭskov, J. Nenov] (Sofia: 1979). Zikhirev, Stefan, Zaklanoto prase: Kak da izpolzvame mesoto mu i predpazim ot zarazi [The slaughtered pig, how to use its meat and keep it from contamination] (Plovdiv, 1939).

Part 5 Representations, Travellers’ Tales, Myths

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Chapter 14

“It is in Truth an Island”: Impressions of Food and Hospitality in 19th-Century Transylvania Andrew Dalby Introduction “It is in truth an island,” wrote Emily Gerard on the opening page of her twovolume The Land Beyond the Forest, published in 1888. To her, as to others who had written about Transylvania for an English-speaking audience in the preceding century, the characterization of an “island,” a “quaint and exceptional” place (the words are Gerard’s again) would chime with readers’ preconceptions of the little-known south-eastern extremity of the Austro-Hungarian empire. None the less it was a strange claim. Transylvania was far from being an island. It was a borderland, drawn in different directions culturally, linguistically and politically. Gerard and her predecessors were not blind to this, and honestly attempted to hint at the strains and divisions in the province, though they could hardly have guessed at its political future, and there was much in its history that they might have discussed and did not. But the market at which they aimed, albeit vaguely defined, was for books about foreign travel. In this market the past and the future were fillers. The imperative was to deal compellingly and convincingly with the present. These works duly highlight the startling difference that a traveller from western Europe would feel, day by day, when first venturing east of Vienna and Budapest, across the Hungarian plain and into the ‘Land Beyond the Forest.’ Admittedly, Transylvania was continually changing over the hundred years that elapsed between Elizabeth Craven’s arrival at Hermannstadt (Rom. Sibiu) in 1786 and Emily Gerard’s departure from the same town in 1886. The world outside was changing too. The difference persisted. The difference, as each author tried to characterize it, conscious of what predecessors had said, aware of continual change, is the subject of this chapter. Since meals and lodging were essential to every traveller, practical experiences of food and hospitality offer an ideal focus. The seventeen authors quoted here, rich and poor, high and low in social status, journeyed in the Romanian lands between 1786 and 1886.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi 10.1163/9789004367548_016

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Elizabeth Craven, a friend of Horace Walpole, travelled stylishly through all three regions in 1786, narrating her adventures in a series of letters to her lover, Karl Alexander, margrave of Brandenburg-Anspach. Robert Townson made scientific and economic enquiries in Hungary in 1793. Adam Neale, physician to the British embassy in Constantinople, passed through Moldavia about 1806; so did William Macmichael in 1817, travelling on an Oxford fellowship. The Irishman Robert Walsh, having served as chaplain to the British ambassador in Constantinople from 1820 to 1824, returned home by land, crossing Wallachia and Transylvania. James Oscar Noyes, from an old New England family, studied medicine at Harvard, travelled to Europe, served as surgeon in the Crimean War and then in the Ottoman army. He wrote for several newspapers, published books on the Near East and eventually returned to America where he reported on the Civil War for Associated Press. William Wilkinson aimed in 1820 to write a survey of Wallachia and Moldavia, and, as former British consul at Bucharest, was well placed to do so. Charles baron d’Haussez, a French politician under sentence of life imprisonment at home, preferred exile: he travelled down the Danube in the mid-1830s and asked some sensible politico-economic questions. Andrew Archibald Paton, British consul at Ragusa (Dubrovnik), wrote a series of books on the Balkans and the Near East. J.W. Ozanne, employed for three years at the British consulate in Bucharest, published in 1878 what could hardly fail to be the first book in English on modern Romania, which gained its independence in the same year. Charles Boner started in life as a tutor and eventually, by way of employment in German noble families, lived and wrote in Munich. His book on Transylvania, published in 1865, was the result of a short journey. Florence Twiss married the journalist François Berger, passed an expensive winter with him in Bucharest in 1877, and probably recouped some of their losses by writing A Winter in the City of Pleasure, while Andrew F. Crosse went hunting in Transylvania and wrote Round About the Carpathians in 1878. Nathanael Burton went to Jerusalem on religious business. Finding himself with practically no money, he returned overland to England, passing through Wallachia and Transylvania in 1837 and describing them from a point of view very different from that of nearly all contemporary authors. Three authors lived in Transylvania for the very best of reasons. John Paget, an agriculturalist and traveller, married Polyxena Wesselényi in 18361 lived in 1  Polyxena Wesselényi (1801–78) belonged to a prominent Hungarian noble family. She is not named in Paget’s Hungary and Transylvania, but the family is alluded to, e.g.: “A large party of [gipsies] presented themselves one day at the door of the Countess W—, whom they used to call the mother of the gipsies, on account of her frequent charities to them.” John Paget,

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Transylvania from then on, and published his Hungary and Transylvania in 1839. His notebooks are in Budapest and have not been published, except for his brief diary of the war of 1849.2 Auguste de Gérando, member of a French family that claimed nobility, married Countess Emma Teleki in 1840 and they too lived in Transylvania. He died young in 1849 and his La Transylvanie et ses habitants was published in the following year. Emily Gerard and her sister Dorothea, Scottish by birth, were educated in Austria and both married Austro-Hungarian army officers. Emily was a novelist and journalist. She wrote The Land Beyond the Forest after a stay of several years in Transylvania during which her husband was stationed in Sibiu. It was published in 1888.3 While Transylvania is at the centre in this chapter, observations on Moldavia and Wallachia have been cited for comparison and context. For the same reasons, earlier and later travellers have been quoted occasionally. John Smith fought as a mercenary on Ottoman frontiers in 1600–1602, though he is more famous now as one of the first Virginia colonists (and not least for his encounter with Pocahontas). The Scotsman William Lithgow journeyed through Europe and beyond, obsessively and querulously, usually on foot and often penniless, between about 1610 and 1621. Robert Bargrave, a Turkey merchant, travelled home to England by land in 1652 after five years in the Near East. Edmund Chishull was chaplain to the English merchants at Smyrna and likewise crossed Europe on his return home in 1702. One later author whose name appears below is Walter Starkie, an Irish academic who left his family behind to spend the 1929 summer vacation as a wandering musician in Hungary and Transylvania.

Where One Stays and Where One Eats

In writings by travellers as late as the 1860s there is evident a distinction which may be simply seen as one of class—the distinction between (a) nobles and their attendants, (b) others. Not that the travellers themselves refer to it, except for Charles Boner, who had served in tutorial posts in German noble Hungary and Transylvania (London: 1839), vol. 2, 327. For further biographical details, see the entry “John Paget” by Lóránt Czigány in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. 2  Henry Miller Madden, “The Diary of John Paget, 1849,” Slavonic and East European Review 19 (1939–1940): 237–64. 3  Lokke Heiss, “Madame Dracula: the life of Emily Gerard,” Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts 10 (1999): 174–86; Radu Teuceanu, “Un occidental despre Transilvania: Jane Emily Gerard, The Land Beyond the Forest, 1888,” Acta Musei Brukenthal 1 (2006): 243–51.

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households and afterwards lived independently. He was well placed to comment, suggesting at the same time why this generalization remained true of Transylvania although things had changed in western Europe: “The paucity of travellers, and consequently of demand for good accommodation, is another reason why the inns are as we find them. A foreigner is a rarity in the land, and the natives, when they go from home, generally stop at the house of a friend or relation on their road. The nobility are all related, and find an uncle or cousin everywhere, and therefore have not recourse to inns.”4 Which explains why Elizabeth Craven, who travelled nearly eighty years before Boner, never mentions an inn or anything of the kind. At “Buccorest” she was sent to a convent to stay out her quarantine (no doubt the only appropriate accommodation a mere customs inspector could think of) but was immediately rescued by the Prince (this was the Greek from Paros, Nicolae Mavrogheni, former dragoman)5 and she thenceforth stayed at the palace. At “Hermanstadt” (Rom. Sibiu), similarly, she was “extremely well entertained […] by the Governor, who is a sensible old man”. He was the great and learned Samuel Brukenthal, a native Transylvanian. Among those she met at the Governor’s palace we notice not only the “Comte de Vitzay, and his wife, who was an Esterhazy”, but even Emperor Joseph II, who “came on foot, attended only by general Brown, and sat two hours and a half looking over the maps and presents I have received.”6 In his own time, Boner’s generalization was not wholly valid. John Paget travelled in Transylvania in 1838 with his wife and brother-in-law, members of the Hungarian nobility. The party stayed not with “uncles or cousins” (as Boner put it) but in more modest households, sometimes paying for their entertainment, and occasionally used inns, though finding little or nothing to eat in them. There was little at Parayd (Hung. Parajd; Ger. Salzberg; Rom. Praid), where “when he heard us ask for supper, the old gentleman shook his head, and, pointing to the ewe-milk cheese and bread, and a bottle of pale sourlooking wine, exclaimed, despondingly, Miseria cum aceto!”. Yet they ate “the black bread and turpentine cheese—for they wrap it in the bark of the pine to give it a turpentine flavour—with excellent appetite,” while Miklós, one of their servants, concocted a grog out of “the common spirit of the country,”

4  Charles Boner, Transylvania: Its products and its people (London: 1865), 78. 5  Nikolaos Mavrogenis in Greek. For more on Prince Mavrogenis, see Angela Jianu’s chapter in this volume. 6  Elizabeth Craven, A Journey through the Crimea to Constantinople, in a series of letters (London: 1789), 306, 322–3.

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sugar and hot water.7 At St. György (Rom. Sfântu Gheorghe) there was even less, and the same Miklós went foraging, returning with “hens and their eggs. Our servants were fortunately good cooks, and while one set to work to compose an omelette, the other produced an egg soup and a couple of roast fowls.”8 To stay the winter in Klausenburg (Rom. Cluj), as members of the local nobility regularly did, Paget and his party rented a furnished house and had their meals sent in from the casino restaurant. Inns were commonly owned by landowners and bishops, and in the Saxon towns by the municipalities. At Grosswardein (Hung. Nagyvárad, Rom. Oradea), Robert Townson noted in 1797 that “the bishop seemed to be a good honest fellow, and supplied his inns with sound wholesome wine”.9 At Czernowitz (Ukr. Chernivtsi; Rom. Cernăuţi) Adam Neale in 1820 saw it from the other side: “[b]ishops and nobles are proprietors of all the inns, and the greater the drunkenness of the peasantry, the larger are the returns to the lords of the soil.”10 In general, as Boner later realised, a tenant had less incentive to improve his inn than an owner-manager, and this was why, in the Stadtwirtshaus at Bistritz, the business was, “in fact, not conducted at all.”11 Of all the earlier travellers, Nathanael Burton had the smallest resources. Writing in 1837 both of Wallachian post-houses and Transylvanian inns, he explains: You do not pay for lodging, if you call for wine, bread, brantwine [brandy], or any other thing the house affords; and when it is bed-time, a quantity of straw is brought in, and spread upon the floor on which the guests recline comfortably, or very frequently prefer sleeping in some of the outhouses, where there is plenty of hay and straw—I have seen twenty persons, after having supped, retire, by permission of the landlord, to sleep in the barns.12 Other authors occasionally noticed grooms and carters sleeping with their animals in the straw; no one else understood it as a system that any poor traveller could rely on in smaller towns. Reaching Pest, however, Burton had to sleep 7  John Paget, Hungary and Transylvania (London: 1839), vol. 2, 401–4. 8  Ibid., 396–397. 9  Robert Townson, Travels in Hungary (London: 1797), 251–2. 10  Adam Neale, Travels through Some Parts of Germany, Moldavia and Turkey (London: 1820), 152. 11  Boner, Transylvania, 76. 12  Nathanael Burton, Narrative of a Voyage from Liverpool to Alexandria (Dublin: 1838), 308–9.

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beside the Danube, finding it impossible “to obtain a lodging in the birtzhouses without a certificate from the police; and I did not wish to attract their notice.”13 The very first sign of change is noticeable in 1851 with Andrew Paton’s casual mention of the “principal inn” at Hermannstadt:14 a principal inn implies a choice, not all of it under municipal ownership. In 1865 Charles Boner, a respectable traveller almost entirely reliant on inns, observed a traditional system in rapid development and recorded it in some detail. There was “dirt, dirt, dirt” near Hatzeg, dirt and disorder at Karansebes (Rom. Caransebeş) and at Bistritz (Rom. Bistriţa) and elsewhere. Yet at Broos (Hung. Szászváros; Rom. Orăştie), one inn had a name that he thought worth copying down (he calls it the “Count Zéchenyi”).15 At Hermannstadt (Rom. Sibiu) there were two such, since the chambermaid of one, taxed with its filthiness, replied coolly: “You should see the Mediascher Hof, that is much more dirty.” At Klausenburg (Rom. Cluj) and Kronstadt (Rom. Braşov), the two largest towns in Transylvania, there were already establishments that Boner can call hotels, and those at Kronstadt deserved naming: he notes down “No. 1” and the “Grüne Baum.” These hotels at Kronstadt became memorable. Andrew Crosse, on his hunting expedition in 1877, stayed at “No. 1.” Mary Walker, ten years later, stayed at the new “Hôtel Bukarest,” but was intrigued by the name of the “Grüne Baum.”16 Meanwhile, across the mountains in Wallachia, the venerable Khan of Manouk Bey at Bucharest, described by James Skene in 185017 and illustrated by James Noyes in 1858, had given way in esteem to “our hotel” (no need as yet to name it) for Florence Berger in 1877. Berger even described her hotel unguardedly as 13  Ibid., 318. 14  Andrew Paton, Travels in Hungary, or, sketches of the Goth and the Hun (London: 1851), 104. 15  Boner, Transylvania, 42, 46, 74, 77. The inn was named after István Széchenyi (1791–1860), Hungarian liberal politician and entrepreneur. Boner probably took the name of the inn at Broos from its proprietor’s lips, as did Bielz in 1882, giving the name as “Szécsény.” Albert Bielz, Reisehandbuch für Siebenbürgen (Hermannstadt: 1881), 41. The 1891 Baedeker calls it “Hôtel Széchenyi,” with the correct spelling of the name, and gives it a star: Karl Baedeker (publisher), Southern Germany and Austria (7th ed., Leipzig: 1891), 410. 16  “Green Tree” in German. “We wonder whether this name is in patriotic commemoration of the origin of the name of the city, for the legend runs, that on the spot where now stands the town-hall, a golden crown was found in 1204 in the stump of a tree—left there, it was supposed, by King Soloman [sic] of Hungary about a hundred and thirty years previously, in his flight after his defeat by the Hungarians; therefore they named the new city Kron Stadt, and took for the civic arms a crown and a tree stump with its roots.” Mary Walker, Untrodden Paths in Roumania (London: 1888), 216–7. 17  James Henry Skene, The Danubian Principalities: The frontier lands of the Christian and the Turk, vol. 1 (3rd ed., London: 1854), 212.

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“home,” though her party would eventually have to borrow money from a Jew to pay the bill, a transaction she narrates in detail. By 1888 Mary Walker, praising the “Hotel Brofft,” implied the existence of a whole series of rival hotels. While inns were turning into hotels, places of refreshment were also changing. At the beginning of the century there is nothing to notice in this category except what Wilkinson in 1820 calls brandy-shops and wine-houses. Neale, writing in the same year, admitted to entering these “wine-huts” while waiting for ferries on the road from Bucharest to Iaşi. In 1837 Burton had no alternative. At the last wine-house in Wallachia, close to the Red Tower (Rom. Turnu Roşu), he “called for some meat, but ‘noa carne’ was the answer I received. Bread and araku (raki, brandy) were in abundance. After a time, they gave me a piece of the fat bacon to eat with my bread.”18 It is Nathanael Burton who first notices a new sort of establishment in Bucharest, a tavern “where things were attempted in the Italian style—one plate of meat being introduced after another. I had no reason to complain of the fare; the wine was a pale red, thin, but far from ill flavoured.”19 Berger shows that fifty years later Bucharest truly was a city where international dining was the rule: You can drink braga like a Bulgarian, sherbet like a Mussulman, beer like a German student, or petit Bordeaux like a Paris bourgeois. You can eat your dinner lying down on a sofa, with your repast on a little round, low Turkish table, not a span high, or you can banquet off mahogany on castors. You can sup off Turkish haliske, or Russian pilaff, or Hungarian paprica, or even the biftecks saignants of ‘Albion the Perfidious’.”20 To add to the catalogue of national tastes, Berger’s contemporary, J.W. Ozanne, was offered a schnitzel in the Danubian port Giurgiu, though it “might have been a bit of rhinoceros’ hide for aught I knew.”21 It was Ozanne who first noted the cafés for which Bucharest was soon to be celebrated. “The cafés are 18  Burton, Narrative, 297. 19  Ibid., 280. For further details on Reverend Burton’s experiences of Wallachian food, see Angela Jianu’s chapter in this volume. 20  Florence K. Berger, A Winter in the City of Pleasure (London: 1877), 35–36. Braga is the Russian-derived Romanian word for millet beer, called boza in Turkish. Boza was a drink made of fermented millet, with a low alcoholic content (3–4 per cent), consumed in many areas of the Ottoman Empire and its dominions. Muslims were allowed to drink it too, as discussed in Margareta Aslan’s contribution to this volume. 21  J.W. Ozanne, Three Years in Roumania (London: 1878), 9.

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always open,” William Curtis was to write in 1911, “and one would think that the people of Bukharest never go to bed. The population is about the same as that of Washington, but there are ten times as many street lamps, twenty times as many restaurants and cafés.”22 A French traveller, Pierre-Julien Hamard, wrote in 1885 that southern French cities ought to imitate the sherbet ­kiosks of Bucharest, “petits débits de boissons rafraîchissantes,—limonades ou sirops mousseux,—que l’on voit installés au coin des rues les plus fréquentées. Par la chaleur accablante qu’il fait ici, aucune rencontre ne saurait être plus agréable.”23 In Austro-Hungarian Transylvania, meanwhile, wine-houses were common enough, but few other establishments existed to compete with the ill-supplied tables of country inns and the restaurations to be found on the ground floor of a hotel. Charles Boner in 1863 noticed restaurateurs at the baths of Borszék (Rom. Borsec). Mary Walker, describing in 1888 her excursion to Kronstadt, remarked on the restauration and café well placed to profit from a tired walker at the summit of the Kapellenberg.24

What One Eats and Drinks

The wine of Wallachia is sometimes said to be thin and vinegary, although travellers’ perceptions of regional wines are generally mixed. Moldavian wine, when mentioned at all, is praised.25 But the wine of Transylvania is often spoken of. It is plentiful: Antonio Bonfini and Antonio Possevino had said so even in the 16th century,26 and this must surely be what Edmund Chishull intended to say in 1702: “the inhabitants … appear cordial and hospitable, drink almost

22  William Curtis, Around the Black Sea (New York: 1911), 366. 23  “Little stalls selling refreshing drinks—lemonades and sparkling syrups. One finds them installed at the corners of the busiest streets. In the stifling heat that prevails here no encounter could be more pleasing.” Pierre-Julien Hamard, Une course aux capitales (Paris: 1885), 151. 24  Walker, Untrodden Paths, 224. 25  A Polish traveller, Samuel Twardowski, at Iaşi in 1622, shared “a fine table, with plenty of food [and] glasses full of golden wine”. P.P. Panaitescu, Cǎlǎtori poloni în ţǎrile române (Bucharest: 1930), 17. 26  “Regionem esse … vini … prae ceteris feracissimam”: “… that the region is abundant in wine beyond all others.” Antonii Bonfini Rerum Ungaricarum Decades quatuor cum dimidia (Basileae: 1568), 555. Cf. Antonius Possevino, Transilvania, ed. Andreas Veress (Cluj: 1913), 122.

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continually, and eat plentifully.”27 D’Haussez in 1837 wrote of Transylvanian wine from an economist’s point of view: he noted, like others, that production methods left much to be desired. John Paget was glad that the ladies of his party were not there to see “a set of almost naked men dancing barefooted, with all their force, to the music of the bagpipes, on the heaps of fruit which the carriers were throwing into them. I did not wonder we were led to this place alone, for except in some of the Silenic processions of Poussin, I never saw so extraordinary a scene. And it is in this manner the whole wine of the country is prepared!”28 Yet Transylvanian wine seems to have reached a peak of quality in the mid19th century. “It was in Broos,” writes Charles Boner in 1865, “that I first tasted Transylvanian wine, which later I enjoyed so much and learned fully to appreciate. Half a bottle, very good and palatable, cost seven and a half kreutzers— not quite twopence. Of the peasant who grew the wine this was bought for twenty kreutzers, fourpence, a quart. That for which thirty or forty kreutzers are paid is excellent, and when some years old is as generous as sherry or Madeira. From Broos to Mühlbach29 … the vineyards are good all the way; but those near Broos—so an old gentleman told me—were the best.” The wine of Mediasch30 was “strong, ardent, but most refreshing [and] left an exhilarating prickling on the tongue … Nowhere in the district does the like-sized vineyard yield so much as in the neighbourhood of Mediasch.”31 “There has probably been no year’s vintage equal to that of 1834,”32 Boner adds. Though doubtless true and just, these curious notes (which could not have been very useful to readers) bring to mind Pliny the Elder’s survey of the wines of ancient Italy: Pliny, too, named the vintage that had been better than any other before or since; Pliny, too, descended into obsessive detail on the best vineyards of the best districts. Boner eventually devotes a whole chapter to wine, reporting a conversation with the German chemist and inventor Justus von Liebig in Munich, who was as enthusiastic as himself and recalled an exhibition at which “‘we accorded the first prize—the great gold medal—to wine from Transylvania.’”33 This had been wine from Mediasch, Boner explains, but he could find no one else 27  Edmund Chishull, Travels in Turkey and Back to England (London: 1747), 104. 28  Paget, Hungary and Transylvania, vol. 2, 305. 29  Rom. Sebeş. 30  Rom. Mediaş. 31  Boner, Transylvania, 46, 200. 32  Ibid., 165. 33  Ibid., 162–63.

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outside Transylvania who knew anything about Transylvanian wine or had even heard of it. He saw, as did d’Haussez before him, that Transylvania had no means of exporting its wine. Its isolation was about to change with the coming of the railway. Several authors visited the mineral baths of Transylvania. Few happen to remark that the water was bottled and distributed, but Andrew Crosse in 1878 writes that “the Borsék waters are very much drunk throughout Hungary, especially mixed with wine. Everywhere I noticed that eight people out of ten would take water with their wine at meals.”34 It may be no coincidence that Crosse inserts this aside while on the subject of Borsec: he had surely read Boner, and Boner does exactly the same at greater length. “The water is still more exhilarating and refreshing than that of Selters [in Germany], and throughout the country it is found on every table beside the bottle of wine. A peasant comes into a wine-house and calls for ‘A pair!’ meaning a pair of bottles—one of wine and one of Borszék water.” Noting that bottled Borsec water was sold in Vienna “as a most delicious article of luxury for the table,”35 Boner states his opinion that the custom of mixing wine with water hindered the appreciation of the best Transylvanian wine: he noticed that when the inn offered a choice he was the one who drank the better wine while “the others invariably preferred the weaker sort.”36 But then Boner had plenty of money. Having been taken prisoner by the Ottomans in Transylvania in 1601, the adventurer John Smith had described the best available drinks as “Coffa … boiled with water; and Sherbecke, which is only honey and water.”37 Sherbet remained an Ottoman speciality unfamiliar in Transylvania. Macmichael in 1819 describes “sorbet” more accurately than Smith, remarking that the fruit juice “ferments for a short time, till it begins to acquire a slight acidity.”38 Adam Neale, writing of Iaşi in 1820, reports a traditional grouping of afternoon refreshments: “coffee, pipes, sherbet, and sweet-meats were introduced in the

34  Andrew F. Crosse, Round about the Carpathians (London: 1878), 274. 35  A scientific evaluation of Borsec water carried out at Vienna in 1805 is reported by Anton Kurz, Borszék, Siebenbürgens berühmtester Kurort (Braşov: 1844), 106. 36  Boner, Transylvania, 332. 37  John Smith, The True Travels [1601], in idem, Complete Works, vol. 3, ed. Philip L. Barbour (Chapel Hill, NC: 1986), 24. When captured, John Smith was fighting in the Austrian army against the Ottomans. On Captain John Smith, traveller, soldier and colonial governor (bap. 1580, d. 1631), see the entry by Gwenda Morgan in The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2004). 38  William Macmichael, Journey from Moscow to Constantinople, in the years 1817, 1818 (London: 1819), 143.

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usual Oriental fashion.”39 Many other travellers in the Danubian Principalities enjoyed sherbet. Meanwhile, in Austrian lands a similar role was played by beer. Immediately after crossing the border at the Red Tower (Rom. Turnu Roşu, see above), Robert Bargrave in 1652 enjoyed “very good beere”40 and Nathanael Burton in 1837 eyed the “long glass mugs of beer.”41 Thus, sherbet and beer define a cultural frontier. Coffee, on the other hand, is familiar in both cultures, having spread westwards from the Turkish empire in the 17th century, and is therefore mentioned by later travellers to Hungary and Transylvania as an everyday item. Robert Townson, writing of Grosswardein in 1797, described “German manners and customs” and wrote of withdrawing after dinner “for our coffee.”42 Paget in 1839 is the first to mention the special “luxury of buffalo’s cream with our coffee. Paris must hide her head for very shame,—she has no idea of the luxury of true café à la crème.” He describes carefully how the cream is prepared overnight to be served in the morning: “Of course, the clot is the best part.”43 Meanwhile, Florence Berger reports that in hotels in Bucharest at breakfast time there will be “a little jug of coffee, and a little jug of hot milk,” but later in the day coffee in “little vessels that are no bigger than egg-cups and are full of black sediment at the bottom.”44 Distilled spirits were found on both sides of the Carpathians. They are first mentioned by Neale, if, as it appears, he is describing freeze-distilling: “The wine is exposed in immense butts to the open air during the severe nights of December, and when its watery particles have become frozen by the cold, they perforate the cake of ice with a hot iron, and draw off the pure and vinous part highly concentrated.”45 The method was known in Europe long before,46 but I have found no other mention of its use in Romanian lands. There was at any

39  Adam Neale, Travels through Some Parts of Germany, Poland, Moldavia, and Turkey (London, 1818), 158. 40  Robert Bargrave, The Travel Diary of Robert Bargrave, Levant Merchant, 1647–1656, ed. Michael Brennan (London: 1999), 133. 41  Burton, Narrative, 307. 42  Townson, Travels in Hungary, 252. 43  Paget, Hungary and Transylvania, vol. 2, 228. 44  Berger, Winter in the City of Pleasure, 173, 179. For further details on the origins and protocol of coffee-drinking in the Romanian lands in the old regime, see the chapter by Olivia Senciuc in this volume. 45  Neale, Travels through Some Parts of Germany, 168. 46  C. Anne Wilson, Water of Life (Totnes: 2006), 172–3 citing Paracelsus, Archidoxa (Strasbourg: 1570).

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rate “brandy”47 or “araku”48 or “raki”49 in the Danubian principalities. There was “schnops brantwine”50 or “eau-de-vie” in Transylvania, thus dismissed by d’Haussez: “There is no commerce and no profit to be had from it. It gives people a means of intoxicating themselves which they otherwise would lack, and some landowners use this pernicious commodity to pay the salary of their employees. That is all that either group gains from it.”51 Andrew Paton, observing market day at Arad from the window of his inn, has a different perspective on this “brandy”: “A kitchen was established in the street, and a stout dame could scarcely serve quickly enough—fried-bacon and drams of brandy to the carmen and peasants that crowded round her for breakfast.”52 Noyes in 1858, following Paton, makes clear that it is plum brandy; Starkie in 1929 is the first to give its Romanian name “ţuica.”53 A Romanian staple food is named by many visitors to the Danubian principalities and eventually to Transylvania as well. This “principal food of the peasantry” is “mamalika” to Neale,54 “mammalinga” to Wilkinson,55 “malaga” to Burton,56 “mamaglia” to Noyes,57 “mammaliga” to Gérando: “the greatest pleasure a gentleman can do them, after speaking Valaque to them, is to taste their mammaliga.”58 Paget, taking for granted that “the Wallack” is the least hard-working of the inhabitants of Transylvania, thinks that “the earth, almost spontaneously, affords him maize for his polenta,—or mamaliga, as he calls it,” getting the name, at least, almost exactly right.59

47  William Wilkinson, An Account of the Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia (London: 1820), 143. 48  Burton, Narrative, 297. 49  James Noyes, Roumania: The border land of the Christian and the Turk (New York: 1858), 166. 50  Burton, Narrative, 306–9. 51  Baron d’Haussez, Alpes et Danube (Paris: 1837), 321. 52  Paton, Travels in Hungary, 89. 53  Walter Starkie, Raggle-taggle: Adventures with a fiddle in Hungary and Roumania (London: 1949), 227. 54  Neale, Travels through Some Parts of Germany, 167. 55  Wilkinson, Account of the Principalities, 158. 56  Burton, Narrative, 282. 57  Noyes, Roumania, 165. 58  Auguste de Gérando, La Transylvanie et ses habitants (Paris: 1850), vol. 1, 330. 59  Though without the diacritics (Rom. mǎmǎligǎ). Paget, Hungary and Transylvania, vol. 2, 217. On positive and negative impressions of mǎmǎligǎ in the Romanian Principalities, see Angela Jianu’s study in this volume.

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The meat dish that travellers are most likely to notice will be mutton stew south of the Carpathians (“little bits of mutton” to Smith, “harico mutton” to Macmichael, “a large bowl of stewed mutton” to tempt Burton), but it will be “Paprikahendl” in Transylvania. Paget was served “a paprika hendel,—not a stewed fowl with red pepper, such as is often served up at more polished tables,—but a large tureen of rich greasy soup, red with paprike, and flavoured by a couple of fowls cut up and swimming [in] it.”60 There was “stewed chicken” again in 1929 when Starkie ate with nomadic gypsies near Făgăraş,61 and Bram Stoker, sketching his Transylvanian background, made sure that paprika hendl “(Mem.—get recipe for Mina)” was served to his narrator at Klausenburg on the way to Castle Dracula.62 Far beyond mutton and chicken, Andrew Crosse, the huntsman, met a party of Hungarians and “had for supper a capital filet d’ours from a bear that had been shot only two days before […] The wine was as good as the food.”63 Paget encountered “a well-garlicked sausage” near Hunyad; the same sausage, more or less, was the main feature of Florence Berger’s modest lunch in Bucharest “of charcoal-cooked carnatz and green gherkins pickled in salt water.”64 But meat was a relative rarity except for the richest travellers and in the hotels of Bucharest. Much more often beans, or beans with bacon, or “French beans mixed with the fat of ham … called fesule” were set before Burton65 and Noyes. In Transylvania there might instead be “sour krout”66 or “kraut Suppe.”67

The Company One Keeps

Several authors remark on the frequency with which meals were accompanied by Gypsy musicians. “Detestable Turkish music was played during the whole supper,” Elizabeth Craven reports of her entertainment by the ruling prince Nicolae Mavrogheni at Bucharest, “but relieved now and then by Bohemians, whose tunes were quite delightful, and might have made the heaviest clod of 60  Ibid., 227. 61  Starkie, Raggle-taggle, 289. 62  Bram Stoker, Dracula (London: 1897), 1. 63  Crosse, Round about the Carpathians, 254. 64  Berger, Winter in the City of Pleasure, 94. 65  Burton, Narrative, 288. 66  Ibid., 308. 67  Emily Gerard, The Land Beyond the Forest: Facts, figures, and fancies from Transylvania (London: 1888), vol. 2, 248.

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earth desire to dance. The Prince saw the impression this music made upon me, and desired they might play oftener than the Turks.”68 Fifty years later Paget reports his experience at Klausenburg. At one of the first dinner parties to which he was invited a Gypsy band had been booked “that we might hear some of the Hungarian music in its most original form. The favourite popular tune, the Rákótzy, was given with great force. I am more than ever convinced that none but a gipsy band can do it full justice.” After enlarging generously on this, Paget remarks drily: “It is rather startling to the stranger that no sooner is he lodged at his inn, than he receives a visit from this gipsy band, who salute him with their choicest music, and he cannot get rid of them without paying them most handsomely for their compliment.”69 Gypsy musicians from Transylvania regularly travelled in groups to Bucharest, Boner observes in 1865, “and their trip always proves a good speculation. For the dance no music can be better than that of a gipsy band.”70 And so, back in Bucharest, in 1911, Curtis reports that “in every restaurant and café there is a band—sometimes only two or three and sometimes a dozen musicians—constantly playing those ravishing rag-time barbaric melodies that have been conceived in the semi-savage brains of some gypsy genius. Occasionally a Tzigany girl sings to the accompaniment of the orchestra, wild, weird strains of the native music.”71 On another kind of unequal symbiosis in Transylvanian inns, Paget tells a strange story. Arriving at Hunyad after dark in a light wagon and a carriage, he and his party stopped at a house where they heard music. Unluckily it was not the inn, and they could not understand the directions they were given. “A gipsy girl … at once took the arrangement of the matter on herself. At a single bound she threw herself into H—’s waggon, seated herself beside him” and told the wagoner where to go, “we being left to follow them to the inn as best we could. Before we arrived, our gipsy guide had roused the whole house, got the keys of the chambers, unlocked the rooms, and while we were yet joking H—on his adventure, the heroine of it had already lit the fires, mended the cracked stoves, got the carriage unloaded, laid the cloth, and was cooking the supper, ere it was yet ordered. Everything was so quickly done, that it had an air of conjuration about it,” writes Paget, choosing his words carefully. “It was strange to find one who, five minutes before, we had never even seen, already our guide, our hostess, our cook, our factotum … We could never understand the mystery which seemed to belong to Lila’s movements. They told us she was a gipsy of 68  Craven, Journey, 311. For Prince Mavrogheni, see note 5 above. 69  Paget, Hungary and Transylvania, vol. 2, 478–9 (quotations abridged). 70  Boner, Transylvania, 136. 71  Curtis, Around the Black Sea, 366.

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the neighbourhood … who was allowed to be about the house as much as she pleased. She had no occupation there, yet she had done everything” and continued to prepare breakfast and order dinner till they departed. “Her beauty, her good-humour, and her happy way of making herself useful, made us quite sorry to part with her, and I believe S—did propose to equip her en jocké, and take her with us; but S—is a wild fellow!”72 In Paget’s narrative the beginning and end of this story are separated by three quite disparate topics, a retelling of the history of John Hunyadi,73 a polite visit from municipal dignitaries, and a dispute over the hotel bill, for which, luckily for Lila, Paget’s own servant got the blame. How are we to take the story, reassembled as it is here? “Conjuration” plainly means conjuring trick to Paget, but does the older meaning, conspiracy, linger in his mind? Did the serving of dinner before it had been ordered and the subsequent swelling of the hotel bill share no common feature with the unexpected cost of music in his anecdote from Klausenburg quoted above? Did Lila herself have no relevance to the brisk remark by Wilkinson in 1820 that “none of them follow the regular line of public prostitutes, but at the same time none refuse their favours when the slightest offer of money is made”?74 That particular question may seem unfair to Lila and to the “EinkehrWirthshaus somewhere near the market square”75 at Hunyad where she was “allowed to be about the house.” An anecdote told by Starkie, writing of Cluj in 1929, justifies it. “Manczi was the life and soul of the inn: the men teased her and chased her down passages. She was coquettish with me: she ogled, she flirted. Then Kovacs enlightened me. Manczi was a decoy. It was her duty to entice the men of the town to spend their evenings in the Rákoczi Inn and pour their pengös into the family coffers.” “The strangest trait in Manczi was her exterior light-heartedness.” Paid a retainer by the hotel, she also made money irregularly by prostitution, though never before two in the morning when the bar closed; and in addition to all this “she nursed me very tenderly through my illness,” Starkie recalls.76 72  Paget, Hungary and Transylvania, vol. 2, 235–7, 248–9. 73  John Hunyadi (Hung. Hunyadi János, Rom. Ioan de Hunedoara), c. 1406–1456, was a hero of the defence of Transylvania and Hungary against Turkish attack in the mid-15th century. He was the father of king Matthias Corvinus (Mátyás Corvinus) of Hungary. Paget’s party had just visited the forbidding castle at Hunyad (today Hunedoara) where the legendary warrior once lived. 74  Wilkinson, Account of the Principalities, 170–1. 75  Bielz, Reisehandbuch für Siebenbürgen, 66. 76  Starkie, Raggle-taggle, 118–9, 124 (first quotation abridged).

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Ethnicity and Change in Transylvania

Earlier travellers, if not pedestrians like Lithgow and Burton, had no alternative to slow journeys in their own carriages or in a “waggon of the country.”77 The lack of transport, as d’Haussez and Boner saw, stood in the way of economic development, including the marketing of Transylvanian wine. In this context Boner in 1865 noted that a railway would soon unite Transylvania with Western Europe, “and there will be uninterrupted steam communication between London and the towns of Transylvania.”78 The “first Transylvanian railway”79 was the line from Arad to Karlsburg (Rom. Alba Iulia), and by 1881, when Bielz published his guidebook, this had already been linked to the “eastern line of the Hungarian National Railway” running from Grosswardein (today Rom. Oradea) by way of Klausenburg (Rom. Cluj) to Kronstadt (Rom Braşov), and on to Bucharest. By 1891, the diligences that used to take three days to carry a traveller across northern Transylvania from Klausenburg to Suceava in Moldavia, as described by Bielz, had been partly supplanted by the new branch line from Klausenburg to Bistritz. These railways never took much Transylvanian wine westwards, but they brought ever more travellers eastwards. Telegraphs came too, and these two innovations together ensured that visitors in the late 19th century and after could be reasonably sure of the date and time of their arrival at each town, enough to book accommodation at identifiable and named hotels or inns. Thus, in its 19th-century way came the mass tourism that paid for restaurants and cafés at beauty spots, hotels and restaurants at mineral baths such as Borszék, multiple new hotels in cities. “A strange little country is this Transylvania!” said Paget in 1839.80 But it was far from being the “island” that Gerard carelessly called it. It had been repeatedly fought over: a hotel chambermaid at Hermannstadt told Paton of the dinner that had been prepared for Hungarians and, after an unexpected defeat, eaten by Russians.81 Not the least of Transylvania’s odd features was the symbiosis among its cultures, peoples and languages. Travellers observed this incompletely—it could not be otherwise—beginning from their own expectations, from the languages they knew and the people they knew. Their observations depended, naturally, on the Transylvanians with whom they interacted: the people who supplied them with transport, accommodation and food; the 77  Paget, Hungary and Transylvania, vol. 2, 235. 78  Boner, Transylvania, 166. 79  Bielz, Reisehandbuch für Siebenbürgen, 75. 80  Paget, Hungary and Transylvania, vol. 2, 259. 81  Paton, Travels in Hungary, 105–6.

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people they met and questioned; the people they watched in hotels and restaurants, at markets and fairs, on the road and in the fields. Lithgow in the early 17th century had already seen a strangeness about Transylvania: “On the incircled plaine there groweth nothing but wheat, rye, barley, pease, and beanes: and on the halfe, or lower parts of the hills about, nothing but wines, and infinite villages; and toward the extreame circulary heights, only pastorage for kine, sheepe, goates, and horses, and thickets of woods: so fram’d that every one supplieth another, for they of the valley furnish the other two parts with victuall, and they againe them with wines, bestiall, butter, and cheese; each interchanging all necessary things with one another as they need. Here I found every where kind and familiar people; yea, and the very vulgars speaking frequent Latine.”82 The inequality not yet seen by Lithgow was already clear to Chishull in 1702: “the Valachi are every where in great numbers intermixed among the Transylvanian nations, but have no jurisdiction or dominion of their own and therefore they remain as nourishers of cattle, and in that service slaves and subjects to the rest … and even the vulgar sort usually speak Latin,”83 he adds, cribbing from Lithgow. (This curious claim is explained by Burton, I think rightly, as a slight misunderstanding: “The use of Latin, strictly speaking, I did not find so common there as some writers have mentioned: it must be the Romanisti, which is derived from it, that they intended.”)84 Wilkinson in 1820 takes the observation of inequality further: “The miseries of famine in Transylvania sometimes cause considerable emigrations of peasants from that vast province into Wallachia and Moldavia. All the best lands in Transylvania being in the hands of Hungarians, Szecklers, and Saxons, the others who form the bulk of the population are driven into hilly and barren situations, where at all times they subsist with difficulty.”85 The inequality was eventually noticed, but the fact that the ethnic Romanians formed the majority of the population remained hidden from most visitors, on whose everyday activities Germans and Hungarians made more impact. Burton, however, travelling as a pedestrian, heard Romanian most often even on the streets of Hermannstadt: “Sometimes you hear the Romanisti, and sometimes German, from the same individual … A confluence of different peoples 82  William Lithgow, The Totall Discourse of the Rare Adventures and Painfull Peregrinations of Long Nineteen Yeares Travayles, 1632 (Glasgow: 1906), 364. 83  Chishull, Travels, 101, 104. 84  Burton, Narrative, 296. “Romanisti” is Burton’s rendering of the Rom. “româneşte,” meaning “in Romanian.” 85  Wilkinson, Account of the Principalities, 161.

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and languages exists in Hermanstadt—Romanisti, German, Hungarian, and even Latin, are spoken by its inhabitants; the first, however, of these, is in vulgar use.”86 Multilingualism in individuals is noted also by Paget: Lila, for example, the sixteen-year-old Gypsy, “spoke alternately Wallack, Magyar, and German, as she in turns scolded, directed, and coaxed.”87 By others it is not observed or is simply taken for granted. Paget begins his survey of Transylvanian peoples unpromisingly: “There are three nations … and with these are mixed up a number of Wallacks, Gipsies, Jews, Armenians, &c.” This is the only mention of “Wallacks”88 in the whole chapter about Transylvanian history and politics, though later there is discussion of the 1784 uprising. In fact, Paget, like Gerard later, eventually gives appropriate space to the Wallachians as a part of the cultural mix; both authors are informative also on the Gypsies of Transylvania. None the less Paget’s arrangement betrays a preconception which in 1839 can hardly be unexpected. The “Wallacks, Gipsies, Jews, Armenians, &c.” existed, but only the “three nations”89 participated in Transylvanian politics and were expected to go on doing so, not least in the view of the Hungarian noble family into which Paget had married. Of all the authors quoted in this study, only Andrew Paton, in 1850, tries to look further, daring to call into question the “future government of Transylvania.” He foresees the instability threatened by the political power of the three nations together and the economic and cultural power of the Hungarian elite, and suggests a constitution that would protect Hungarian property but at the same time guarantee “Daco-Roman” language and culture.90 Almost every author quoted in this chapter, from Lithgow onwards, makes some comment on the ethnic complexity of Transylvania. One question that their readers were surely going to ask was: how did the peoples of Transylvania differ in terms of food choices and eating customs? With a couple of exceptions, they have nothing to offer in reply. Lithgow, in the above quotation, suggests why this is so. A system such as he describes would depend on market towns. Sure enough, as Burton and others make clear, at market towns on market day the ethnicities mingled. Every Transylvanian language was spoken. All necessarily consumed the food and drink that inns and market stalls had to offer. So did the travellers. 86  Burton, Narrative, 303–304. 87  Paget, Hungary and Transylvania, vol. 2, 237. 88  The modern usage is “Wallachian.” 89  This refers to the three historic nations which had political representation in Transylvania: the Hungarians, Saxons and the Hungarian-speaking Székelys or Secklers. 90  Paton, Travels in Hungary, 206–10.

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Paget, Boner and Gerard all attempted to describe the lifestyles of three nationalities separately. Of these three Emily Gerard was the one who best succeeded in exploring respectable peasant households, finding it easier, as a 19th-century woman, to gain entrance, to ask the pertinent questions and to understand the answers. But even in Gerard’s chapters on Hungarian, German and Romanian lifestyles, differences in everyday eating habits are insignificant. There is an irony here. Bucharest, capital of the neighbouring principality whose ethnic mix was far less complex than that of Transylvania, impressed visitors with its embrace of multicultural dining. But this was international fashion, not local diversity. The first author to comment on it—the penniless Burton, of all people—somehow knew immediately that in the Bucharest restaurant he visited “things were attempted in the Italian style”.91 Berger, fifty years later, asserted (confident as always) that Bucharest was “not in the least like any other city in the world. […] “It is not the East, still less the West.”92 She continued with the impressive list of international drinks, international dining styles and international dishes already quoted above. Ozanne and others insisted on the cafés of Bucharest as conclusive evidence that the city was at the summit of international fashion. Had the comparison occurred to them, all authors would have agreed that Transylvania, barely a hundred miles to the north, was a world apart. The difference, if it was a true one in the late 19th century, was not to last. Already in the 1920s travellers are writing of multiple cafés at Făgăraş (Hung. Fogaras), Huedin (Hung. Bánffyhunyad) and, naturally, at Cluj (Koloszvar), the regional centre. In this latter city in 1929 was the ţuica (plum brandy) bar that was frequented by a constellation of academics and theatre people with whom Walter Starkie spent a lively evening.93 Transylvania, newly incorporated in the greater Romania, now looked to Bucharest as national capital. If it had ever been an island, it was an island no longer. Bibliography Published Primary Sources Baedeker, Karl (publisher), Southern Germany and Austria, 7th ed. (Leipzig: 1891). Bargrave, Robert, The Travel Diary of Robert Bargrave, Levant Merchant, 1647–1656, ed. Michael Brennan (London: 1999). Berger, Florence K., A Winter in the City of Pleasure (London: 1877). 91  Burton, Narrative, 280: longer quotation above. 92  Berger, Winter in the City of Pleasure, 35. 93  Starkie, Raggle-taggle (London: 1949), 227.

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Bielz, E. Albert, Reisehandbuch für Siebenbürgen (Hermannstadt: 1881). Boner, Charles, Transylvania: Its products and its people (London: 1865). Bonfini, Antonius, Rerum Ungaricarum Decades quatuor cum dimidia (Basel: 1568). Burton, Nathanael, Narrative of a Voyage from Liverpool to Alexandria, touching at the island of Malta and from thence to Beirout, with a journey to Jerusalem, voyage from Jaffa to Cyprus and Constantinople, and a pedestrian journey from Constantinople, through Turkey, Wallachia, Hungary, and Prussia to the town of Hamburg in the years 1836–1837 (Dublin: 1838). Chishull, Edmund, Travels in Turkey and Back to England (London: 1747). Craven, Elizabeth, A Journey through the Crimea to Constantinople, in a series of letters (London: 1789). Crosse, Andrew F., Round about the Carpathians (London: 1878). Curtis, William, Around the Black Sea (New York: 1911). Gérando, Auguste de, La Transylvanie et ses habitants (Paris: 1850). Gerard, Emily, The Land Beyond the Forest: Facts, figures, and fancies from Transylvania (London: 1888). Hamard, Pierre-Julien, Une course aux capitales, Allemagne, Autriche, Roumanie, Russie, Suède, Norvège, Danemark (Paris: 1885). Haussez, [Charles Lemercher de Longpré] Baron d’, Alpes et Danube (Paris: 1837). Kurz, Anton, Borszék, Siebenbürgens berühmtester Kurort (Kronstadt: 1844). Lithgow, William, The Totall Discourse of the Rare Adventures and Painfull Peregrinations of Long Nineteen Yeares Travayles from Scotland to the Most Famous Kingdomes in Europe, Asia and Affrica [1632] (Glasgow: 1906). Macmichael, William, Journey from Moscow to Constantinople, in the years 1817, 1818 (London: 1819). Neale, Adam, Travels through Some Parts of Germany, Moldavia and Turkey (London: 1820). Noyes, James, Roumania: The border land of the Christian and the Turk (New York: 1858). Ozanne, J.W., Three Years in Roumania (London: 1878). Paget, John, Hungary and Transylvania (London: 1839). Paton, Andrew, Travels in Hungary, or, sketches of the Goth and the Hun in Transylvania, Debreczin, Pesth, and Vienna, in 1850 (London: 1851). Skene, James Henry, The Danubian Principalities: The frontier lands of the Christian and the Turk / by a British resident of twenty years in the East, 2 vols. (London: 1854). Smith, John, The True Travels, Adventures, and Observations, of Captain John Smith, into Europe, Asia, Africa, and America, from ann. dom. 1593 to 1629, in Idem, Complete Works, vol. 3, ed. Philip L. Barbour (Chapel Hill, NC: 1986). Starkie, Walter, Raggle-taggle: Adventures with a fiddle in Hungary and Roumania (London: 1949). Townson, Robert, Travels in Hungary (London: 1797).

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Walker, Mary, Untrodden Paths in Roumania (London: 1888). Walsh, Robert, Narrative of a Journey from Constantinople to England (London: 1831). Wilkinson, William, An Account of the Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia (London: 1820). Secondary Literature Heiss, Lokke, “Madame Dracula: The life of Emily Gerard,” Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts 10 (1999): 174–86. Listeș Pop, Adriana Dana, “Romania in English Travel Literature: From a winter in the city of pleasure to the way of the crosses,” Journal of Romanian Literary Studies 5 (2014): 577–83. Miller Madden, Henry, “The Diary of John Paget, 1849,” Slavonic and East European Review 19 (1939–1940): 237–64. Teuceanu, Radu, “Un occidental despre Transilvania: Jane Emily Gerard, The Land Beyond the Forest, 1888,” Acta Musei Brukenthal 1 (2006): 243–51. Veress, Andreas (ed.), Antonius Possevino, Transilvania (Cluj: 1913). Wilson, Anne C., Water of Life (Totnes: 2006).

Chapter 15

“The Taste of Others”: Travellers and Locals Share Food in the Romanian Principalities (19th Century) Angela Jianu Anyone who approaches the history of food today is aware that it is not easy— or advisable—to dissociate the materiality of food from its metaphorical and symbolic values. In other words, one should heed Roland Barthes’ early reminder, written in 1961, that there is a continuum between food as substance and food as circumstance.1 At one end of the spectrum, food caters for a basic human need, but at the other, it can also “ascend to the height of arcane ritual and pageantry.”2 The present chapter looks at travel narratives produced by foreign visitors to the Romanian Principalities in the first half of the 19th century. They were selected solely on the basis of the presence in them of references to food and commensality, with the emphasis on the latter. I have left aside travellers’ observations on farming and production, storage, retail, exchange and trade, to focus on the ways in which food was shared and on the symbolic values the receivers attached to the food and to the givers. This has been, admittedly, an experimental exercise which resulted in a rather eclectic mix of West- and Central Europeans of diverse backgrounds and professions. In terms of chronological coverage, the sample ranges from 1820 to 1854,3 thus stopping well short of the 1870s, the period which arguably marked a decisive break with the old regime in Romania’s history. In 1877–8 Romania gained independence from the Ottoman Porte and in 1881 it became a kingdom, under a Hohenzollern dynasty. The ensuing nation-building, modernizing programs were in phase with developments elsewhere in the region, and affected travel 1  Roland Barthes, “Pour une psycho-sociologie de l’alimentation moderne,” Annales. Economies, sociétés, civilisations 16 (1961): 986, cited in Ludmilla Kostova, “Meals in Foreign Parts: Food in writing by nineteenth-century British travellers to the Balkans,” Journeys: the international journal of travel and travel writing 4 (1) (Summer 2003): 22. 2  Timothy J. Tomasik and Juliann M. Vitullo, “Introduction” to eidem, eds., At the Table: Metaphorical and material cultures of food in medieval and early modern Europe (Belgium: 2007), xi. 3  As far as possible, the notes include both the pagination of the originals and the page numbers of the Romanian translations in the multi-volume compendium Călători străini despre ţările române (Bucharest: 1968–to date). [Hereafter Călători străini].

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi 10.1163/9789004367548_017

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as well. Modern roads and railways, the increase in the number of hotels and restaurants marked a period when travel to the Balkans and Eastern Europe picked up and a shift towards modern touristic practices became perceptible. The age of the Grand Tour and the lone traveller came to an end, a development welcomed by many and bemoaned by some. Once the texts were assembled,4 the challenge was to try to understand the extent to which references to local and regional foodstuffs were informed by assumptions, representations and stereotypes inherent in the cultural encounter between travellers and locals, and between European ‘centre’ and ‘periphery.’ Historians of travel and travel writing have argued that the traveller’s gaze is rarely innocent: in all ages, visitors to foreign lands bring with them received ideas, preconceptions, imagery and stereotypes acquired through reading and filtered through wide-ranging perspectives determined by gender, class, age, nationality, education and cultural background. In other words, a travel account is always to a significant extent culturally mediated and ‘ideological.’5 Recent decades have seen historians and theorists of travel literature grapple with many of the implications of Orientalism, Balkanism and representations of otherness in a South-East European context. Their potential as analytical tools for addressing the perceived ‘difference’ of East-Central Europe and the Balkans have come under scrutiny, with mixed results. Scholars such as Maria Todorova (Imagining the Balkans, 1997), Vesna Goldsworthy (Inventing Ruritania: The imperialism of the imagination, 1998), and Andrew Hammond (British Literature and the Balkans: Themes and contexts, 2010) have argued that a powerful, ‘hegemonic’ West could be seen as guilty of an ‘imperialism of the mind’ with regard to a peripheral, ‘subaltern’ Eastern Europe: Western travellers and diplomats visiting the East-European regions by and large found them lacking in the features which made the West ‘civilized’ and ‘modern’: educated political and cultural elites, urbanization, industrialization, traditions of political liberalism and a combative civil society, among others. By and large, they constructed a representation of Eastern Europe as a European margin ready— and often eager—to be colonized, culturally at least, if not politically. 4  To my knowledge, only one monograph has been published so far in Romanian on the culinary impressions of foreigners in the Romanian lands: Virginia Petricǎ, Identitate culinară românească din perspectiva călătorilor străini (Bucharest: 2013). Earlier, Carmen Andraş devoted one chapter to this topic in her study România şi imaginile ei în literatura de călătorie britanică (Cluj: 2003). Both include a wider sample of travelogues than the one I have used here. 5  Tim Youngs (ed.), Travel Writing in the Nineteenth Century: Filling the blank spaces (Cambridge University Press: 2012), “Introduction,” 2.

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Joining the debate, historians such as K.E. Fleming (“Orientalism, the Balkans, and Balkan Historiography,” 2000) and Diana Mishkova (“Symbolic Geographies and Visions of Identity: A Balkan perspective,” 2008) singled out a few key differences between the Western discourse on the East in general and the discourse on Eastern Europe and the Balkans in particular: unlike the former, the latter is not based on a tradition of academic (anthropological, linguistic) study and secondly, in geopolitical terms, the West had no colonial interests proper in the region. The key question which informed this preliminary exploration was: can we discern any common themes and any patterns of perception, positioning, and ‘othering’ in the selected texts of foreigners who travelled to the ‘in-between’ Romanian lands before the onset of modernity? Three interlocking thematic clusters have been used to organize the material: a. the tradition of hospitality to travellers, commensality and conviviality in both informal and formal contexts (food offered or purchased in transit; the food entitlement of official visitors; the enforced ‘hospitality’ in quarantine stations); b. feasts and banquets, their social and symbolic meanings; c. public dining (inns and taverns).

Frugality, Hospitality and Local Tastes

Travellers to the Romanian lands often refer to the locals’ hospitality and their frequent willingness to share their abode and modest fare in a region which, at least until the 1830s–1840s, was largely lacking in inns, hotels and similar amenities. Foreign diplomats, dignitaries on official missions and high-ranking foreigners enjoying the protection of their consuls in the region carried laissezpassers which entitled them to free food supplies, accommodation and horses as they transited the Principalities or Transylvania. Less exalted visitors often relied on the kindness of locals who would share—and very rarely sell—their modest polenta (Rom. mǎmǎliga) and borscht.6 Travellers visiting the region until the 17th century commented on an ostensible tendency to alimentary frugality among all classes.7 However, by the late 18th century, there were signs that the top echelons of the Romanian boyar class was being engulfed by a 6  For these dishes see the contributions by Margareta Aslan and Maria Magdalena Székely in the present volume. For foreign travellers’ reactions to mămăliga see below in this chapter. Cf. Petricǎ, Identitate culinară românească, 179–84. 7  For example, Marcus Bandinus (Marco Bandini), in “Annotationes Moldavicarum Rerum,” Codex Bandinus, 311 (pagination in the Latin original), Rom. trans. in Călători străini, vol. 5, 330.

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wave of consumerism and love of luxury which made the class divide in a predominantly rural-agrarian country even more conspicuous. With Charles Boileau Elliott (1803–1875), we fast forward to the 19th century, the period which is the focus of this chapter. Invalided from the Bengal Service in 1829 due to a “complaint in the throat,” Boileau Elliott returned to Britain, took a degree at Cambridge, was ordained and later became vicar in Godalming in Surrey and rector in Tattingstone, a Suffolk parish.8 A generous endowment from his father, Charles Elliott, a civil servant with the East India Company and Orientalist author, allowed him to travel and thus be away for long periods from Britain, where he appears to have found life rather uncongenial.9 Elliott was of that less common breed of Grand Tour-ist whom inquisitiveness lured away from sunny, pleasurable Mediterranean destinations towards the rough roads and hazardous waterways of what for many West-Europeans was “Barbaria” or “the world’s end.”10 In 1835, steam navigation on the Danube had only recently been introduced in Hungary, and was still deemed relatively hazardous, when Elliott and his party, a colourful, crossclass assemblage of Hungarians, Germans, Armenians, Italians and the odd Englishman, embarked at Pressburg (today Slovakia’s capital, Bratislava) on a steamboat bound for the Danubian Principalities. The journey was slow, and sailing times were frequently delayed by weather conditions, quarantine stations, customs regulations, linguistic barriers and other natural handicaps and logistical difficulties. These frustrations were offset by the scenery (“exceedingly wild” and “romantic to a great degree”)11 and by the unspoilt quality of the hospitable, but extremely poor locals of the lower classes. It is at this point in his narrative that Elliott, like other travellers to the Balkans from the mid19th-century onwards, alludes to what was to become a recurrent anxiety: the locals’ hospitality and natural simplicity might eventually become a casualty of the development of modern tourism, which could transform these benign “savages” into every other European.12

8  Charles Boileau Elliott (1803–1875), clergyman and Fellow of the Royal Society, author of Travels in the three great empires of Austria, Russia, and Turkey, 2 vols. (Philadelphia: 1839). 9  Memoirs of Emily Eugenia Barton née Elliott (1839–1924), MS., online open access at: URL: http://bartonhistory.wikispaces.com/Emily+Elliott+%281839-1924%29, s.p. [accessed 1 October 2016]. 10  Elliott, Travels 1, 55. Rom. trans. in Cǎlǎtori străini, vol. 3, 349. For the Romanian lands as peripheries of Europe, see further comments below in my conclusions. 11  Ibid., 62, 64, Rom. trans. in Călători străini, vol. 3, 354. 12  Ibid., 74, Rom. trans. in Călători străini, vol. 3, 359.

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Like most of his contemporaries visiting these parts of the world, Boileau Elliott was classically-trained and wrote for a well-educated British audience, an audience which presumably expected a balance between the exotic ‘othering’ of the natives and some comforting ‘mirroring’ of familiar features from their home environment or from their educational background. Having started his account from the premise that the “barbarians” he visited were part of nations “among whom morality is little estimated, and purity of thought comparatively unknown,” he then proceeded to domesticate them and render them more palatable to the “sensitive delicacy” of his readers.13 One of the occasions which provided such an opportunity was food-sharing. Unlike the French doctor Joseph Caillat, who, a few years later, would share food with travelling salesmen under open skies,14 Elliott, as a civil servant, had consular support in the Principalities and enjoyed a measure of comfort. Upon arriving at the village Tchernitz (Rom. Cerneţi) in Wallachia, as their boat was delayed, he and his fellow-travellers were offered the hospitality of a local senior official. The ispravnik (district governor) “Demetrio Kinez” (Dimitrie Chinezu) had an amiable wife, fourteen children, fairly low wages, and addressed his guests in broken French. The hosts themselves helped with serving meals and making beds, assisted by a small army of Gypsy slaves and a number of sullenlooking servants: Immediately on our arrival, the mistress presented to us a tray holding four pretty little circular glass jars with ornamented gilt tops. Two of these were full of sweetmeats, and two of water. This is the Wallachian welcome offered to every guest on entering a house, and repeated to us three times during our short detention at Tchernitz. The sweetmeat is intended to correct the water, which is bad throughout the principality; and numerous spoons are brought, because it is contrary to etiquette to use the same twice. In an hour we were summoned to a supper consisting of various fruits, a roast fowl, poached eggs, boiled milk, salad and a species of cheese, all served by the master of the house and another brother official; a little gipsy-slave waiting in the distance. Before we sat down, our host brought us a metal ewer with a long narrow top and a tin basin, having a flat surface pierced like a cullender and surmounted by a raised circle on which was placed a piece of soap. We had just asked for butter, and this apparatus so little resembled what we are accustomed to 13  Ibid., iii (the Preface was omitted from the Romanian translation in Călători străini, vol. 3). 14  On Caillat, see below, pp. 433–4.

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use for the purpose of washing, that we proceeded to cut the soap with a knife, intending the help ourselves to some butter. It would have been rude to smile at a foreigner’s blunder; so the only resource of our benevolent friend was to drench our arms with the water intended for our hands, and to make his escape while we bewailed this specimen of what we supposed to be Wallachian politeness.15 The episode contains a number of details which subvert other foreign visitors’ impressions: the fruit preserves (here called with the generic term sweetmeats) are served, according to Elliott, in order to make the poor-quality water drinkable. The author does not mention the status-related role of this sweet treat16 and it remains unclear whether he is aware of its prevalence in the entire Ottoman world. His reference to “etiquette,” which dictates the use of separate spoons, is in striking contrast to other travellers’ observations on the country’s general lack of hygiene and table manners. As late as 1861, the German traveller Richard Kunisch still noted that in boyar houses the same teaspoon and the same glass were used round the table for taking the fruit preserve with water in descending order of rank and with priority given to males. The same went for the wooden basin used communally for hand-washing before the meal.17 The historian would like to be able to establish with some degree of precision the stages in which the Romanian elites gradually stopped eating with their fingers, adopting first the use of basic copper or tin utensils—made locally by Gypsy blacksmiths or imported from Constantinople—and then the more elegant and expensive table services, cutlery and glasses imported from the West. Another yet unanswered question refers to the moment when the habit of using the knife and the fork trickled down to the lower sections of society.18 We know that the rarefied top echelons of very rich notables in the Romanian Principalities were caught up in a competitive race to ‘out-do’ their peers in terms of consumption of luxury items starting roughly with the mid- to the 15  Elliott, Travels, 71–2, Rom. trans. in Călători străini, vol. 3, 357. 16  For this, see the observations of Dr. Joseph Caillat below, on p. 434. 17  Dan Dumitru Iacob, Elitele din Principatele române în prima jumǎtate a secolului al XIXlea: Sociabilitate şi divertisment (Iaşi: 2015), 107. The references are to Richard Kunisch’s travel book Bukarest und Stambul: Skizzen aus Ungarn, Rumänien und der Türkei (Berlin: 1861). 18  The use of the fork possesses obvious hygienic and symbolic values, but it was a relatively late addition to the dining styles of the West-European elites. Used in Italy for eating pasta in the 14th century, it was adopted in France in the 16th, century, but Louis XIV still apparently ate with his fingers. See Jeffrey M. Pilcher, Food in World History (London, NY: 2006), 36.

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late eighteenth century.19 While competitive consumption must have been the preserve of a small circle of very rich families, the fact that a low-paid civil servant in a remote village of the southern Danubian area of Wallachia used cutlery and “pretty little glass jars” to lay out the table for his guest and the use of a hand-washing basin is puzzling. The details appear to add new data to the mixed information offered by travel narratives on the Romanians’ hygiene standards and their place on the spectrum of European civilization. Charles Elliott also describes in some detail the rather copious dinner served the next day before their departure: When we sat down to dinner, the master and mistress, who took an active part in laying out the table, formally wished us a “good appetite”, various stimulants to which, such as salted fish, kaviar, or the spawn of sturgeon, and pickles, were set before us. To these succeeded soup, boiled beef with sauce, fowls, mutton-haricot, pancake, and a salad of raw cabbage dressed with oil and vinegar; delicious grapes and peaches, bad pears, and walnuts, finished the repast; coffee and pipes were then served, and our hospitable friends, having duly bowed to each of their guests, expressed a hope that they had “dined well”. When the pipe was finished, the whole family retired to take a siesta, a custom so prevalent that even workmen and servants go to sleep in the middle of the day. This concluded, information was brought that the steamer had arrived at Scala Cladova, and we proceeded to join her, our postillions howling, groaning, and screaming at their horses louder than before to honour the ispravnik, who accompanied us in a carriage with three outriders.20 The details on the food, probably sourced locally in that Danubian region and served by hosts referred to as “hospitable friends,” the custom of wishing guests a “good appetite,” the post-prandial coffee and pipe, the escort offered by the ispravnik all contribute to create a positive image of simple, leisurely conviviality. This tableau subverts Elliott’s own earlier negative reference to their “detention at Tchernitz” of the previous day, as their boat was delayed in what was first referenced as “Barbaria.”21 The author’s personal experience thus served to correct his initial, uninformed expectations that readers’ “sensitive delicacy”22 19  See the discussion on consumerist emulation in George Lazăr’s study on the merchant class in the present volume. 20  Elliott, Travels, 73–4, Rom. trans. in Cǎlǎtori străini, vol. 3, 359. 21  See quotation from Elliott, above p. 429. 22  See p. 430 above and note 13.

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might find something offensive in his descriptions of far-flung, little-known lands. The French doctor Joseph Caillat practised medicine in the Romanian Principalities between 1845 and 1848 as he sought treatments for his own ailments while also travelling out of curiosity for these little-known lands.23 He noted that, while boyar hospitality was genuine, it was also a characteristic born out of ostentation, curiosity and lack of activity in equal degrees. In contrast to 17th-century travellers’ observations on frugality, he commented that the Romanian boyar elites ate copiously, but remained insensitive to the refinements of haute cuisine and could not distinguish between a delicacy and an ordinary item of food. His binary pair of choice is not that of frugality vs. luxury, but—quoting Brillat-Savarin—the opposition between feeding (which is what animals do) vs. eating (which is what humans do). Anticipating Norbert Elias’ theories of civilizing processes, the French doctor believed that the lack of a discerning palate placed the Romanian elites, who opted for mere nourishment, at the bottom of the civilizational league table (the “infancy” of civilization).24 However, as a medical man whose narrative is primarily concerned with health and remedies, he also observed a certain local expertise in adjusting the chemistry of foods for therapeutic purposes. First courses of broth seasoned with lemon or vinegar served to encourage the eater’s gastric juices and thus help with the digestion of subsequent meat-rich courses. Caillat also noted that, in spite of a meat-oriented diet, the Romanians used a wide range of vegetables, the more unusual of which for a Frenchman were wild horseradish, cucumber (used with vinegar in fresh summer salads) and locally-grown okra, widely used in Egypt and in Turkey but at the time largely unknown in the West.25 Turkish-style yoghurt was also part of what in Caillat’s description sounds like a rather healthy ‘acid-based’ diet which he contrasted with the ‘alkali-based’ French cuisine he knew.26

23  Joseph Caillat, a distinguished physician and laureate of the Légion d’honnneur, must be one of the earliest medical promoters of the curative powers of Transylvanian thermal waters, such as the Baths of Herculane. See his study La Source des yeux aux bains d’Hercule en Hongrie, procédé particulier d’application des eaux minérales au traitement des maladies de l’appareil oculaire (Paris: 1862). 24  Joseph-M. Caillat, Voyage médical dans les Provinces danubiennes (Paris: 1854), 20–1. Excerpt in Rom. trans. in Cǎlǎtori străini, vol. 6, 516. 25  For the frequent use of okra in the kitchens of the Ottoman saray, see Özge Samancı’s contritbution to the present volume. 26  Caillat, Voyage médical, 21, Rom. trans. in Călători străini, vol. 6, 521.

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The French doctor attached a digestive, therapeutic use to the home-made fruit and flower preserves which, sweetened with honey rather than sugar,27 were consumed by the elites several times a day with fresh water. He was emphatic about the fact that the Moldo-Wallachian jam taken with fresh water— more refreshing than Italian ice-creams, European lemonades or Turkish sherbets, in his view—was not considered an indulgent dessert, but a daily medical necessity. The purging and cleansing virtues of the jam meant that, when travelling, a Wallachian of the higher or middling classes would never separate from his pipe, his fur-lined pelisse and his jar of home-made preserve.28 The protocol for serving the “doulcheatsa” or “doulchetsse”29 had an additional social and diplomatic dimension: it was on a par with the serving of coffee and the post-prandial smoking of the chibook and was a sign of great consideration for guests, be they acquaintances or strangers. The making of jams and compotes was a woman’s job. Elite ladies, too, prepared them with their own hands rather than leaving their making to servants, a custom noted in native narratives, too.30 The consorts of the ruling princes sent jars of homemade preserves as prized gifts to the wives of dignitaries and foreign consuls in the two capitals, a gesture which highlights the status-related values of this product and its role in what to Western eyes must have been a curious type of ‘jam diplomacy.’ Travelling from Wallachia into Transylvania on his return journey from the Holy Land and Constantinople in 1837, Nathanael Burton, a Church of Ireland pastor, did not form a positive view of the natives, especially after the theft of his valuable ring by two “hirsute locals.”31 Unlike travellers who, armed with letters of introduction and connections in high places, lived in some comfort and dined in style in elite households or officials’ guestrooms in Bucharest and 27  For the use of honey rather than the expensive sugar as a sweetener, see the contributions by Margareta Aslan and Maria Magdalena Székely in this volume. 28  Caillat, Voyage médical, 24, Rom. trans. in Călători străini, vol. 6, 522. For the therapeutic and symbolic uses of fruit preserves as perceived by foreign travellers to the Romanian Principalities, see Petricǎ, Identitate culinară românească, 194–200. 29  Rom. dulceaţă. 30  Iacob, Elitele din Principatele române, 98–9. 31  Burton noted that “[t]he inhabitants have a thievish, black look, with large, low-crowned hats”, and that their country had more wine-houses than churches. A poor Wallachian peasant who offered a night’s accommodation in his hovel and shared polenta and onions without any retribution was the only local he found “interesting.” Nathanael Burton, Narrative of a Voyage from Liverpool to Alexandria (Dublin: 1838), 273, Rom. trans. in Cǎlǎtori străini, vol. 3, 589. For Nathanael Burton’s observations on food and drink in Transylvania, see Andrew Dalby’s contribution to this volume.

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Iaşi, Reverend Burton travelled like an apostle of the early Christian era. He endured a gruelling trip, largely on foot and without shoes (“discalceated and unhosed”),32 lost money and personal belongings, often slept rough, and was subjected to the unsympathetic queries and body-searches of the Austrian police. Even though disenchanted with the bad roads and more generally with the perceived low levels of civilization in the Romanian lands, he was generous and perceptive enough to appreciate that the modest, but tasty, bean stew, polenta, curd and onions which humble peasants and shepherds often shared with him were entirely appropriate for the climate and the circumstances. In contrast to the rarefied quality of elite and princely feasts described by betterpositioned travellers, Reverend Burton’s meals had the primeval, frugal, yet nourishing quality of Biblical food, as he noted one hot day in July 1837, when travelling on a Wallachian road: One sultry day, as, weary and hungry, I was reclining on a bank, I saw a female returning, after bringing some dinner to the reapers. I called to her, and intimated that I wanted food, when she instantly presented me with a large piece of Indian flour pudding-bread, a small bunch of scallions, and an earthen dish of vinegar in which to dip my bread. In my own country, it was a lunch I could not have understood; but here it was quite in character, and extremely refreshing. This fare reminded me of the saying of Boaz to Ruth, recorded in the 2nd chapter and 4th verse of her history—“And Boaz said to her, at meal-time, come thou hither, and eat of the bread, and dip thy morsel in the vinegar.”33 In contrast to Reverend Burton, Patrick O’Brien, the Irish barrister and future MP for King’s County (today County Offaly), was armed with properly stamped passports and other official papers and did not have to rely on food hand-outs. His experience of local hospitality and food was imposed on him by quarantine regulations. He was one of an important group of war correspondents, military men and doctors who transited or resided in the Romanian Principalities during the Crimean War (1853–56). Like the Spanish Civil War later, the Crimean War, a regional conflict which escalated into a major European armed engagement, triggered a surge of international interest and an onrush of participants, from diplomatic, military and medical personnel to starry-eyed young volunteers and right down to oddball adventurers and high-class courtesans. As contested areas central to the conflict with a major stake in the re-mapping of 32  Burton, Narrative, 287. 33  Ibid., 294, Rom. trans. in Cǎlǎtori străini, vol. 3, 590.

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‘Turkey-in-Europe,’ the Romanian Lands continued to be visited by foreigners, not always as destinations per se, but as part of the route to and from the seat of war. There was an increase in the number of visitors (at least those who left written accounts),34 as well as a shift in their professional background in favour of military staff and war correspondents. Imperceptibly, their observations on their host country started to be coloured by Great Power claims of political and economic influence in regions controlled by the ‘Sick Man’ of Europe. O’Brien recounted his passage from Constantinople to Vienna via the Russian-occupied Romanian Principalities in his Journal of a residence in the Danubian Principalities in the autumn and winter of 1853, published in London in 1854. In recent decades, long periods of war had exposed the country to severe plague epidemics which prompted the introduction of quarantine station along the borders. O’Brien therefore had to endure the enforced ‘hospitality’ of Russian quarantine officials in such a station in the Danubian port Brǎila.35 In what he considered to be an epidemic-free period, O’Brien deemed such a confinement to be little more than “polite incarceration of four or five days, during which the police have every necessary facility for making inquiries into your political opinions and your object in visit.”36 O’Brien was perhaps glossing over the real danger of epidemics spreading in the areas. Even British officials had recognized the sanitary efficacy of these cordons sanitaires37 even though they hampered traffic and free trade on the Danube. In addition, the occupying Russian army had a political rationale for the surveillance, as O’Brien himself conceded. The region teemed with anti-Russian agitators, mostly Poles, who often travelled with fake passports and liaised with fellow South-East European and Balkan freedom-fighters.38 But, more than the scrutiny of his political views by Russian border patrols and clerks, it was the level of hygiene observed in such establishments which was perhaps worse in O’Brien’s view: 34  The editors of the Cǎlǎtori străini compendium calculated that between 1852 and 1856 the number of documented travellers was 46, the same as in the entire decade between 1831 and 1840. See Daniela Buşǎ, “Prefaţǎ” (Introduction), in Cǎlǎtori străini, vol. 6, 7, note 3. 35  On the operation of the Danubian quarantine network, and British complaints against it, see Constantin Ardeleanu, International Trade and Diplomacy at the Lower Danube: The Sulina Question and the economic premises of the Crimean War (1829–1853) (Brăila: 2014), 67–72. The issue of free navigation on the Danube was not be resolved before the end of the Crimean War in 1856. 36  Patrick O’Brien, Journal of a Residence in the Danubian Principalities in the autumn and winter of 1853, (London: 1854), 13, Rom. trans. in Cǎlǎtori străini, vol. 6, 82. 37  Ardeleanu, International Trade, 69. 38  O’Brien, Journal, 26 (passage missing from the Romanian translation in Cǎlǎtori străini, vol. 6).

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The guardiano brought me my food at stated intervals during the day. As he did not like making more than one journey from the kitchen to the den where I was immured, he brought all the materials for whatever meal it might be at once. At dinner hour, for example, he appeared with a basin in one hand and an earthen dish in the other. In the basin was soup, and on the dish boiled meat or pilaff, or both together; and about his person he carried the rest of the dinner, and at times some small article which he did not find room for in his pockets he held between his teeth. After he had laid the basin and the dish on the table, he drew forth a little plate, with a very small iron fork, a spoon of the same metal, and a rusty knife. Off the same little plate I ate the soup, slowly and painfully, as well as the pilaff and meat, or whatever else there might be. I made no attempt at having my couvert changed with each dish; for on the first day, when I asked the guardiano to clean the plate after I had eaten my soup, I saw that he was preparing to do so with a cloth which he drew out of his pocket.39 This was an entirely different type of hospitality which, at the end of four or five days, entailed a “bill of expenses” covering ten francs a day for the food, as well as rent and the guardian’s wages.40 Another traveller of the Crimean period was the Harvard-educated American doctor James Oscar Noyes,41 who travelled from Vienna to the Middle East and became a hekim (physician) in the Ottoman army. In a career shift from medicine to journalism he started work as a war correspondent for a number of British and American periodicals, including the National Magazine, which published his accounts from the Romanian Principalities in 1856. As a bearer of an official safe-conduct as he travelled in southern Wallachia, he was, like Charles Elliott in 1835, entitled to the hospitality of local officials, such as the post stationmaster Jian Bibescu, who accommodated and fed the traveller in his modest but tidy and clean house: The little table, spread à la Turque, with the additional luxury of knives and forks, was soon brought in, and we squatted around it upon the divan. I had for some weeks enjoyed the magnificent dinners of Muza

39  Ibid., 15, Rom. trans. in Cǎlǎtori străini, vol. 6, 82–3. 40  Ibid., 17, Rom. trans. in Cǎlǎtori străini, vol. 6, 83. 41  James Oscar Noyes (1829–1879), American doctor and war correspondent, author of Roumania: The border land of the Christian and the Turk (New York: 1858).

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[sic] Pacha,42 commandant of Bukarest, where, at the expense of the Government, the treasures of the French and Wallachian cuisine were daily exhausted in spreading a luxurious feast. Pachas and post directors, however, live in a different style. Before me were no sweet rolls and café au lait of Bukarest, no caviar of Giurgevo,43 no game from the Bastarnic Alps,44 nor trout from the icy torrents of Mount Pion,45 no confiture of Yassy, with sweet doultchas, no generous wine of Butzeo46 or Cotnar, and no luscious grapes from the blushing hills of Campina, to be eaten to the soft music of the lautari. In place of these luxuries we had eggs, salted fish from the Danube, and plastic mamaliga made of corn-meal and water.47 This passage, coming from a text written at the end of the period surveyed here, seems to recapitulate in a light register many of the themes relating to representations of food-sharing in the Romanian Principalities, such as the contrast between “squatting” à la Turque on divans vs. sitting at a table, or that between the growing influence of French cuisine vs. the enjoyable taste and picturesque appellations d’origine (contrôlée or not) of locally-sourced foodstuffs. The excerpt contains a number of subtle markers of a positive representation of the Balkan products and setting: the polenta (mǎmǎliga) is described as “plastic” rather than as the worst possible meal in the world when cold (Döbel, 1830, see below), while the tunes of the local Gypsy fiddlers are here “soft” music rather than “discordant, frightful” noise (see below, Comte de Marcellus, 1820). And although the writer reminisces fondly about the English-born Mazar Pasha’s munificence, the sheer accumulation of local names is a paean to regional foodstuffs and traditions.

Feasts and Banquets

In November 1820, Marie Louis, Comte de Marcellus,48 the diplomat who famously acquired the Venus of Milo for France, was briefly in Bucharest, on 42  Sir Stephen Bartlett Lakeman (1823–1897), a British officer who, under the name Mazar Pasha, became a general in the Ottoman army during the Crimean War. 43  Rom. Giurgiu. 44  The ancient name of the Carpathian mountain range. 45  Greek mountain peak, near Ephesus. 46  Rom. Buzǎu. 47  Noyes, Roumania, 209, Rom. trans. in Cǎlǎtori străini, vol. 6, 225. 48  Marie-Louis-Jean-André-Charles Demartin du Tyrac (1795–1865), Comte de Marcellus, French embassy secretary in Constantinople (1816–1820), state secretary at the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1829, diplomat and traveller. He was the author of Souvenirs

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his return journey after four years of intricate great-power entanglements in Constantinople. As a major diplomatic figure of Restoration France, he was entitled to an invitation to attend the quadruple marriage festivities of the ruling Prince’s daughter, Ruxandra Soutzos,49 and of three more elite couples. This was the twilight of the Phanariot regimes,50 and the mix of ethnic musical traditions and Hellenic decadence would appear to encapsulate the original court culture which flourished in Bucharest and Iaşi under the Ottoman-sponsored Phanariot rulers: During the entire feast, the shrill and discordant Wallachian and Gypsy music alternated with an Italian band which sounded rather out of practice; as dessert was being served, amidst the frightful harmonies of the joint bands, a toast was raised to the four happy couples. At precisely the same time, Arnautes armed with daggers rushed towards some voluminous fortresses made of sugar and placed at the two ends of the table. Hundreds of canaries and goldfinches—until then hidden in the sugar citadels—flew out, chased by the Arnautes, and alighted in front of the guests depositing amorous couplets, written in classical and demotic Greek, which had been hitherto attached to their necks.51 De Marcellus does not offer any information on the kind of food served at that princely table or on the identity and status of his two hundred fellow-guests. Did he, the classically-trained champion of old-regime politics and culture, de l’Orient. 2 vols. (Paris: 1839), Chants du peuple en Grèce (Paris: 1851, 1860) and Souvenirs diplomatiques, correspondance intime de M. de Chateaubriand (Paris: 1858). 49  She was the daughter of Prince Alexandros Soutzos (Rom. Alexandru Suţu, b. 1758), who was ruler of Wallachia when he died in 1821. 50  The Phanariot regimes take their name from the Greek notables living in the Phanar (Tr. Fener) quarter of Constantinople who gained appointment by the Porte as governors (hospodars) of Wallachia and Moldavia from 1711–2 (M.) and 1716 (W.) to 1821. For more on the Phanariots in English-language studies, see Richard Clogg, A Concise History of Greece (Cambridge University Press: 2013), 20 sqq. For a recent study devoted to the Phanariot networks see Christine Philliou, Biography of an Empire: Governing Ottomans in an age of revolution (University of California Press: 2011) and the bibliography in the review of this volume by Alex Drace-Francis at: URL: http://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/review/1312 [accessed 6 August 2016]. 51  De Marcellus, Souvenirs, 2, 551, Rom. trans. in Cǎlǎtori străini, vol. 1, 909. (Translation from the French mine, AJ). For more on the two Romanian capitals as East-Central-European cultural centres under the Phanariots, see Mark Mazower, The Balkans (London: 2000), 55. The Arnautes were ethnic Albanians employed as servants, guards and coach-drivers at the Phanariot courts.

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enjoy this display of quaint ‘Balkan’ princely opulence? He does not give his readers any clues as to his reactions or any indications of the techniques employed to create these dramatic sugar table sculptures. This might suggest that he was used to such banqueting tableware or that, perhaps, these structures were modest affairs compared to the candy gardens of Istanbul or to the WestEuropean centrepieces. Sugar had been in use in Western Europe since classical times as medicine, sweetener and preservative, but, in the form of sugar paste, from the early modern period onwards it also increasingly became a very versatile artistic medium for the creation of ornaments at opulent elite banquets, especially in Italy and France.52 In both countries, sugar sculpture and edible table ornaments became a prized art form which served to display wealth, honour guests and cement diplomatic alliances at opulent banquets. The idea of using sugar for making figurines may have originated in China, while the technology of sugar processing came from India. Both inventions travelled westwards and are documented in Arabic cookery books written in 13th-century Spain.53 It has been suggested that Jews fleeing persecution in Inquisition-dominated Spain may have introduced this fashion into Turkey, where highly-skilled confectioners in Galata mediated the transition of the practice to Istanbul.54 The display of sugar table decorations alongside monumental nahils became a major feature in banquets at imperial coming-of-age ceremonies and weddings.55 By the 18th century, ‘sugar diplomacy’ peaked across Europe and Ottoman Turkey. From around 1750, as trade shifted from the Mediterranean to the 52  The use of entremets and centrepieces at court banquets has a distinguished pedigree in Europe, dating at least as far back as the Duchy of Burgundy in the 15th century. See, for example, L.B. Ross, “Beyond Eating: Political and personal significance of the entremets at the banquets of the Burgundian court,” in At the Table, eds. Tomasik and Vitullo, 145–66. For further details on the use of confectionery and sugar sculpted tableware in the West, see Ivan Day, “The Art of Confectionery,” online open access, s. p. at: URL: http://www .historicfood.com/The%20Art%20of%20Confectionery.pdf [accessed 5 November 2016]. The essay was re-printed in Peter Blackwood Brown (ed.), Pleasures of the Table: Ritual and display in the European dining room, 1600–1900 (York: 1997). 53  Mary Işin, Sherbet and Spice: The complete story of Turkish sweets and desserts (London: 2013), 56. 54  Işin, Sherbet and Spice, 57. 55  For a study of sugar decorations and nahils used in Ottoman ceremonial, see Esin Atil, Levni and the Surname: The story of an eighteenth-century Ottoman festival (Istanbul: 1999; University of Washington Press: 2000). This volume is a study of the contemporary illustrations of the lavish circumcision festivities for Sultan Ahmed III’s four sons in 1720. I am grateful to an anonymous reviewer for this reference.

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Atlantic, in Western Europe sugar ceased to be a rare, luxury item and its consumption spread to the middling and eventually the lower classes. In contrast, by the late 18th century, in the Romanian Principalities sugar was still imported almost exclusively for use in wealthy elite houses. A list of purchases from 1787 by the high-ranking boyar (Postelnic) Hagi Stan Jianu gives us a rare example of the use of sugar centrepieces in the region. Stan Jianu, originally a lesserrank boyar-cum-merchant, lived in Oltenia, the southern region of Wallachia, and ordered his luxury items via the very well-connected and influential Transylvanian merchant house of Hagi Pop. Having received a top boyar title from the Phanariot Prince Nicolae Mavrogheni56—who, controversially, sold titles copiously to prestige-focused and arriviste local elites—Stan Jianu wanted to offer the prince a sumptuous banquet at his house. For this he ordered wines of Tokay and of the Rhine, oil of Provence, expensive tableware, crates of lemons and oranges, young lemon and orange trees with flowers or unripe fruit, expensive rare-breed horses as gifts for the Prince and, interestingly, a set of twenty-four items designated as “aufsaţi,” probably a corrupt form of the German Aufzatz, sugar-made table decorations still popular in Central Europe (mainly Germany and Poland) in the early decades of the 18th century. Boyar Jianu wanted these specifically to compose a fashionable (“naimod”) centerpiece made of sugar and silver in the shape of “a grove with various beasts as the lords have on their tables,” to be designed according to information he had from a nephew.57 The fashion for mixing sugar table sculpture and silver tableware may have been a residue of the Austrian occupation of Oltenia (1718–1739)58 or may have come to the Oltenian elites under the impact of fashions carried by Transylvanian merchants from Central Europe into the Romanian lands. The language used, with imperfect renditions of foreign terms such aufsaţ, naimod, raritet, denotes German, Austrian and Central-European channels, which 56  Gk. Nikolaos Mavrogenis (r. 1786–89). For a recent study on aspects of his career, see Sophia Laiou, “Between Pious Generosity and Faithful Service to the Ottoman State: The Vakıf of Nikolaos Mavrogenis, end of the eighteenth century,” Turkish Historical Review 6 (2015): 151–74. 57  Nicolae Iorga, Scrisori de boieri olteni şi munteni cǎtre casa de negoţ sibiianǎ Hagi Pop (Bucharest: 1906), liv, 13–4. For a recent study on the history of European tableware which refers to sugar table sculpture, see Maureen Cassidy Geiger (ed.), Fragile diplomacy: Meissen porcelain for European courts ca. 1710–63 (Yale University Press: c2007). For more on Hagi Stan Jianu and the trade in luxury items in the 18th century, see George Lazăr’s study in the present volume. 58  A Habsburg channel for the transmission of this tradition is possible, given that the Habsburgs were the direct heirs of the Burgundian dukes and disseminated the culture of the Renaissance in Central Europe.

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contrasts with the predominantly French impact on fashions, interiors and cuisine of the latter half of the 19th century. The entire correspondence of the Wallachian elites with the Hagi Popp commercial house, published by Nicolae Iorga, reflects not only the considerable wealth of these classes, but also their arrivisme, their awareness of consumption-fuelled prestige, their attention to trends and fashions, and the peer pressure to consume and/or display the latest emblems of wealth. Although the prince did not visit, the new Postelnic had the purchased items sent to the court at Bucharest, earning his very young son a virtually undeserved title, which even the father questioned.59 In contrast to this drive towards emulative conspicuous consumption of an energetic, ambitious and often nouveau riche elite, the declining Phanariot court elites of the Principalities must have attached different meanings to their sugar tableware. As already noted, de Marcellus does not give any information on the other guests at Soutzos’ wedding banquet or on the nature and quality of the foods, thus making it difficult for us to compare reactions to the symbolism of the sugar sculptures. The Phanariots’ power had traditionally been severely limited by the suzerain Ottoman Porte since their inception in 1711–2 (1716 in Wallachia). Their tenure—sometimes their lives, too—were precarious, a sense of fragility well captured by de Marcellus. Whereas sugar table sculptures were used at the Ottoman Porte and in the West to display an iconography of princely power and to make political statements,60 by 1820, Prince Soutzos’ sugar-cum-aviary-cum-poetry device appeared as little more than a valedictory gesture to celebrate a beloved daughter’s wedding. As noted by de Marcellus, the prince was to die of an illness61—an unusually peaceful end for a Phanariot prince—two months after the wedding and shortly before the anti-Ottoman Balkan revolts of 1821 put an end to the Phanariot regimes and eroded Ottoman control over these areas. The sugar fortresses with their poetry-bearing captive birds acquire a nostalgic aura as they seem to point to the vanishing world of Balkan ‘royalty.’ De Marcellus’ musings on the elusive quality of power are paralleled by his earlier nostalgic comments on another Phanariot wedding, that of the Princess Ralou Callimaki in Istanbul, which took place only a few weeks before the Bucharest quadruple wedding. Within six months, the diplomat writes, the 59   For Hagi Stan Jianu’s ambiguous status as “nobleman” and merchant and Prince Mavrogheni’s sale of titles see the study by Constanţa Vintilǎ-Ghiţulescu, Evgheniţi, ciocoi, mojici: Despre obrazele primei modernităţi româneşti (1750–1860) (Bucharest: 2013), 48–54. 60  Joseph Imorde, “Edible prestige,” in Marcia Reed (ed.), The Edible Monument: The art of food for festivals (The Getty Research Institute: 2015), 105. 61  However, rumours of poisoning persist.

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officiating Patriarch Gregorius V of Constantinople was hanged, some of the princes decapitated and the beautiful princesses sent in exile, as the Porte retaliated against the engulfing wave of anti-Ottoman revolutionary movements and their Phanariot appointees had outlived their usefulness.62 During his travels, de Marcellus was exposed to a wide range of local environments, accommodation and food. He slept in and ate in Bulgarian and Romanian peasant hovels, admired the grace of passing bare-footed peasant wenches, and, at the other end of the social spectrum, mingled with the cosmopolitan elites of Constantinople and the Greek elites of the Balkans. He generally showed himself willing to immerse himself in local culture without surprise, complaint or contempt, and even advocated a degree of adaptation of the traveller to the mores of the host country. Should one wish to understand the “peoples of the East, one should submit to their customs and share somewhat in their virtues,” he advised., perhaps a little disingenuously.63 However, while Constantinople offered the kind of immersive world de Marcellus felt comfortable with, Bucharest, even at the top of the social scale, obviously did not. Prince Alexander Soutzos’ twilight Balkan feast, for all its ‘Balkan rococo’ mix of food, wildlife and literature, was not enough to elicit his enthusiasm: “This is all I am going to say about Bukarest [sic], a city which is no longer of the East but not yet of Europe; there is neither poetry there, nor much else worth remembering.”64 The ambiguities of de Marcellus’s stance on the Greek bid for independence in the 1820s and his bias towards an elite-driven history have been noted in a recent study by Gonda Van Steen.65 While he was sympathetic to the Greeks’ heroic struggle against Ottoman domination, which he compared to the Greco-Persian wars of the 5th century BC, he was oblivious 62  De Marcellus, Souvenirs, 2, 521. (Excerpt missing in Cǎlǎtori străini, vol. 1). Ralou (1803– 1821 or c.1825) was the daughter of Prince Scarlat Callimaki, who died in suspicious circumstances in June 1821, amidst the turbulent events which engulfed the Principalities and Greece. It is often difficult to define ‘exile’ in the case of these nomadic Greek notables with fluid political allegiances. Ralou herself was to return to Moldavia with her Moldavian-born husband, only to die of an unspecified illness at a very young age. On the social and national movements which ended Phanariot rule in the Romanian lands, see Keith Hitchins, A Concise History of Romania (Cambridge University Press: 2014), chapter three: “From East to West 1774–1866”. On Ralu (Ralou) Callimaki, see also Dan Berindei, “‘Palatul Cuza’ din Iaşi şi proprietarii sǎi din secolul al XIX-lea,” Buletinul monumentelor istorice 40 (1) (1971): 51. 63  De Marcellus, Souvenirs, 2, 556. 64  Ibid., 551, Rom. trans. in Cǎlǎtori străini, vol. 1, 909. 65  Gonda Van Steen, Liberating Hellenism from the Ottoman Empire: Comte de Marcellus and the last of the classics (Basingstoke: 2010), esp. 124.

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to some of the Greek elites’ close political ties with the Ottoman state. In the eyes of the Romanian and other South-East European nation-builders, such links turned the Phanariot elites into channels of Ottoman ‘oppression.’ Consequently, the royalist de Marcellus’ sympathy for these embattled elites sits uneasily with his classically-infused support for the Hellenic cause. Prince Soutzos’ sugar centrepiece looks sad in a changing South-East European world for which de Marcellus had no ‘taste’: the ruling Phanariot houses were in decline, and the fierce Albanians, Lord Byron’s erstwhile Balkan renegade heroes,66 were reduced to chasing small birds at banqueting tables. A few years after de Marcellus, in 1836, Stanislas Bellanger67 described conviviality of a very different sort, at an opulent soirée in a Bucharest salon. Mme N. D., an attractive eighteen-year-old widow whose elderly husband, a wealthy nobleman, had been allegedly—and futilely—killed by an enamoured Ottoman paşa, held regular soirées in Bucharest where foreign visitors and diplomats were often invited. “Madame N*** D*** counts on M. S*** B***’s presence tonight,” read the card sent to the eager, yet still rather unworldly twenty-year-old Bellanger, a recent arrival to a country which struck him, as it did other visitors, as an astonishing mix of West and East, opulence and dire poverty. His description is worth quoting in full: M. M*** and I entered the salon, a vast room not unlike a hothouse in which the most rare of flowers and the most exotic of shrubs trembled in the mild breeze of an invisible fan. Intoxicating scents filled the air. The room was as if wallpapered with thick bushes of begonias, forgetme-nots, cacti, honeysuckle, myrtle, pomegranate trees and jasmine, on the branches of which perched numberless small birds. Hummingbirds, finches, starlings, red-billed choughs, budgies and pipits warbled as they hopped from branch to branch, as unafraid as they would have been in the wild. Two erect Albanians in resplendent dress opened and closed the doors as the guests arrived. Words fail to convey the effect of this novel and utterly unexpected décor. We ambled round the room amidst a great number of boyars who were gravely smoking their chibouks reclining on divans. In corners, clusters of

66  On the Romanian lands’ ‘deficit’ of antiquity and heroism, see comments in this chapter below. 67  Eugène Stanislas Bellanger (1814–59), writer, journalist and traveller, author of Trois ans de promenades en Europe et en Asie, 2 vols. (Paris: 1842) and Le [sic] Kéroutza, voyage en Moldo-Valachie, 2 vols. (Paris: 1846).

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young girls prattled in French. Groups of elegant ladies conversed about the latest fashions with copies of Le Follet in their laps. […] At eight, five slaves carrying massive silver ewers approached slowly. These pitchers, filled with rosewater and aloe vera essence, were destined for hand-washing. Five more slaves advanced behind them, offering the diners napkins made of the finest Crimean linen and embroidered with goldthread and silk. A minute later, the doors opened and everybody stood at the same time. Madame D***, who had a reputation for frugality in her daily life, received with royal magnificence. The evening was a fairy tale. Imagine a dining room lit by three hundred rose candles from Leopoldstadt, and, in the middle, a table laid for fifty-two, laden with shimmering pyramids of silverware and crystals sparkling like the most precious diamonds. France and Bohemia were joined together in a lavish display of their most splendid tableware. Dinner was served à la française, with the only difference that it started with a salad and ended with a consommé. The Princess’ Vatel had surpassed himself. Undoubtedly, for him the tide had turned out on time. The meilschspeisen, light pastry bites which have much in common with our beignets; the sarmale, roast meatballs wrapped in tender vine leaves; the prunes cooked in a rich buttery dough; the roast lamb with fruit jelly; and finally, the fish salad, were all truly succulent. Apicius and BrillatSavarin would have delighted in these offerings. There was a flood of wines from Cyprus and Naxos, Metelin, Tokai, Champagne and Bordeaux. In the middle of dinner, Malaga wine was served. This was followed by black and white caviar, an excellent dip made with sturgeon roe. I will not say anything about the dessert, leaving it to the reader’s imagination. The ingredients came from the four corners of the world. I had no idea that the earth could provide so many species of fruit and plants.68 In Bellanger’s account, the mix of German, Central European and Balkan foodstuffs,69 tableware and Albanian attendants is still an appealing ‘Oriental’ spectacle for a foreigner, but the French influence is becoming more discernible and the citation of a number of French authorities on cuisine 68  Bellanger, Le Kéroutza, 373–6, Rom. trans. in Cǎlǎtori străini, vol. 3, 468. (Translation from the French mine, AJ). 69  There is still much work to be done on the routes and channels of import and distribution of foodstuffs, as well as on the provisioning of the two capitals, Bucharest and Iaşi.

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(Brillat-Savarin, Vatel) serves to render this tableau familiar to French readers while also endorsing a ‘colonization by fashion’ of the more than willing natives of these European peripheries. Westerners travelling to the Balkans (notably to Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia, Montenegro, Albania) in the 19th century are often said to have looked for the “remains of classical Greece,” for the “primitive,” “Arcadian simplicity” of pre-modern communities or for a confirmation that these areas were “the last bastion of Christendom” standing up to Ottoman power.70 It is less easy to speculate on the expectations of those travellers who, for business or for adventure, found themselves pasing through or residing in the lesser-known Romanian lands. Not specifically located in the Balkans (and often resisting a Balkan labelling), these areas had a population speaking a Romance language and, by the mid-19th century, as we saw in Bellanger’s account, a Frencheducated elite. To educated travellers, like de Marcellus, these lands could not offer the elegant sights of decaying Hellenic glory, like Greece, or Byronic specimens of freedom-seeking brigandage in the way that Montenegro or Albania did. Lacking a horizon of expectation nurtured by reading or by celebrity endorsement, such as Byron’s, travellers were often taken by surprise by what they found in these peripheral European regions. In contrast to de Marcellus, the above-mentioned doctor Joseph Caillat (visiting in 1845–8) found “poetry” and even “classical” simplicity in the basic communal meal shared al fresco by convoys of peasants and tradesmen taking their fare to markets and towns and stopping for the night in the middle of the steppe. Caillat claims that he often stopped as he travelled and shared the mămăliga (polenta), cooked for twenty or thirty people, who would each bring their share of maize flour to be added to the several cauldrons simmering on fires lit directly on the ground. After the meal, the group would sit under the stars, smoking: The greatest peace, the greatest order reigned; soon the pipes were lit; one talked for a long time, with quiet voices, interrupted by no raucous laughter; then, once the kief71 was over, one looked for the cattle, which had been grazing nearby; they were led into the middle of a circle formed by the carts and designed to protect the rest of the men and their fellowlabourers through the night.

70  Vesna Goldsworthy, “The Balkans in Nineteenth-Century British Travel Writing,” in Youngs (ed.), Travel Writing, 20. 71  Tr. keyif: pleasure, enjoyment and by extension revelry, banquet. The Romanian word ‘chef’ is still used today to designate a party.

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This spectacle, of an antique simplicity, in the midst of immense solitudes with endless horizons, where sky and grass are the only objects on which one’s gaze can rest, has always vividly interested me.72

‘Eating Out’: Taverns, Inns and Restaurants

While travellers often commented on the scarcity of public eating establishments in the Romanian lands, especially until roughly the mid-19th century, such places existed and offered amenities, fare and services varying widely in quality. Ernst Döbel, the son of a German peasant, born in 1805 in the Duchy of Saxe-Weimar, is one traveller for whom the poor quality of the food and the lack of proper inns symbolized the backwardness and ‘primitivism’ of a country which eventually he was happy to leave. It would appear that, unhappy as an apprentice cart-maker in Vienna, and propelled by a desire to travel, in 1830 he sailed down the Danube and eventually reached the Wallachian capital, Bucharest, where he became an apprentice under a German master named Joseph Weiss. Unusually for a man of his class, he left a written account of his travels, which eventually took him to the Ottoman Empire, Egypt and the Holy Land, an exploit which earned him some notoriety and royal commendation upon his return to Germany. The narrative includes an account of his residence in the Romanian lands which, in some of its sensational detail, appears to be indebted to the picaresque and Gothic genres.73 The language barrier, the general outlandishness of his new environment, as well as episodes of real danger predisposed the traveller to panic, sometimes undermining his authorial credibility. For instance, what is the reader to make of the following passage, relating an incident en route from the Wallachian capital city to the neighbouring province of Moldavia?

72  Caillat, Voyage médical, 22. (Translation from the French mine, AJ). For an unexplained reason, this passage was omitted from the Romanian translation of the text, published in volume 6 of the Călători străini series, where otherwise travellers’ errors as well as their positive comments on the Romanians are duly noted. 73  Ernst Christoph Döbel, Wanderungen im Morgenlände: Mit vielen Stahlstichen u. e. Übersichtskarte (Berterode b. Eisenach: 1863). The book ran into at least seven editions. In this chapter I refer to the excerpts published in Romanian translation in Cǎlǎtori străini, vol. 2, 446–74.

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Later on the same day, from afar, I glimpsed another tavern, this time reaching some height above the soil.74 I approached it, intending to have lunch there, despite its unappealing appearance. As I stopped on the threshold of the hole which was supposed to serve as a door, a terrifying sight offered itself to my eyes. On the floor lay a dead horse, in a state of putrefaction, around which the family were partaking of their meal with a hearty appetite. The carcass served as their table. My own need for nourishment and drink vanished instantly. I asked the tavern-keeper for the distance to the next inn and the answer was: “Two hours.” I therefore tried to pay no heed to my hunger and travelled on.75 Notwithstanding the level of poverty and degradation amongst the lower strata of society, could such a scene of Gothic horror have occurred? Did the fearful, famished traveller hallucinate? Was the tavern too dark for him to make out the outline and nature of animates and inanimates alike? Or was he a prey to misconception as when, elsewhere in the book he confesses that he took a monastery of long-haired, dark-clad and austere, but hospitable, Orthodox monks to be a den of thieves, which he fled in fear of his life?76 In another episode, the attentions of a voluptuous landlady, who served him an excellent candle-lit dinner in a small Wallachian town, aroused his suspicions and he fled again, seeking a safe haven in a cemetery at night-time, with armed men in pursuit.77 Could the cholera epidemic raging at the time, the Russian occupation and the violence of the penal system (described in lurid detail) have blurred the young and impressionable narrator’s vision? Was he influenced by his readings of novels of adventure and travel, of which we know nothing? While it is impossible to know, the text offers other clues as to the author’s positioning and his ‘othering’ of the Romanian natives. Döbel’s impressions of his Wallachian sojourn are built around a cluster of cultural oppositions with ethnic overtones which appear to be part of the mental toolkit he brought from home. His hub in Bucharest is almost a replica of his German family home: the German meister presides over his apprentices like a pater familias, while his wife caters for the boys’ welfare. The apprentices’ meals are plentiful and meat-oriented in a country where meat was rarely seen on the 74  This is a reference to the semi-underground hovels built in the Romanian lands as protection against the frequent military engagements ravaging their territory. 75  Döbel, Wanderungen, 45, Rom. trans. in Cǎlǎtori străini, vol. 2, 459 (Translation from the Romanian mine, AJ). 76  Ibid., Rom. trans. in Cǎlǎtori străini, vol. 2, 452–3. 77  Ibid., 34–5, Rom. trans. in Cǎlǎtori străini, vol. 2, 454.

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tables of the lower classes and where travellers in public places were served the ubiquitous polenta (die Mamalike), which Döbel found inedible. Master Weiss’ establishment becomes a centre of (German) civilization in the capital city, Bucharest, described by Döbel as a multi-ethnic, dirty, rambling city “swarming” with “Romanians, Greeks, Armenians and Jews, who were competing with each other in squalor and living like domestic animals.”78 Another German cart-maker named Schwerin provides overnight hospitality in the border Moldavian town of Focşani as young Döbel feels “compelled” to leave Bucharest, a place with levels of squalor, licentiousness and violence which distressed him.79 At the next Romanian inn he rejects the only dish on offer, the corn mush, and gives the bewildered but grateful landlord and landlady a culinary lesson in how to cook a salad of young, tender nettles in vinaigrette, served with lardons and hard-boiled eggs, a recipe he had learned from his German meister’s wife. The symbolic importance of the humble, but healthy dish is enhanced by the fact that all these basic products were available to a population which appeared too backward to make proper use of them and ‘construct’ a meal rather than simply dish out a dollop of heavy polenta. The oppositions in Döbel’s text are not ones of class (educated Romanian elites vs. uneducated lower classes), of nutrition (meat-based vs. grain-based diet), not even of plenty vs. scarcity. What he deploys are ethnic contrasts which underlie food contrasts. His fellow-Germans are clean, hard-working, and civilized as opposed to the slovenly, lazy, primitive Romanians, Greeks and others, who are thus situated on the periphery of the civilizational order. The shared recipe of the salad of nettles thus acquires a civilizing role which radiates from the German well-regulated space (the meister’s home), where meals are ‘constructed’ with some care, out towards the Romanian periphery (the half-hidden inn), where the only food available is the ‘amorphous’ polenta. Döbel was not the only traveller to complain about the dirtiness of streets and public places in the Romanian lands. The Finnish officer, Gustaf Adolf Ramsay,80 serving with the Russian army in the same period, during the Russo-Turkish war of 1828–9, attributed this sorry state of affairs to the locals’ indolence: Today we had supper in a Moldavian inn. Industriousness does not seem to come naturally to this people. […] We in Finland cannot even imagine the poor state of Moldavian inns. Food is served by dirty Gypsies, 78  Ibid. 43, Rom. trans. in Cǎlǎtori străini, vol. 2, 458. 79  Ibid., 44, Rom. trans. in Cǎlǎtori străini, vol. 2, 458. 80  Gustaf Adolf Ramsay (1794–1859).

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everything appears soiled, tablecloths are rarely used, and food is prepared in the clumsiest of manners. A foreigner will hesitate before entering such an establishment, thinking that perhaps he came across a filthy tavern. Only hunger and the lack of a better eating place can induce him to step into this kind of restaurant, which no words could ever describe.81 Robert Walsh, a curate and medical doctor in charge of the chaplaincy at the British Embassy in Constantinople for several years, transited the Romanian lands in 1823 and visited Bucharest, then in the grip of a deadly plague epidemic.82 Amidst the miasma of death and decay, Walsh, a priest as well as a trained medical doctor, was chiefly worried about the drinking habits of all classes in Bucharest, which he linked to a general laxity of morals: […] the circumstances which most distinguishes Buchorest [sic], is melancholy dissoluteness of manners among all classes. The town abounds with wine-houses; and, to attract customers, a number of women are kept in each house, who are ready at a call to dance and sing for the guests. To these houses the Boyars repair from their own families and pass their evenings among the most shameless class of females that ever disgraced the sex. In this way it is that Buchorest is rendered infamous for profligacy beyond any other city in Europe.83 Crossing over into Transylvania, however, his encounter with drink occasions not a severe sermon, but a scholarly excursus into Latin poetry. The “promiscuous company” with whom he had to share his accommodation was redeemed by a landlord who, Walsh claimed, was “fluent in Latin” and could read Martial’s epigrams in the original.84 Drinking, condemned in ‘south-eastern’ Bucharest, became acceptable as Walsh moved ‘westward’ into Transylvania, where Latin, still a European lingua franca, was a vehicle of mutual intelligibility and of civilized conviviality. 81  Rom. trans. in Cǎlǎtori străini, vol. 2, 393. 82  Robert Walsh (1772–1852), was a curate in Finglas. co. Dublin, before accepting the chaplaincy at the British Embassy in the Ottoman capital in 1820. Later, back in Britain, he was a member of the Committee of the Society for the Abolition of Slavery. For further details, see the entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. 83  Robert Walsh, Narrative of a Journey from Constantinople to England (London: 1831, 4th ed.), 198, Rom. trans. in Cǎlǎtori străini, vol. 2, 102. For more on beverages and drinking in the Romanian Principalities and Transylvania, see the contributions by Andrew Dalby and Andrei Oişteanu in the present volume. 84  Walsh, Narrative, 299 (excerpts omitted from the Romanian translation in Cǎlǎtori străini, vol. 2, 131).

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The last text surveyed here dates from 1856, at the end of the Crimean War, and is a journalistic account of a participant’s return journey from Turkey-inEurope to Wallachia and onwards towards Belgrade and Western Europe. The author, Eton-educated George Whyte-Melville, was a retired captain of the Coldstream Guards who had participated in the war as a major in the irregular Turkish cavalry.85 On his return journey back to Britain and civilian life, he revelled in his new status as one of the “T.G’s” (“Travelling Gents”), who could afford to mix his personal experience of the “war in the East” with a lighthearted gentleman-scholar’s touch in order to introduce lesser-known lands to the British readers of a popular periodical. Like other travellers, he, too, comments on the ‘in-between-ness’ of the Romanian Principalities, a cultural positioning which had a political significance in the aftermath of the Crimean War and of the disputes between Turkey, Russia and Austria over what would eventually become the post-WW1 successor states. Crossing from Ruschuk (in today’s Bulgaria) to the Wallachian port Giurgiu (Giurgevo) meant, in his perception, leaving Asia behind and arriving in Europe, a change presented to the reader with the inevitable list of binaries, which included the sphere of food and eating habits: veiled women, “handsome in a sleepy, unmeaning style” vs. bonnets, flounces and flirtatious women whose glances were “not withdrawn as soon as darted” solemn Turks smoking in “moveless apathy” vs. over-attentive, busy German landlord and Hungarian waiters eating with your fingers, “squatting on your hams like an ape” vs a return to the land of chairs, tables, cups and saucers86 85  The text considered here, “A Peep into the Principalities,” was published in Fraser’s magazine for town and country (Aug 1856): [127]–139, and was signed with the initials G.W.M. Tentatively identified as George W.M. Reynolds by the editors of Cǎlǎtori străini, vol. 6, the author is more likely to be George John Whyte-Melville, as identified in The Wellesley Index to Victorian Periodicals 1824–1900, ed. Walter E. Houghton, 2 (University of Toronto Press; Routledge and Kegan Paul: 1972), 427. George John Whyte-Melville (1821– 1878) was an officer, hunter, novelist and poet, much-appreciated author of twenty-five novels, among which Holmby House: A tale of old Northamptonshire (1860). 86  Ibid., 129.

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In Whyte-Melville’s eyes, while Ruschuk (in spite of the nickname “Little Vienna” it acquired later in the century) still bore the strong imprint of the “slow, apathetic” Ottoman culture, Wallachia was “busy” and as German as Hanover due to what he perceived as the natives’ propensity to embrace German fashions and tastes. And while the greasy schnitzel served in Giurgevo (Rom. Giurgiu) left much to be desired, it was still perceived as placing the eater one meal closer to European civilization. In contrast to ‘German’ Giurgevo, in Whyte-Melville’s perception, the capital city itself, Bucharest, abandoned itself to pleasure and high-class intrigue in very Parisian SecondEmpire style.87 Discussing the post-Crimean political future of the Romanian Principalities, Whyte-Melville reveals himself as a champion of one of the blueprints discussed at the time in European cabinets: the union of the two provinces under Austrian protection. Whyte-Melville noted, however, one obstacle to this project, namely the aversion that the Romanians themselves had for such an option after the temporary Austrian occupation of their territories during the war. The Turco-Austrian Convention of Boyacı Köy (14 June 1854) had led to the occupation of the Romanian Principalities by Austrian troops under general Johann Coronini from August 1854 to 1857. It had involved largescale requisitioning of food, accommodation and materiel, which made the daily life of the population very difficult and was reported copiously in the British liberal press. Whyte-Melville’s Austrian sympathies, which ran against both Romanian wishes and the views of British liberal circles, suggests, in the light vein of popular journalism, the exasperation of the West in the face of the seemingly intractable ‘Eastern Question.’88 In this context, Whyte-Melville’s schnitzel in Giurgevo was as unpalatable to him as the Austrian option was to the embattled Romanians.

Epilogue: Food, Otherness and ‘Common Humanity’

This small sample of travellers’ texts is not representative enough to permit generalizations. It does provide, however, a number of signposts for further explorations into a series of themes: the contrast between the natural, ‘apolitical’ hospitality of the locals of all classes vs. official ‘surveillance’, as in, for example, Austrian body searches (Nathanael Burton, 1837) or the perceived Russian control of the quarantine system (O’Brien, 1854) at the crossroads of 87  Ibid., 129, 132, 136. 88  For European reactions to the Austrian occupation, see Angela Jianu, A Circle of Friends: Romanian revolutionaries and political exile, 1840–1859 (Leiden: 2011), 278–84.

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imperial interests; the (Ottoman, Habsburg) trans-imperial trade routes of tableware and table decorations (Comte de Marcellus, 1820); the contrast between the revulsion caused by some local dishes such as polenta (mămăliga) (Döbel, 1830) and the valorization of locally-sourced fish and wine (Burton, 1837; Noyes, 1856); the ethnic-cultural contrasts between an orderly German world and way of cooking vs. chaotic, dirty, inefficient, multi-ethnic Balkan cities (Döbel, again); the competing French and German influences in cuisine within the later 19th-century hardening of Great Power rivalry in the region (Whyte-Melville, 1856). Beyond the colourful, exotic narrative detail, the historian using travel narratives will wonder if and when they ever amassed the referential weight needed to influence West-European perceptions of Eastern Europe, and ultimately contribute to late-19th century ‘imperial’ or ‘sphere of influence’ pro­ jects. As noted above, Andrew Hammond, for instance, adopts a firmly Saidian position in his study on British Literature and the Balkans (2010), in which he apportions much ‘blame’ to producers of ostensibly literary or documentary texts for their input into the hegemonic, racial, exclusionary practices of high imperialism and beyond. However, as Maria Todorova had shown earlier in her now classic study of 1997, Imagining the Balkans, the course of ethnic and racial profiling never runs smooth. She cites works of early ethnography and anthropology, notably Ami Boué’s multi-volume La Turquie d’Europe of 1840 (discussed in the present volume by Anna Matthaiou), which steered clear of negative representations and made serious scientific contributions to a ‘multicultural’ understanding of the areas of interest here.89 My slender body of texts exhibits a fairly wide range of attitudes and representations of locals and their food, which evade clear-cut linearities and causalities. Admittedly, I did look for instances of a symbolic colonialism of the mind, of what Gonda Van Steen has termed a “metaphoric or allegorical kind of colonization.”90 Ernst Döbel’s views of the Romanians’ primitive food and eating habits was one example. But ‘colonizing’ metaphors are interspersed in the texts with a number of other representations which betray bemusement and confusion rather than a hostile reading of the ready-to-be-redistributed-and-colonized Ottomans and their multi-ethnic subjects in Eastern Europe and the Balkans. In many instances, the imagological dialogue between foreigners and their hosts is further 89  Maria Todorova, Imagining the Balkans (Oxford: 1997), 81. In her contribution, Anna Matthaiou comments on the positive, scientific contribution of Boué’s work, which she considers in the context of a missed opportunity for the ‘dominant’ Greek culture to embrace ‘subaltern’ Macedonian regionalism, at least in the area of food and its vocabulary. 90  Van Steen, Liberating Hellenism, 151.

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complicated when the latter collude with the more disparaging imagery, such as when the captain of Charles Elliott’s ship, who lived in Wallachia, called his own country “Barbaria.”91 In the case of the Romanian lands (Wallachia and Moldavia), travellers’ perceptions and representations were perpetually muddied by one overarching geo-cultural dilemma: do they belong in the Balkans, or do their Latin language and Francophile predispositions situate them in an East-European ‘periphery,’ but one with legitimate Central and West-European aspirations? The impression that these lands, and their neighbours, were ‘in-between’ areas which did not belong to either East or West—or perhaps belonged to both concomitantly—is a recurrent comment in travel literature, especially from the early 19th century onwards.92 In the culinary sphere the ‘in-between-ness’ is encapsulated in the contrasts and complementarity observed by travellers between native foods (e.g. mǎmǎliga, polenta), Ottoman-derived dishes (e.g. sarmale), and the increasing Western (chiefly French and German) influences in cooking methods, table displays and eating habits (e.g. sitting à la Turque or at table; eating with one’s fingers or with forks and knives). Some of the foreign observers in this study (e.g. Nathanael Burton, Joseph Caillat) glossed over such contrasts and preferred to concentrate on the culinary solidarity of a ‘common humanity’ within which hospitable (lower-class) locals shared their modest food with hungry foreigners (irrespective of class). Such interactions are suggestive examples in an East-European and Balkan contest of what, in 1910, Georg Simmel described as the constitution of community through eating.93 Other travellers to the region were not as eager to get involved in such convivial bridge-building and proved reluctant to break the bread with the locals. In her survey of British Victorian attitudes to Balkan foods, Ludmilla Kostova found that even in the late 19th century, many British travellers refused to ‘eat with the locals.’ Georgina Mackenzie and Adelina Irby, for example, for all their

91  For Elliott’s travel notes, see above p. 429, p. 432. The Romanians’ early internalization of and later distancing from foreign visitors’ criticism has been cogently analysed by Alexander Drace-Francis in “‘Like a Member of a Free Nation, He Wrote Without Shame’: Foreign travelers as a trope in Romanian cultural tradition,” in Travel and Ethics: Theory and practice, eds. Corinne Fowler, Charles Forsdick and Ludmilla Kostova (New York, London: 2014), 183–203. 92  On the mix of East and West in Eastern Europe see, for instance Ezequiel Adamovsky, “Euro-Orientalism and the Making of the Concept of Eastern Europe in France, 1810– 1880,” Journal of Modern History 77 (2005): 591–628. 93  Georg Simmel, “Soziologie der Mahlzeit,” in idem, Brüke und Tür: Essays des Philosophen zur Geschichte, Religion, Kunst und Gesellschaft (Stuttgart: 1957), 243–50.

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impeccable pro-Slavic credentials, never shared food with their Bosnian hosts in 1866, or at least never wrote about it.94 What distinguished the impressions of French, English, and German travellers? Klaus Heitmann has produced overviews of German perceptions of the Romanians,95 and, because the aforementioned apprentice Ernst Döbel (travelling in 1830) wrote some of the least flattering impressions of hygiene and table manners among the Romanians, one should perhaps contextualise them within some of Heitmann’s findings. He found that not only were appraisals of cleanliness gendered, with Romanian women seen as the tidiest ‘angels in the house,’ but that negative views among German observers throughout the 19th century are counterbalanced by a comparative number of positive views.96 Likewise, Döbel’s views on excessive drinking and dissolute behaviour in Bucharest had their counterpart in many German observations on the Romanians’ sobriety.97 In her short sections on British perceptions of oldregime Romanian hospitality, Carmen Andraş identified a number of common and familiar themes in the texts she surveyed: there was the occasional critique of the ‘Eastern’ luxury of boyar households contrasting with the poverty of the lower classes, observations on the mix of ‘Turkish/Asiatic’ and ‘European’ culinary styles, and comments on the archaic nature of hospitality in a traditional society before the age of tourism. Most of her authors come from the upper echelons of British society, but, again, she does not identify ‘patterns’ related to age, class, profession, or period.98 The picture of Romanian traditions of food and commensality in travel narratives remains incomplete. It will be important to continue to tap these sources in the future for a better understanding of their relations to political discourses and practices in the 19th century.

94  Georgina Muir Mackenzie and Adelina Paulina Irby, Travels in the Slavonic Provinces of Turkey-in-Europe (London: 1866), cited in Kostova, “Meals,” 32. 95  Klaus Heitmann, Oglinzi paralele, trans. Florin Manolescu (Bucharest: 1996). The chapter “Imaginea românului in spaţiul de limbǎ germanǎ de la sfârşitul secolului XVIII pânǎ la începutul secolului XX” reprises conclusions from the monograph Das Rumänenbild im deutschen Sprachraum 1775–1918: Eine imagologishe Studie (Cologne-Vienna: 1998). 96  Heitmann, Oglinzi, 16. 97  Ibid., 19. For the interaction of political and strategical considerations with the evolving German narrative representations of Romania in the long 19th century and up to WW1, see David D. Hamlin, “‘Wo sind wir?’: Orientalism, gender and war in the German encounter with Romania”, German History 28 (4) (2010): 424–452. 98  Andraş, România şi imaginile ei, 235–60.

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Secondary Literature Adamovsky, Ezequiel, “Euro-Orientalism and the Making of the Concept of Eastern Europe in France, 1810–1880,” Journal of Modern History, 77 (2005): 591–628. Andraş, Carmen, România şi imaginile ei în literatura de călătorie britanică [Romania and its representations in British travel narratives] (Cluj: 2003). Ardeleanu, Constantin, International Trade and Diplomacy at the Lower Danube: the Sulina Question and the economic premises of the Crimean War (1829–1853) (Brăila: 2014). Buturović, Amila and Irvin C. Schick (eds.), Women in the Ottoman Balkans: Gender, culture and history (London: 2007). Clogg, Richard, A Concise History of Greece (Cambridge University Press: 2013). Day, Ivan, “The Art of Confectionery,” s.p. http://www.historicfood.com/The%20Art% 20of%20Confectionery.pdf [accessed 5 November 2016]. Repr. in Peter Blackwood Brown (ed.), Pleasures of the Table: Ritual and display in the European dining room, 1600–1900 (York: 1997). Day, Ivan, entry “Sugar sculpture” in Goldstein, Darra (ed.), The Oxford Companion to Sugar and Sweets (Oxford: 2015), 689–93. Deletant, Dennis, “Romanians”, in Manfred Beller and Joep Leerssen (eds.), Imagology: The cultural construction and literary representation of national characters (New York and Amsterdam: 2007), 223–26. Drace-Francis, Alexander, “‘Like a Member of a Free Nation, He Wrote Without Shame’: Foreign travelers as a trope in Romanian cultural tradition”, in Travel and Ethics: Theory and practice, eds. Corinne Fowler, Charles Forsdick and Ludmilla Kostova (New York, London: 2014), 183–203. Goldsworthy, Vesna, “The Balkans in Nineteenth-Century British Travel Writing,” in Travel Writing in the Nineteenth Century: Filling the blank spaces, ed. Tim Youngs (Cambridge: 2012), 19–36. Hamlin, David D., “ ‘ Wo sind wir?’ Orientalism, Gender and War in the German Encounter with Romania”, German History 28 (4) (2010): 424–52. Hammond, Andrew, British Literature and the Balkans: Themes and contexts (Amsterdam and New York: 2010). Heitmann, Klaus, Oglinzi paralele: Studii de imagologie româno-germană, trans. Florin Manolescu [Parallel mirrors] (Bucharest: 1996). Heitmann, Klaus, Das Rumänenbild im deutschen Sprachraum 1775–1918: Eine imagologishe Studie (Köln-Vienna: 1998). Hitchins, Keith, A Concise History of Romania (Cambridge: 2014). Iacob, Dan Dumitru, Elitele din Principatele române în prima jumǎtate a secolului al XIX-lea: Sociabilitate şi divertisment [The Romanian elites in the early 19th century: sociability and pleasure] (Iaşi: 2015).

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Imorde, Joseph, “Edible prestige,” in Marcia Reed (ed.), The Edible Monument: The art of food for festivals (The Getty Research Institute: 2015). Işin, Mary, Sherbet and Spice: The Complete Story of Turkish Sweets and Desserts (London: 2013). Jianu, Angela, “Women, Fashion, and Europeanization: The Romanian Principalities, 1750–1830”, in Women in the Ottoman Balkans: Gender, culture and history, eds. Amila Buturović and İrvin C. Schick (London: 2007), 201–30. Kostova, Ludmilla, “Meals in Foreign Parts: Food in writing by nineteenth-century British travellers to the Balkans”, Journeys: the international journal of travel and travel writing 4 (Summer 2003) (1): 21–44. Laiou, Sophia, “Between Pious Generosity and Faithful Service to the Ottoman State: The Vakıf of Nikolaos Mavrogenis, end of the eighteenth century,” Turkish Historical Review 6 (2015): 151–74. Mazower, Mark, The Balkans (London: 2000). Mishkova, Diana, “Symbolic Geographies and Visions of Identity: A Balkan perspective,” European Journal of Social Theory 11 (2) (2008): 237–56. Petrică, Virginia, Identitate culinară românească din perspectiva călătorilor străini [Foreign travellers and the Romanian culinary identity] (Bucharest: 2013). Philliou, Christine, Biography of an Empire: Governing Ottomans in an age of revolution (University of California Press: 2011). Reed, Marcia (ed.), The Edible Monument: The art of food for festivals (Getty Research Institute: 2015). Simmel, Georg, “Soziologie der Mahlzeit” [Sociology of the Meal], in idem, Brücke und Tür: Essays des Philosophen zur Geschichte, Religion, Kunst, und Gesellschaft [Bridge and door: essays of the philosopher on history, religion, art, and society] (Stuttgart: 1957). Todorova, Maria, Imagining the Balkans (Oxford: 1997). Tomasik, Timothy J. and Juliann M. Vitullo, At the Table: Metaphorical and material cultures of food in medieval and early modern Europe (Belgium: 2007). Van Steen, Gonda, Liberating Hellenism from the Ottoman Empire: Comte de Marcellus and the last of the classics (New York: 2010). Vintilǎ-Ghiţulescu, Constanţa, Evgheniţi, ciocoi, mojici: Despre obrazele primei modernităţi româneşti (1750–1860) [The well-born, the arriviste, the plebs: on the characters of Romania’s first modern age 1750–1860] (Bucharest: 2013). Vintilǎ-Ghiţulescu, Constanţa, Patimǎ şi desfǎtare: Despre lucrurile mǎrunte ale vieţii cotidene în societatea româneascǎ, 1750–1860 [Passion and pleasure: everyday things in Romanian society 1750–1869] (Bucharest: 2015). Youngs, Tim (ed.), Travel Writing in the Nineteenth Century: Filling the blank spaces (Cambridge University Press: 2012).

Chapter 16

Voyages, Space, Words: Identity and Representations of Food in 19th-Century Macedonia* Anna Matthaiou If a clearly defined time and space for food production, circulation and consumption, and the laying down of dietary borders are considered essential preconditions for the history of food, then this condition is neither self-evident nor straightforward. The same is true of the interdisciplinary approach to food through history’s ongoing collaboration with anthropology, ethnography, archaeology and geography. For instance, when talking about fluidity in the use of produce and about their random distribution through time and space, and even more so about the distribution and variations of a recipe, it is useful to cross-reference the sources, tools and specialized knowledge,1 and this can often invalidate older certainties. The information we can derive from travel narratives, normative discourses and the literature on the dietary habits of the various populations of the Balkans in the 19th and 20th centuries is considerable, but scattered.2 Its variety stems from the degree of knowledge of the space (chiefly on the part of travellers to the region),3 but also from the writers’ political and economic goals. In the first decades of the 19th century, Greek-language accounts were * An earlier version of this text was published in Greek as “Apo tis ‘koinotites tis omoiotitas’ sta fagita tis siopis” [From the ‘communities of similarities’ to the dishes of silence] in Historica 56 (2012): 81–100. 1  Fernand Braudel’s observations remain useful. See his Civilisation matérielle, économie et capitalisme, XVe–XVIIIe siècle, vol. 1: Les structures du quotidien: le possible et l’impossible (Paris: 1979). See also Massimo Montanari and Jean-Robert Pitte (eds.), Les frontières alimentaires (Paris: 2009), an interdisciplinary collection of studies produced by historians and geographers. 2  See Anna Matthaiou, Aspects de l’alimentation en Grèce sous la domination ottomane: Des réglementations au discours normatif (Frankfurt am Main: 1997), 243–340. 3  On various methodological questions relating to travellers’ literature, see the collective volume Periigitika themata: Ypodomi kai prosegiseis, ed. Loukia Droulia (Athens: 1993). See also Anna Matthaiou, “The Daily Market and the Economy Experienced,” in Greek Economic History 15th–19th Centuries, ed. Spyros I. Asdrachas (Athens: 2007), vol. 1, 490–92.

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dominated by comparisons between a supposed Greek national cuisine and European culinary traditions. For a long time, until well into the 19th century, the Ottoman element was either de-emphasised or written out of Greek cookery books.4 A single Greek bourgeois cuisine subsequently emerged which, though it ignored the local provenance of its recipes, did incorporate a number of Turkish dishes, Hellenizing them in the process. After the arrival of refugees from Asia Minor in Greece, in 1922, menus seem to have gradually expanded to include recipes from refugee populations who had brought tastes, aromas and names “from Turkish parts” to Greek cities and villages. How and to what extent the landscape of Greek “national cuisine” began to change between the wars, in restaurant menus, in the simple fare of working-class canteens and in cookery books, has yet to be studied. At the same time, travel narratives contain isolated references to the heterogeneity and diversity of the different Balkan populations. The bestdocumented is the Sephardic Jewish community, which had long attracted the attention of travellers writing about the peoples of the Ottoman Empire, and which has been the subject of a few recent studies.5 Occasional references are made to the Albanians, Vlachs, Slavs, Sarakatsani, Armenians, Roma, Pomaks, and Pontians, populations which have lived both within and outside the—fluctuating—borders of modern-day Greece. We shall be attempting to focus on some of these others at three points in time and from three different viewpoints.

The Years of Similarity and Difference

By the early 19th century, the human geography of the Balkans had been largely fixed for a very long time. The Albanians began to settle in areas between Thessaly and Attica and between Akarnania and the Southern Peloponnese

4  Anna Matthaiou, “O Brillat-Savarin kai to psari tou archinavarhou Kanari: Ta ellinika vivlia mageirikis tou 19ou aiona,” Historica 28–29 (1998): 109–122. On Bulgarian cookbooks, see Stefan Detchev’s contribution to the present volume. 5  Nicholas Stavroulakis, Cookbook of the Jews of Greece (Athens: 1986); Esin Eden and Nicholas Stavroulakis, Salonika: A family cookbook (Athens: 1997); M. Molho, Usos y costumbres de los Sefardies de Salonika (Madrid, Barcelona: 1950), 149–151; Méri Badi, “Pasteles et fritadas,” in Salonique 1850–1918: La ville des Juifs et le réveil des Balkans, ed. Gilles Veinstein (Paris: 1992), 96–101; Vasiliki Krava, “Trofi kai taftotita: I periptosi ton Evraion tis Thessalonikis,” Ethnologia 10 (2003): 81–98.

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in the 13th century,6 the Aromanians (Vlachs) were already present in the late Middle Ages in areas between Epirus, Thessaly and Macedonia whose epicentre was the Pindus mountain range,7 and the mass settlement of Slavs in the south of the Balkan peninsula began as early as the 7th century. Slavic place names and peasants with names with a Slavic root or morphology were already common in the sparsely-populated Macedonian plains, the area around Thessaloniki, and in Halkidiki, but also as far south as the Peloponnese, from between the 8th and 10th centuries AD onwards.8 The references made in travellers’ accounts to religious, ethnic and linguistic diversity convey a differentiation of populations in terms of criteria which are presented as self-evident, while political union is absent both as an ambition and as an actual programme. For instance, during the Greek Enlightenment, in 1791, Daniel Philippidis and Grigorios Konstantas refer to the status of the Greek language in these terms: “The languages mostly spoken are the native one [romeiki], and Turkish. In Macedonia, the Arvanites (i.e. Albanians) have a separate tongue. And there is the Vlach language in some parts of it. There are also a lot of Bulgarians in the northern parts of Macedonia and Thrace.”9 In 1814, the traveller William Martin Leake offered a more detailed geographical account of the spread of the Bulgarian communities based on the use of the language in the countryside and towns of Macedonia. He noted that modernday Bulgaria was not restricted to the Bulgaria of historical geography, which is to say the land between the Danube and the Balkans, but that it actually stretched as far as Edessa, ancient Pella and Thessaloniki.10 In the age before the advent of nationalism, the tendency to distinguish peoples using linguistic criteria was commonplace in travellers’ accounts. This fact is, however, often overlooked. If, as discussed above, the human geography of the Balkans had been largely fixed since the Middle Ages, this does not mean that it was known. Europe discovered this geography only in the 19th century, more precisely in the 6  Alain Ducellier, Oi Alvanoi stin Ellada (13os–15os ai.): I metanastefsi mias koinotitas [Les Albanais en Grèce aux XIIIe–XV e siècles: une migration communautaire], trans. Katerina Nikolaou (Athens: 1994); Ilias Skoulidas, “Metoikesies alvanofonon ston elladiko horo,” Ipeirotika Chronika 33 (1988–1999): 277–90. 7  Gustav Weigand, Oi Aromounoi (Vlahoi), trans. Thede Kahl, 2 vols. (Thessaloniki: 2001, 2004); Thede Kahl, Gia tin taftotita ton Vlahon [On the identity of the Vlachs], trans. S. Boulasikis (Athens: 2009). 8  Dionysia Papachrysanthou, O athonikos monahismos (Athens: 1992), 25, 27–9. 9  Daniel Philippidis, Grigorios Konstantas, Geografia neoteriki, ed. Aikaterini Koumarianou (Athens: 1988), 120. 10  William Martin Leake, Researches in Greece (London: 1814), 375.

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1830s. Thus, scientific curiosity overlapped with the claims of the national movements, which were emerging at the same time. Our knowledge regarding the composition of Balkan populations owes much to Pavel Jozef Šafárik, who, starting in 1837, published his studies on Slavic populations, including his landmark 1842 publication of the first ethnological map, which also comprises the northern part of the Balkan peninsula. There followed the studies of Ami Boué (1840, 1847) and of his co-traveller Auguste Viquesnel (1842–1846). The map of Guillaume Lejean was published in 1861, while the English women travellers Georgina Mackenzie and Adelina Irby published their impressions of the Balkans in 1867. Elisée Reclus in 1875 and the professor of geography at the University of Berlin, Heinrich Kiepert, in 1876 summed up the Europeans’ knowledge of the human geography of the Balkan peninsula, which continued to develop in the next decades. By the 1870s, a period which coincided with the Balkan disturbances relating to the Eastern Question, Europe’s perceptions of the ethnography of both Macedonia and the rest of the Ottoman world were firmly established. The ethnolinguistic criteria underpinning this perception was favourable to the Bulgarian side. On the opposite side, Athens and the Patriarchate of Constantinople tried to change the common European view, as well as the stance of the Great Powers on the question of the dominance of the Greek element in Macedonia, on the basis of the religious affiliation of the Christian populations. That attempt was unsuccessful.11 But how can one describe the viewpoint from which the various populations living within and beyond the Greek state in the first half of the 19th century were documented, at a time when the borders of the newly-founded state (1832) had not yet begun to expand?12 We will endeavour to do so using the exceptionally perspicacious writings of Ami Boué as a source. Boué travelled in the Balkans in the 1830s (1836, 1837 and 1838) and published his four-volume

11  On the politics of the Greek state, see Léonidas Embirikos, “Kilkis 1913: Territoire, population et violence en Macédoine,” European Journal of Turkish Studies 12 (2011): 26–30, at URL: http://ejts.revues.org/4486; Spyros Karavas, “I Megali Voulgaria kai i mikra idea en eti 1878,” Historica 44 (2006): 3–42; Tasos Kostopoulos, “How the North was won,” European Journal of Turkish Studies 12 (2011), s.p., at URL: http://ejts.revues.org/4437; Georges Prévélakis, “Le processus de purification ethnique à travers le temps,” Guerres mondiales et conflits contemporains 2005 (1) (no. 217): 47–59, DOI 10.3917/gmcc.217.0047. 12  The expansion of the Greek state was accomplished with the incorporation of: the Ionian islands (1864), Thessaly and the region of Arta (1881) and, after the Balkan wars (Treaty of Bucharest, 1913), Epirus, South Macedonia, including Thessaloniki and Kavala, Crete and the islands of the Eastern Aegean.

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La Turquie d’Europe in 1840 under the aegis of the Société de Géographie.13 More specifically, we will look at how different eating habits were classified and evaluated in the first decade after the founding of the modern Greek state and at what these evaluations say about the multi-ethnic structure of the regions. Ami Boué compares the cuisines of the subjects of European Turkey in these terms: The Greek and Turkish cuisines resemble our own more than that of the Slavs, and for that reason appears more appealing to us; nevertheless, one notices in them very heterogeneous associations, such as that of lettuce and lemon juice, of quinces and meat, of clotted milk mixed into soups and sauces, etc […]. Returning to the Turkish cuisine, we find that its distinctive feature, compared to ours, is the heavy use of dairy, of Spanish pepper (paprika; spesa), of onions and garlic, as well as of acid liquids and honey.14 In a footnote on the same page, the writer gives a number of equivalents for honey in the region’s languages: “bal in Turkish, med in the Slavic tongue, bai and mgialte in Albanian, Guegue and Toske respectively, mierea in Vlach and méli in Greek.”15 Boué records the different names for almost every ingredient and foodstuff in five languages: Turkish, Greek, Vlach, Albanian (Guegue and Toske) and Slavic. His classification of people and foods is extremely detailed and clear, and he does not neglect to stress similarities and differences between the discrete population groups as well as parallels with the French cuisine. Let us take the consumption of meat as an example. Boué makes the general observation that the range of meats in the Balkans is far more restricted than in Western Europe. The animals reared for consumption were sheep, poultry, rams and goats. Pork and suckling pig, along with ham (which was quite expensive) were consumed exclusively by the Christian populations and the 13  Ami Boué (1794–1881), La Turquie d’Europe, 4 vols. (Paris: 1840). On the importance of Boué’s work, see Maria Todorova, Valkania, i dytiki fantasiosi, trans. I. Kolovou (Thessaloniki: 2000), 75, 188–90. 14  “La cuisine grecque et turque se rapproche plus de la nôtre que celle des Slaves, et nous paraît meilleure pour cela; néanmoins on y remarque des associations très hétérogènes, telles que des laitues avec du jus de citron, des coings mêlés à la viande, du lait caillé dans la soupe et les sauces, etc. […] Revenant à la cuisine turque, nous trouvons à la distinguer de la nôtre par l’emploi énorme qu’on y fait de laitage, de poivre d’Espagne (paprika; spesa), d’oignons et d’ail, ainsi que de liquides acides et de miel.” (Translation from the French by Angela Jianu). Boué, La Turquie d’Europe, vol. 2, 234, 236. 15  Ibid.

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Slavs in particular. He also notes the difference between the ways in which Turks and Wallachians used lard: “Il y a une grande différence entre le goût des Valaques pour le lard et l’usage qu’on fait en Turquie. Chez ce peuple, le lard avec du pain sert de nourriture, et le Valaque ne croit manquer de rien quand il a ces deux objets dans son bissac avec de l’eau-de-vie, tandis qu’en Turquie on ne s’en sert que pour cuire.”16 As for beef, Boué writes: [I]t is eaten onely rarely, and can only be found in butchers’ shops in major cities, such Monastir, Adrianople, Scutari, Phlippopoli (Plovdiv), etc. […] The Turks and Jews like it, but they only have this delicacy rarely on their tables; sometimes, cattle too old to labour is consumed in the countryside. Beef is onky used for soups and bouillis, in ragoûts and beefsteak-sausage, or it is smoked and preserved for winter; mkost often is is salted and cured to make pastrema [sic]. This meat is less tasty than ours, because it comes from oxen and cows exhausted by labour and no longer fattened.17 The use of other meats like duck, turkey and game was limited and restricted almost exclusively to Christian populations. The Turks avoided game because it was not slaughtered and considered ducks and geese to be unclean animals.18 Boué considers the core dishes of everyday Balkan cooking to be the gruels made from wheat and corn: “Maize is ground and eaten as a paste in the Italian style. The Wallachians and Albanians relish this, when mixed with milk. This is called katschamak by the Turks, koulia by the Slavs and Guegues and mèmeligè by the Dacians. To grind it, they use a small hand mill called irvagan by the Slavs and cheiromylos by the Greeks.”19 The observations made by Boué—who 16  Ibid., 237–38. 17  [I]l ne se mange que rarement, et ne se trouve assez régulièrement dans les boucheries que dans les très grandes villes, comme à Monastir, Andrinople, Scutari, Philippopoli (Plovdiv), etc.” […] “Turcs et Juifs, comme les chrétiens, l’aiment, mais ils n’ont ce régal que rarement, et les bœufs incapables de travailler se consomment en partie à la campagne. Le bœuf ne sert qu’à faire de la soupe et ne se mange qu’en bouilli, en ragoût ou en beefsteak-saucisses, ou bien on le fume pour l’hiver, ou plutôt on le sale et le sèche au soleil, ce qui forme le pastrema. Cette viande est bien moins bonne que la nôtre, puisqu’on ne tue que les bœufs ou les vaches qui sont épuisées de travail et qu’on n’engraisse pas. Ibid. 238. 18  Ibid. 19  Le maïs se mange aussi broyé en pâtée à l’italienne. Quand cette dernière est mêlée de lait, les Valaques et les Albanais surtout croient faire un bon repas. C’est le katschamak

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seems to have enjoyed his food—on various dishes and methods of roasting and cooking meat continue on the same wavelength. For example, he differentiates between Greeks and Turks in terms of the preparation of ragoûts, which, when made using lamb, are given the ‘Greek’ name kapama (he is unaware that the word is Turkish), while the Slavs called them jagnenie. He considers fricassées as an essential “accessoire” for any meal worthy of the name. He also writes about stuffed vine leaves (sarma), meatballs (kiephtedes), about tongue, offal, ragoûts without tomatoes (which were a preserve of the rich) and considers the patsche made with lamb’s feet to be a unique dish (kieftedes and patsche are both Greek names derived from the Turkish). He also devotes space to the method of roasting meat on the spit, a culinary bridge linking the Balkans to Southern France and Europe. Finally, he helps date the recipe for moussaka or mousakou, which he describes as a sort of “ragoût of minced lamb with sorrel, and sometimes with raisins from Corinth and aromatics herbs.”20 Boué also refers to different types of pasta and to rice (both highly prevalent ingredients in the cuisines of all Balkan nations), to vegetables and salads, as well as to the use of mushrooms. He notes the absence of potatoes, which could be found only in Bosnia, Serbia, Herzegovina and Montenegro, and then only from late autumn to spring. He expresses his astonishment at the huge amounts of courgettes, aubergines and okra consumed. He also comments on the different types of bread, sweet and savoury pies (pita, a word common to all the Balkan languages), which he found overly oily and hard to digest. He correctly ascribes the etymology of bougatsa/pogatscha to the Latin panis focacius.21 Boué invented his own transcriptions to describe various sweets (baklava, kourabie, kadaïf, the different types of halva etc.). He also noted that wonderful sweets in the Milanese tradition were made in Bitola, Edirne, and Thessaloniki. He dwells on the amounts of coffee and raki consumed in the coffee shops of Pera (in Istanbul), Thessaloniki, Bitola, Ioannina and Larisa, along with ice cream and lemon sorbet, and describes the range and quality of Balkan wines. des Turcs, le koulia des Slaves et des Guègues, le mèmeligè des Daces. Pour broyer ce blé, ils emploient la petite meule à main, nommée irvagn par les Slaves et cheiromylos par les Grecs.” Ibid., 244–5. 20  “ragoût de hachis de mouton avec de l’oseille, et quelquefois avec des raisins de Corinthe et des herbes aromatiques.” Ibid., 240. The recipe for moussaka began to circulate in the Ottoman Empire in the mid-19th century. See Marianna Yerasimou, I othomaniki mageiriki (Athens: 2004), 153. 21  On the origins and cognates of focaccia (It.), see note 21 in Margareta Aslan’s contribution to this volume.

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Finally, he comments on the impossibility of storing wines due to the absence of proper cellars, on the custom (especially prevalent in southern Albania, Thessaly and Greece) of daubing wine barrels with pitch, and the fact that inns stored wine in barrels or sheepskins rather than in bottles. Ami Boué documented and evaluated specific dishes which he was enthusiastic about or disappointed by, but above all else he observed and compared. Using his command of the terms and of the foodstuffs they referred to, he attempted to identify similarities and differences and to formulate what we would now call Balkan dietary identities or a generic Balkan dietary identity. As the highly conscientious ethnographer that he was, Boué used the multiethnic elements of everyday life to represent a set of Balkan behaviours and traditions, drawing up a geographical continuum which included Albanians, Wallachians, Turks, Slavs, Jews, Greeks and others. This approach led to a picture of the region which is diametrically opposed to that of a purely national culture. The classifications are not his alone; they are those which any traveller to the region in the 1830s would have made, based on the realities encountered along the way. Boué’s influence on mapping the region was enduring: his ethnographic map of 1847 served as a model for later maps in the same category.22 However, Boué’s chief contribution to the description of ‘Balkan worlds’23 with its comprehensive and comparative ethnographic and historical approach, was fated to be consigned to oblivion. The main reason for this was that it did not chime in with the narrow model of national discourse which was emerging at the time and dominated academia for decades.

The Beginning of Homogeneity

But when did national uniformity become the rule in both the visual and written discourse of the disciplines which studied the material culture and everyday life of the Greek populations? Let us jump forward in time to the start of the 20th century, to 1910. This was the year in which Nikolaos Politis24 introduced the jury’s rationale at the “On the Folklore of Macedonia” competition

22  Spyros Karavas, “Oi ethnografikes peripeteies tou ‘ellinismou’ (1876–1878),” Historica 36 (2002): 30. 23  Paraphrased from Trajan Stoianovich, Balkan Worlds: The first and last Europe (New York: 1994). 24  Nikolaos Politis (1852–1921), Greek ethnographer.

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organized by the Hatzilazareion Agon (Contest).25 He made a wide-ranging presentation of the goals of Folklore Studies as a discipline: Those elements which, in accordance with the Attic dictum, constitute the nation—a common ancestry, a shared language, and a common religion—may not necessarily all be present in a given nation or may not constitute a trait that distinguishes one nation from another. But shared customs and ways of doing things are sufficient in themselves for a consciousness of national unity to be constructed through them. […] Folkloric research is especially important when it is conducted in countries whose ethnic constitution is open to debate. When, due to incomplete knowledge or deliberate distortion, there is a lack of clarity about the ethnic make-up of a given country, accurate and informed folklore research can bring to light compelling and trustworthy accounts that play a role in shaping ethnological issues. This lecture by the father of Folklore Studies in Greece, Nikolaos Politis, is a founding text. His views on the primacy assigned to customs and traditions26 over and above a community’s religion, race and language clearly reflected the new spirit in which the academic community monitored the progress of the Greek state’s policies. This was a critical period, even if, according to Politis, the ghost of Jakob Philipp Fallmerayer27 was no longer viewed as a threat, by which he meant that the “turmoil” the latter had incited had started to recede.28 Prior to this, but more systematically after it, the theoretical models of Folklore 25  Athens, Gennadius Library, MS. P 196.15. Nikolaos G. Politis, Laografika symmeikta (1st ed. Athens: 1920), 14–5. 26  Cf. Eric Hobsbawm’s distinction with reference to the concept of customs and the invention of tradition: “Tradition in this sense must be distinguished clearly from ‘custom’ which dominates so-called ‘traditional’ societies. The object and characteristic of ‘tradition,’ including invented ones, is invariance. The past, real or invented, to which they refer imposes fixed (normally formalized) practices, such as repetition. ‘Custom’ in traditional societies has the double function of motor and fly-wheel. It does not preclude innovation and change up to a point, though evidently the requirement that it must appear compatible or even identical with precedent imposes substantial limitations on it” […] “Custom cannot afford to be invariant, because even in ‘traditional’ societies life is not so.” See Eric Hobsbawm, “Inventing Traditions,” in The Invention of Tradition, eds. Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger (Cambridge: 1994), 2. 27  Jakob Philipp Fallmerayer (1790–1861), Austrian historian who published studies about the origin of the modern Greeks. 28  Elli Skopetea, Fallmerayer, tehnasmata tou antipalou deous (Athens: 1997).

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Studies and, more importantly, its fieldwork findings, would be focused on demonstrating a political and national homogeneity over as large a geographical area as possible, including regions whose populations were not uniform in terms of religion and language. The interpretative thread running through such writings was the focus on similar habits and customs, in which the discipline saw a solution to long-term ethnic and ethnological issues. The impasse facing the nation in terms of the management of the human geography to which it laid claim led to the adoption of a new approach: concepts used in the past to define race, language and religion were now deemed unsatisfactory, and were replaced to references to similar habits and customs. The latter were from the start constructed so as to appear similar and were subsequently used by the Greek intellectual elite to form a “consciousness of national unity” among the population, with support from the machinery of state.29 This was also achieved by promoting the established human geography which favoured the national assimilation of the given geographical area. Politis endorsed a coercive policy which was aligned with the spirit of his age, equating similar habits and customs (i.e. the shared tradition, a concept as malleable as plasticine) with the shared Greek conscience and ideology of the Greek populations. It was a model which encouraged Folklore Studies to document individual customs in order to incorporate them, in the process, into a single national Greek tradition. Konstantinos Dimaras considers Folklore Studies to have been born in 1871, the year in which Nikolaos Politis published his Neoelliniki Mythologia [Modern Greek Mythology]. Together with the establishment of historicism in Greece, this work would form “the new and united whole,” the “tunic without seams” in which “no intervention was possible, no concession acceptable.”30 And this is precisely what happened, as will be discussed below. Surveying in retrospect the articles published in the journal Laografia [Folklore] from 1909 onwards, as well as similar studies documenting aspects of the everyday life and material culture of 20th-century Greek agricultural and pastoral populations, it becomes clear that their underpinnings changed little over time: the local was fully incorporated into the national, and the various 29  Elements of N. Politis’ argument may well have been borrowed from the lecture given by Ernest Renan at the Sorbonne on 11 March 1882. Renan was not convinced that a shared race, language, religion or geography is a prerequisite for the nation, preferring “common beliefs about the past” and “a common will in the present.” Renan was also speaking about a citizenry consenting to continue to live together, given that “a nation’s existence is a daily referendum.” Ernest Renan, “Ti einai ethnos?” [Qu’est-ce qu’une nation?], trans. A. Pantazopoulos, O Politis 121 (1993): 38. 30  Konstantinos Dimaras, Ellinikos romantismos (Athens: 1982), 441.

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ethnic and linguistic differentiations were suppressed. This approach was responsible for the irrevocable loss of a valuable part of our picture of everyday life in some local, indigenous communities. Many aspects of language, food, habits, dancing and music were lost. In Western Macedonia, for example, folk music became ‘songs without words,’ while in Eastern Macedonia, the words were Hellenized.31 The local designations introduced occasionally in this nation-building process during the 20th century relate either to certain unitary geographical areas or to villages and towns used to exemplify the rule of a unitary Greek heritage and tradition. The aim was to create “an exquisitely pure agrarian hinterland, where everything fine was Greek—as well as the other way round.”32 Folkloric material, far more than religion or language, lends itself to the sort of representations, wide-angle approaches, broad interpretations and typologies which make it a good fit for national manipulations of every sort. A letter from the ethnologist-linguist Georgeios Sagiaxis to the Greek consul in Thessaloniki (1 April 1905) stresses this flexibility, as well as the way in which, if carefully managed, Folklore Studies can contribute to the coveted homogeneity. Sagiaxis asked the consul to help cover the costs of writing and publishing a Macedonian monograph which would set out to present “chiefly in the eyes of foreigners, a real and vibrant Greek Macedonia not represented solely by stones and monuments.”33 Once established, this “invented tradition”34 encouraged an ahistorical reading of cultural phenomena, including the food culture of the past.

Alternative Discourse or Continued Suppression?

The pace at which cookery books have been published in Greece has increased in recent years thanks to the prominence of the “Greek cooking tradition,” local recipes and “traditional Greek products.” Some of these books include 31  On language, see Tasos Kostopoulos, I apagorefmeni glossa (Athens: 2002) and Tasos Christidis, “Glossa kai paideia: 1976–1996,” Synhrona Themata 62 (1997): 76–8. On the strategies used by the Slav-speaking populations in the villages of Eastern Macedonia to integrate and adapt, see Marika Rombou-Levidi, Epitiroumenes zoes: Mousiki, horos kai diamorfosi tis ypokeimenikotitas sti Makedonia (Athens: 2016). 32  Alexis Politis, Apotypomata tou hronou: Istorika dokimia gia mia mi theoritiki theoria (Athens: 2006), 168. 33  Athens, Historical Archive of the Hellenic Foreign Ministry, MS. 1908, fol. 39 G/a.a, k., 17–8. On the author, see Dinos Christianopoulos, Logotehnikes ekdoseis makedonikon poleon plin Thessalonikis, 1879–1950 (Kozani: 1998), 123–26. 34  Hobsbawm, “Inventing Traditions,” 2–3.

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references to local and ethnic cuisines (Pontian or, especially, Cretan cooking, for example, but also Pomak or Gypsy food), which appear to confirm the diversity of Greek cooking while showcasing the unchanging nature of Greek traditional products down the ages. The humanities and social sciences have been employing the concepts of identity and otherness for many years. There have been a number of fascinating developments in the history and social anthropology of food, which inter alia have examined the new alternative discourse in contradistinction to the hegemonic public discourse on national identity and “Greekness.”35 The enormous success of the Mediterranean diet in Europe over the last thirty years is due to its apparent links to health: longer life expectancy, a reduction in obesity and in rates of mortality.36 This led to the publication of a flood of cookery books under the umbrella of traditional Mediterranean products and healthy eating, often identified with the use of biological foodstuffs. In most cases, however, despite their authors’ claims to historical validation, no link to a given historical period can be proved for these dietary approaches. Most of them simply make use of old ingredients adapted to contemporary economic, social and cultural considerations, as well as to new conceptions of tradition. At the same time, despite the large, and ever-expanding, production and consumption of cookery books (which is truly vast, if we include food supplements in newspapers and magazines, not to mention the recent and ongoing explosion in cookery shows on television), certain local cuisines remain markedly absent from the official discourse. Pontian tavernas and Vlach roast lamb, for example, feature in the lives of all Greeks. Many inhabitants of Roumeli 35  On otherness, see, by way of illustration, the classic study by Tzvetan Todorov, Nous et les autres (Paris: 1989). See also Jane Cowan (ed.), Macedonia: The politics of identity and difference (London: 2000). Historical studies have been published in the context of postcolonial studies and debates on national or local identities as expressed in food: Denis Saillard, “La cuisine,” in Jean-Pierre Rioux (ed.), Dictionnaire de la France coloniale (Paris: 2007), 759–764; Martin Bruegel and Bruno Laurioux (eds.), Histoire et identités alimentaires en Europe (Paris: 2002). In the field of anthropology, see indicatively Alexandra Bakalaki, “Gefstika taxidia, synantiseis kai diakriseis,” in Oria kai perithoria: Entaxeis kai apokleismoi, eds. Roxani Kaftantzoglou and Marina Petronoti (Athens: 2000), 67–90; Vasiliki Yiakoumaki, “Peri diatrofis kai ethnikis taftotitas: Oi diastaseis mias neas politismikis poikilotitas sti simerini Ellada,” in Peripeteies tis eterotitas: I paragogi tis politismikis diaforas sti simerini Ellada, ed. Efthimios Papataxiarchis (Athens: 2006), 105–138; Evgenija Krasteva-Blagoeva, “Tasting the Balkans: Food and Identity,” Ethnologia Balkanica 12 (2008): 25–36. 36  Antonia-Lida Matala, Anthropologia tis diatrofis (Athens: 2008), 153–4.

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and the Peloponnese will associate certain ways of roasting lamb/mutton with areas with an Albanian or Sarakatsani population.37 However, this is not true of Macedonian restaurants or of the products and dishes of the local population of Macedonia.38 This shows that there is still a knowledge gap around the shared habits and traditions of non-indigenous populations. There are two reasons for this. Firstly, these populations have internalized the discomfort or fear they feel at the thought of highlighting their social and cultural difference, which includes their eating habits. The second factor is the inability of nonlocal historians or ethnologists to see, understand and document the various food-related habits, customs and practices shared by local populations. Two related cookery books were published relatively recently. They form part of a contemporary strategy for dealing with cultural practices on the basis of a more elastic conception of otherness. However, as will be made clear below, the ulterior motive of this strategy remains the maintaining and strengthening of “Greek traditional cooking” via the folklorization of otherness. The Culinary Tradition of Edessa and the Surrounding Area: An element of its popular culture was written by Kaiti Tzoha-Vetta and published in 2002. The second book, written by Ioanna Pitoska, was published in April 2011 under the title Balkan Cuisine: Dishes and recipes from Florina. The first is a collection of recipes for everyday meals and special occasions. Both Greek and Macedonian names are used for many dishes (the latter written using the Greek alphabet), and the book contains a glossary as well as a list of the individuals (most of them women) who contributed the recipes. The book also contains a wealth of historical and ethnological material relating to the region. Its publication undoubtedly opened up a window on daily practices which add to our knowledge of the local Macedonian population’s material culture, dietary habits and practices. In the introduction, the author refers to the dietary habits of the inhabitants of Edessa, which “help us grasp,” among other things, “the distinctiveness of the local cooking tradition as well as providing us with an opportunity to 37  Even today, despite the uniformity in consumption, the culture of cooking meat (kid or lamb) on the spit is restricted to a defined geographical area which does not include the Greek islands, with the exception of stock-rearing Crete. Spit-roast meat has enjoyed the status of a ‘national food’ for no more than four decades. The Colonels’ dictatorship (1967–1974) played a decisive role in spotlighting spit-roast meat as Greece’s national cuisine par excellence. Meat cooked on the spit includes lamb and kid, chunks of pork (kontosouvli), mutton (giossa to the Arvanites, to whose tradition it belongs), lamb liver, heart or spleen wrapped in intestines (kokoretsi and splinantero) and kebabs from Thessaly. The names for the last four products are all Albanian or Turkish in origin. 38  This is the designation used by the indigenous Macedonians since the arrival of refugees from Asia Minor in the 1920s.

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discover the local idiom which is part of a mix of cultural influences on their eating habits.”39 In the second book, which comprises recipes from the Macedonian town of Florina, the first 24 dishes relate to the city and showcase the region’s most emblematic product: its peppers.40 The interesting thing about this publication is that, for many of the recipes, the particular person or village from which they come is listed, while a number also identify the recipe’s provenance: Albanian, Vlach, from Asia Minor or the Black Sea via refugees, or Roma, from the community which had recently settled in Florina (1968). The book also makes distinctions as to whether a recipe was “indigenous” or “local,” “very old” and even, occasionally, “a very old recipe, no one knows how old.” Some are also accompanied by their historical journey through time and space. The villages and cities are mentioned by both their current and old names: “Chrysoula Stroumnou-Zoli, who gave us the recipe, learned it from her grandmother Bozana Kourti (1862–1942). Bozana in turn had learned it from her motherin-law when she moved to the village of Skopià (old name: Nevoliani) as a bride from Kato Ydroussa (old name: Kotori).” Finally, some recipes also list geographical variations (within and beyond the current borders of the Greek state), distinguishing, for instance, between the “màkalo from Bitola” and the “makàlo from Florina.” These designate the runny, garlicky appetizer prepared in two nearby towns which are “different both in their stressed syllable and their taste.”41 The same goes for recipes of pickled peppers from the same two towns.42 In addition, a number of recipes are listed by their Slavic, Vlach or other names, and a glossary is included. As far as the non-textual features of these two handsome books are concerned, their covers share the same fundamental illustrative concept. The Edessa cookbook is adorned with a string of red peppers and an old copper pot, while the Florina cookbook features a black and white ox—the most common breed in Macedonia—surrounded by small red peppers. Neither book refers to its (linguistic and political) Macedonian-ness by name. We saw above that, while the other ethnic cuisines are referred to by name, the Macedonian recipes use the circumlocution “a local/regional recipe.” Even in the texts 39  Kaiti Tzoga-Vetta, I gefstiki paradosi tis Edessas (Edessa: 2002), 24. 40  The local inhabitants of Macedonia are described as “pepper-eaters”: Vasilis Gounaris, Stis ohthes tou Ydragora: Oikogeneia, oikonomia kai astiki koinonia sto Monastiri, 1897–1911 (Athens: 2000), 158. Until the 1960s, pepper was often the sole accompaniment included in the packed lunches of the local population. 41  Ioanna Pitoska, Valkaniki kouzina (Athens: 2011), 45. 42  Ibid., 39.

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which introduce us to the geography of the recipes and their travels through time and space, the references to their difference or singularity remain vague and unspoken. Moreover, the discourse in both books deliberately omits both the historical subject and the context, using the self-same phrases employed in the public discourse and on television shows: ‘some local folk,’ ‘certain people,’ ‘a local way of speaking,’ ‘the diversity of the regions’ or ‘cultural singularity.’ Admittedly, despite their silences, neither book could have been published in the 1960s or the 1980s in this form, with their bilingualism and their crossborder references to the transmission of tastes and people. Nonetheless, even if the words are absent, certain notable exceptions,43 such as references to flora, restore traces of the dietary otherness which Boué had distinguished and documented so clearly at the start of the long 19th century. The market gardens of Macedonia, for example, stand out for the abundance of beans and the emblematic peppers of all varieties: red, yellow and green peppers, round, oblong or tomato-shaped peppers, sweet or hot peppers (tsouskes), fresh or dried, red ones for stuffing (bampkes), small green skinny ones for pickling, as well as the fleshy red Florina variety (platikes) for roasting. Drying in the sun, strung up against the ochre-hued walls, peppers are still the trademark feature of houses in Macedonia. And finally, there is the flavour of the peppers roasting at dusk in the towns and villages every August and September, a silent reminder of the pepper-eating locals. Conclusions I have tried to explain how, for significant periods in the 19th and 20th centuries, the Greek state endeavoured to construct communities of homogeneity through a process of nation-building dominated by a fear of cultural difference, a difference which had to be assimilated and integrated into an ideal of ‘Greekness.” The domination of this “mixophobia”44 over several decades 43  The ethnographic studies of Pavlos Koufis are an exception in this regard. Published after his return to Greece from political exile after the Greek Civil War (1947–1949), they refer to his beloved birthplace, Armensko, today known as Alona. He notes: “Peppers are never absent from the daily table, all year round. Summer and winter, raw or boiled, fried or roast. Strung dry on strings, burnt red by the summer sun. Pickled from the winter barrel. So, they are ever present”. P. Koufis, Laografika, Alona-Armensko Florinas (Athens: 2000), 34. 44  I have borrowed the term “mixophobia” from the book by Zygmunt Bauman, Liquid Times: Living in an age of uncertainty (London: 2007), 86, which refers to the world of liquid modernity, to the contemporary fluidity in institutions, immigration, community and

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has left a profound imprint on the cultural practices and attitudes of the local inhabitants of Macedonia. This is apparent, too, in the history of food as “a system of communication, a body of images, a register of uses, situations and behaviours.”45 Alternative conceptions of and discourses on the nation are nowadays available and in use in Greece, discourses incorporating the unfamiliar, local or ethnic, or, in the case of Macedonia, difference. However, even when occasionally documented, the historical agent remains largely absent. The repression and silences of the past have, unfortunately, left wounds which will forever have a profound impact on Greece’s relationship with Macedonia and its people. Bibliography Archival Sources Athens, Historical Archive of the Hellenic Foreign Ministry, MS. 1908, fol. 39 G/a.a, k. Published Primary Sources Boué, Ami, La Turquie d’Europe ou Observations sur la géographie, la géologie, l’histoire naturelle, la statistique, les mœurs, les coutumes, l’archéologie, l’agriculture, l’industrie, le commerce, les gouvernements divers, le clergé, l’histoire et l’état politique de cet Empire, 4 vols. (Paris: 1840). Leake, William Martin, Researches in Greece (London: 1814). Philippidis, Daniel and Grigorios Konstantas, Geografia neoteriki [Modern geography], ed. Aikaterini Koumarianou (Athens: 1988). Politis, Nikolaos, Laografika Symmeikta [Mélanges of folklore] (Athens: 1920). Renan, Ernest, “Ti einai ethnos?” [Qu’est-ce qu’une nation? (Paris: 1887)], trans. A. Pantazopoulos, O Politis 121 (1993): 32–38. Secondary Literature Badi, Méri, “Pasteles et fritadas,” in Salonique 1850–1918: La ville des Juifs et le réveil des Balkans ed. Gilles Veinstein (Paris: 1992), 96–101.

citizens’ sense of social and economic uncertainty: “mixophobia is a highly predictable and widespread reaction to the mind-boggling, spine-chilling and nerve-breaking variety of human types and lifestyles […].” 45  This is a reference to the old, but ever fruitful, definition proposed by Roland Barthes, “Pour une psycho-sociologie de l’alimentation contemporaine,” in Pour une histoire de l’alimentation [Cahiers des Annales, 28], ed. J.-J. Hémardinquer (Paris: 1970), 15–9.

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Bakalaki, Alexandra, “Gefstika taxidia, synantiseis kai diakriseis” [Culinary travels, encounters and differentiations], in Oria kai perithoria: Entaxeis kai apokleismoi [Borders and margins: inclusions and exclusions], eds. Kaftantzoglou, Roxani and Marina Petronoti (Athens: 2000), 67–90. Barthes, Roland, “Pour une psycho-sociologie de l’alimentation contemporaine,” in Pour une histoire de l’alimentation, ed. Jean-Jacques Hémardinquer [Cahiers des Annales 28] (Paris: 1970), 15–9. Bauman, Zygmunt, Liquid Times: Living in an age of uncertainly (London: 2007). Braudel, Fernand, Civilisation matérielle, économie et capitalisme, XV e–XVIII e siècle, vol. 1: Les structures du quotidien: le possible et l’impossible (Paris: 1979). Bruegel, Martin and Bruno Laurioux (eds.), Histoire et identités alimentaires en Europe (Paris: 2002). Christianopoulos, Dinos, Logotehnikes ekdoseis makedonikon poleon plin Thessalonikis, 1879–1950 [Literary publications in Macedonian cities other than Thessaloniki, 1879–1950] (Kozani: 1998). Christidis, Tasos, “Glossa kai paideia: 1976–1996” [Language and education: 1976–1996], Synhrona Themata 62 (1997): 76–8. Cowan, Jane (ed.), Macedonia: The politics of identity and difference (London: 2000). Dimaras, Konstantinos, Ellinikos Romantismos [Greek Romanticism] (Athens: 1982). Droulia, Loukia (ed.), Periigitika themata: Ypodomi kai prosegeiseis [Travellers’ Themes: substructures and approaches] (Athens: 1993). Ducellier, Alain, Oi Alvanoi stin Ellada (13os–15os ai.): I metanastefsi mias koinotitas [The Albanians of Greece, 13th–15th centuries: a migrating community], trans. Katerina Nikolaou (Athens: 1994). Eden, Esin and Nicholas Stavroulakis, Salonika: A family cookbook (Athens: 1997). Embirikos, Léonidas, “Kilkis 1913: Territoire, population et violence en Macédoine,” European Journal of Turkish Studies, 12 (2011): 26–30. URL : http://ejts.revues.org/ 4486. Gounaris, Vasilis, Stis oxthes tou Ydragora: Oikogeneia, oikonomia kai astiki koinonia sto Monastiri, 1897–1911 [On the Banks of the Ydragoras: family, economy, and bourgeois society in Monastir, 1897–1911] (Athens: 2000). Hobsbawm, Eric and Terence Ranger (eds.), The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge: 1994). Kahl, Thede, Gia tin taftotita ton Vlahon [On the identity of the Vlachs], trans. S. Boulasikis (Athens: 2009). Karavas, Spyros, “Oi ethnografikes peripeteies tou ‘ellinismou’ (1876–1878)” [The ethnographic adventures of “Hellenism” (1876–1878)], Historica 36 (2002): 3–42. Karavas, Spyros, “I Megali Voulgaria kai i mikra idea en eti 1878,” [Greater Bulgaria and the ‘Small Idea’ in the year 1878], Historica 44 (2006): 3–42. Kostopoulos, Tasos, I apagorefmeni glossa [The prohibited language] (Athens: 2002).

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Kostopoulos, Tasos, “How the North was won,” European Journal of Turkish Studies 12 (2011) s.p. Koufis, Pavlos, Laografika, Alona-Apmensko Florinas [Folklore, Alona-Armensko in Florina] (Athens: 2000). Krasteva-Blagoeva, Evgenija, “Tasting the Balkans: Food and identity,” Ethnologia Balkanica 12 (2008): 25–36. Krava, Vasiliki, “Trofi kai taftotita. I periptosi ton Evraion tis Thessalonikis” [Food and identity: the case of the Jews of Thessaloniki], Ethnologia 10 (2003): 81–98. Matala, Antonia-Lida, Anthropologia tis diatrofis [Anthropology of food] (Athens: 2008). Matthaiou, Anna, “O Brillat-Savarin kai to psari tou archinavarchou Kanari: Ta ellinika vivlia mageirikis tou 19ou aiona” [Brillat-Savarin and the fish of Admiral Kanaris: Greek cookbooks of the 19th century], Historica 28–29 (1998): 109–122. Matthaiou, Anna, “The Daily Market and the Economy Experienced,” in Greek Economic History 15th–19th Centuries, ed. Spyros I. Asdrachas (Athens: 2007), vol. 1, 489–514, 625–34. Matthaiou, Anna, “Apo tis ‘koinotites tis omoiotitas’ sta fagita tis siopis” [From the ‘communities of similarities’ to the dishes of silence], Historica 56 (2012): 81–100. Molho, M., Usos y costumbres de los Sefardies de Salonika (Madrid, Barcelona: 1950). Montanari, Massimo and Jean-Robert Pitte (eds.), Les frontières alimentaires en Europe (Paris: 2009). Papachrysanthou, Dionysia, O athonikos monahismos [The monasticism of Athos] (Athens: 1992). Pitoska, Ioanna, Valkaniki kouzina [Balkan cuisine] (Athens: 2011). Politis, Alexis, Apotypomata tou hronou: Istorika dokimia gia mia mi theoritiki theoria [Imprints of time: historical essays on a non-theoretical theory] (Athens: 2006). Prévélakis, Georges, “Le processus de purification ethnique à travers le temps,” Guerres mondiales et conflits contemporains 2005 (1) (no. 217): 47–59. Rioux, Jean-Pierre (ed.), Dictionnaire de la France coloniale (Paris: 2007). Rombou-Levidi, Marika, Epitipoumenes zoes: Mousiki, horos kai diamorfosi tis ypokeimenikotitas sti Makedonia [Supervised lives: music, dance, and the formation of subjectivity in Macedonia] (Athens: 2016). Skopetea, Elli, Fallmerayer, tehnasmata tou antipalou deous [Fallmerayer, the ruses of rival fear] (Athens: 1997). Skoulidas, Ilias, “Metoikesies alvanofonon ston elladiko horo” [Migrations of Albanianspeaking populations into Greek space], Ipeirotika Hronika 33 (1988–1999): 277–90. Stavroulakis, Nicholas, Cookbook of the Jews of Greece (Athens: 1986). Stoianovich, Traian, Balkan Worlds: The first and last Europe (New York: 1994). Todorov, Tzvetan, Nous et les autres (Paris: 1989). Todorova, Maria, Valkania, i dytiki fantasiosi, trans. I. Kolovou (Thessaloniki: 2000).

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Tsoukalas, Konstantinos, Exartisi kai anaparagogi: O koinonikos rolos ton ekpaideftikon mihanismon stin Ellada (1830–1922) [Dépendance et reproduction: Le rôle des appareils scolaires en Grèce, 1830–1922], trans. I. Petropoulou (Athens: 1977). Tzoga-Vetta, Kaiti, I gefstiki paradosi tis Edessas [The culinary tradition of Edessa] (Edessa: 2002). Yerasimou, Marianna, I othomaniki mageiriki [Ottoman cuisine] (Athens: 2004). Yiakoumaki, Vasiliki, “Peri diatrofis kai ethnikis taftotitas: Oi diastaseis mias neas politismikis poikilotitas sti simerini Ellada” [On food and national identity: the dimensions of a new cultural diversity in today’s Greece], in Peripeteies tis eterotitas: I paragogi tis politismikis diaforas sti simerini Ellada [Adventures of otherness: the production of cultural difference in Greece Today] ed. Efthimios Papataxiarhis (Athens: 2006), 105–38. Weigand, Gustav, Oi Aromounoi (Vlahoi), trans. Thede Kahl, 2 vols. (Thessaloniki: 2001, 2004).

Chapter 17

Jewish Tavern-Keepers and the Myth of the Poisoned Drinks: Legends and Stereotypes in Romanian and Other East-European Cultures (17th–19th Centuries)* Andrei Oişteanu Jewish migration to and settlement in areas of Eastern Europe began in the first century AD, when Jews from Asia Minor started settling in urban and commercial centres on the northern Black Sea coast. The countries of origin of Jewish migrants into East-Central Europe changed over time, as did the causes and patterns of migration. A more significant migration into Eastern Europe started in the 17th century with the arrival into Hungary and the Romanian Principalities of Jews from war-ravaged Poland-Lithuania. The market towns of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Romanian provinces of Moldavia and Wallachia, as well as Hungary remained key areas of Jewish settlement throughout the 18th and early 19th centuries. Available data show that, during the 19th century, the Jewish population grew much more rapidly than the populations of Eastern Europe as a whole, until the late 19th century, when consecutive waves of emigration took Jews westwards, mainly towards Vienna and the United States, but also eastwards, into Palestine.1 In the Danubian Principalities, throughout the long 19th century up to the War of Independence which led to the creation of the Kingdom of Romania (1881) under a Hohenzollern dynasty, Jews were allowed to settle and exercise professions, including tavern-keeping. They did not, however, gain civil and political rights until after WW1. Steady Jewish migration from Habsburg * Research for this chapter was supported by a grant provided by the Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism, Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Some of the material has been presented previously in: Andrei Oişteanu, Imaginea evreului în cultura română (Iaşi: 2012). See also idem, Inventing the Jew: Antisemitic stereotypes in Romanian and other CentralEast European cultures (Lincoln & London: 2009). The present chapter has been updated and translated by Angela Jianu and revised by the author. 1  For further statistics, see the entry “Population and Migration before World War I” by Mark Kupovetsky, trans. I. Michael Aronson, in The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe (New York: 2010), URL: http://www.yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx?id=2053 [accessed 3 August 2017]. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi 10.1163/9789004367548_019

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and Russian territories into the Principalities led to a constant increase of the Jewish community. By 1904, around 21.1 per cent of the country’s merchant class were Jewish, forming a majority in Moldavian market towns, as opposed to the smaller communities in the historic province of Wallachia.2 Patterns of acculturation and assimilation differed between the two principalities, but the attitude of the ethnic Romanian population towards Jews seems to have remained by and large one of “hostile tolerance,” to use a phrase suggested by the Romanian historian Şerban Papacostea.3 This is a very basic outline of what is a complex mix of trends and patterns of migration, settlement, expulsion and re-settlement of Jews in East-Central Europe, on which a considerable body of literature is now available. What has been less studied perhaps than the politics and statistics of Jewish migrations are the cultural underpinnings of interactions between the Jewish communities and the local populations of their host countries.4 The present study aims to be a contribution to the study of representations of the Jew in Romanian culture with contextual referenced to other East-European cultures. One of the main objectives of the research was to assess the extent to which images and tropes used in folklore, literature and the press had the potential to contribute to the later 19th-century shift from “hostile tolerance” to exclusionary and antisemitic practices. The first part of the study examines the origins and sources of the negative discourse which developed around the figure of the Jewish tavern lease-holder. The last section looks at the science behind one of the key stereotypes linked to the Jewish tavern-keeper’s activities: the entrenched myth of his role in selling adulterated liquor to the Christian residents of the countryside.

The Abode of the Devil vs the Abode of the Lord

There exists a category of Christmas carols in Polish, Romanian, Bulgarian and, to a lesser extent, in Ukrainian folklore, dedicated to tavern-keepers. Romanian and Polish carol-singers wish the Jewish tavern-keeper wealth and 2  See the entry “Romania” by Leon Volovici in The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe, URL: http://www.yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx?id=24 [accessed 3 August 2017]. The entry, with a comprehensive bibliography, is a good starting point for understanding the background of the present study. 3  Ibid. 4  Recent examples of a growing body of such studies include: Leonid Livak, The Jewish Persona in the European Imagination: A case of Russian literature (Stanford University Press: 2010) and Glenn Dynner’s Yankel’s Tavern: Jews, liquor and life in the Kingdom of Poland (Oxford: 2014).

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prosperity alongside all the Christians in the village.5 Yet, in the peasant collective imaginary, the prevailing representation of the inn-keeper or publican, whether Jewish or not, is not a positive one. Christmas ritual dramas in Polish villages include a popular play called Herod (which is not unlike the Romanian Irozi) in which one of the key characters is the “Jew-Devil” tavern-keeper. A boy disguised as a hunchbacked, limping Jew, with ritual beard and sidelocks, wears a dark mask and carries a peddler’s sack. As King Herod dies, the “JewDevil” addresses the king’s soldiers thus: Poate că eu, proştilor, am să fiu regele vostru? Am să mă duc la moşie şi am să aduc velniţa, Am să încep să fac rachiu, Am să vă fac să vă beţi minţile. Voi o să beţi, iar eu o să trăiesc de pe urma voastră, şi eu voi fi regele vostru. [I might become your king, you fools! I shall go to the manor and bring back the pot still, I shall be making raki, I shall be making you lose your minds, You will be drinking, and I shall live off you, And I shall be your king.] “Let it be so, you Jew!” responded the soldiers.6 The demonic alcohol-distilling king who inebriates his subjects was a stereotypical representation of the Jew in Polish traditional culture7 and was not substantially different from similar imagery in East-European culture in general, and especially in Romanian culture. On the murals of 17th- and 18th-century Romanian churches, the iconography of the Last Judgement includes a tavern-keeper (Rom. crîşmar) who burns in the ‘River of Fire,’ alongside the “enchanter” (Rom. fermecǎtor).8 It is noteworthy that it was not necessarily the dishonest tavern-keeper who was doomed to “burn in Hell,” but the tavern-keeper as such, perceived as an agent 5  Petru Caraman, Colindatul la români, slavi şi la alte popoare: Studiu de folclor comparat (Bucharest: 1983), 116. 6  Alina Cała, The Image of the Jew in Polish Folk Culture (Jerusalem: 1995), 156. 7  Magdalena Opalski, The Jewish Tavern-Keeper and his Tavern in Nineteenth-Century Polish Literature, (Jerusalem: 1986). 8  Moses Schwarzfeld, Evreii în literatura populară română: Studiu de psichologie populară (Bucharest: 1892), 217.

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of the Devil. Given that, in general, the tavern-keeper was Jewish in most EastEuropean villages, this demonization acquired ethnic overtones in the portrait of the ‘imaginary Jew’. Selling alcohol and being Jewish reinforced each other’s negativity. In Romanian folk mythology, it was not just tobacco that was the “devil’s herb,” but the vine, too. In folklore legends originating in Bogomilic traditions— and therefore embedded in a dualistic theology—wine was the result of a divine-daemonic joint effort: while initially wine had been a non-alcoholic, “holy beverage,” once the Devil got involved in its production, “men started getting drunk on it.”9 In other legends from Romanian folklore, the Devil appears as solely responsible for the emergence and use of alcoholic beverages by humans, as evidenced in many such sources: “The Devil is said to have invented raki,”10 “The Devil taught Noah how to make wine from the fruit of the vine and turn dregs into raki which troubles men’s minds and causes mayhem and death;”11 the “Devil was the first to cause evil with raki in the world” when, in anger, he “poured his own blood” into the drink.12 It is no accident that, in popular jargon, the raki is also called draki (from Rom. drac = devil), and that one of the Devil’s nicknames is Horilcă.13 (from Rom. holercǎ, var. horilcǎ = strong beverage made form distilled fruit juice). The Devil was not simply guilty of having invented the alcoholic drink in illo tempore, but also of causing men to drink it daily, from the dawn of history to the present day. According to popular belief, it is the Devil who “sends men to the tavern, to create trouble amongst them.”14 “When a man steps into the tavern, the angel will not go in with him, but stays behind. It is then that the Devil deceives him [like Judah], so that he forgets about the angel, who stands outside, and the man is lured

9  Ion Muşlea şi Ovidiu Bîrlea, Tipologia folclorului: Din răspunsurile la chestionarele lui B.P. Hasdeu (Bucharest: 1970), 542; Andrei Oişteanu, Mythos & Logos: Studii şi eseuri de antropologie culturală (Bucharest: 1997; 2nd ed., 1998), 53; Ioan Petru Culianu, Gnozele dualiste ale Occidentului, trans. Tereza Petrescu (Bucharest: 1995), 265. 10  Elena Niculiţă-Voronca, Datinele şi credinţele poporului român, adunate şi aşezate în ordine mitologică, vol. 1 (Iaşi: 1998), 331 (1st ed., Cernăuţi: 1903). 11  Tudor Pamfile, Povestea lumii de demult, după credinţele poporului român (Bucharest: 1913), 153. 12  Dumitru Furtunǎ (ed.), Cuvinte scumpe: Taclale, povestiri şi legende româneşti (Bucharest: 1914), 67. 13  Ivan Evseev, Dicţionar de magie, demonologie şi mitologie românească (Timişoara: 1997), 121. 14  Niculiţă-Voronca, Datinele şi credinţele poporului român, vol. 1, 392.

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into quarrelling and brawling, or into other low deeds and sins.”15 In one of his short stories, Sfîntul Vasile (Saint Basil), Mihail Sadoveanu16 dramatizes this traditional binary opposition in the tale of a “holy man” who causes the bankruptcy of all taverns and inns in Bucovina, by disseminating a message that “the raki is the very Devil,” a “fiendish drink which comes from the Unclean One (Rom. Necuratul = The Devil) himself.”17 Such popular beliefs and legends in Romanian traditional culture are no mere cautionary, moralizing tales, but would appear to aspire to some higher theological purpose. The drinking establishment is represented as a space of sin, a daemonic temple which the angel could not—and would not—enter. An answer to a traditional Romanian riddle is that “the tavern is the Devil’s house, right in the centre of the village.”18 In the early 17th century, the theologian Matthaios (Matthew), Metropolitan of Myra,19 admonished that “drunkenness is the mother of all evils, and the multitude of sins is their father.” The targets of his theological pamphlet include even those who “raise a full glass to honour God [and the saints].” “Drunkenness is the slippery slope which leads to Hell. Drunkenness is Devil’s poison. Those who urge you to drink are your avowed enemies.”20 Such themes were echoed in the discourse of the rural parish priest. Often the “avowed enemies” acquired specific ethnic identities, and such linkages proved enduring. “A decent man”, father Belciug admonishes a drunken peasant in Liviu Rebreanu’s novel Ion (1920), “will not strive all day to enrich the [tavern-keeping] Yids and poison his body with their devilish slops.”21 With reference to the Romanian village, Daniel Barbu has argued that the 18th century was the period in which “the church is starting to encounter competition from the tavern, built just across the road as an alternative site

15  Tudor Pamfile, Mitologie românească: duşmani şi prieteni ai omului (Bucharest: 1916), 29. For other Romanian traditional legends which link the tavern, the tavern-keeping “Yid” (Rom. derogatory term jidan) the rabbi, the raki and the Devil, see Niculiţă-Voronca, Datinele şi credinţele poporului român, vol. 1 (Iaşi: 1998), 404. 16  Mihail Sadoveanu (1880–1961), Romanian writer and politician. 17  Mihail Sadoveanu, Opere, vol. 4, ed. Cornel Simionescu (Bucharest: 1987), 127. 18  Elena Niculiţă-Voronca, Studii în folclor, vol. 2 (Cernăuţi: 1912), 165 and Furtunǎ (ed.), Cuvinte scumpe, 126. 19  Matthaios (Matthew), Metropolitan of Myra, Greek-born metropolitan, miniature painter and historian (c. 1550–1624), who settled in Wallachia (c. 1603/1605–1624), where he became the abbot of Dealu Monastery. 20  Dan Horia Mazilu, Voievodul dincolo de sala tronului: Scene din viaţa privată (Iaşi: 2003), 466. 21  Liviu Rebreanu, Ion (Timişoara: 1988), 30.

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of sociability and identity formation.”22 From this encounter emerges the contrast between the popular image of the “Abode of the Lord” (the church) and the “Abode of the Devil,” with the Jewish tavern-keeper as its high priest. An old Romanian proverb—collected by Iordache Golescu23 and cited by Mihai Eminescu—has it that “the Devil does not build churches,”24 but he does build taverns. Anton Pann25 included another proverb in his compilation of 1847: “Whoever sees you enter the tavern will not think you went in there to pray.”26 Such binary pairs would appear to suggest a Bogomilic influence in the way in which the ‘Jewish Tavern’ (abode of the Devil) is opposed to the ‘Christian Church’ (abode of the Lord). An apocryphal text entitled “Epistoliia Domnului nostru Iisus Hristos” [An epistle of our Lord Jesus Christ] and transcribed in Moldavia around 1762, recasts in theological terms the allegorical confrontation between ‘church’ and ‘tavern’, between the ‘Christian priest’ and the ‘Jewish tavern-keeper’: My wrath towards you is for the day of Sunday and other holy days [which] you do not observe and honour as you should, by going to church; instead, the devils work on you and urge you to go into taverns on Sundays and drink on the Lord’s holy day […] You do not honour the Church, which is a bath for the cleansing of your sins, but you love the tavern more than you love the church, and the Yid (Rom. jidov) more than you love your priest. You hold [the Jewish tavern-keepers] in greater honour than the priests who minister in your church for your redemption.27 In the first half of the 19th century, the Polish romantic poet Adam Mickiewicz also employed the binary opposition of Christian church vs Jewish tavern, in a Polish-Lithuanian environment, and without any suggestion of an antisemitic 22  Daniel Barbu (ed.), Firea românilor (Bucharest: 2000), 71. 23  Romanian boyar, scholar and politician (1768–1848). 24  Iordache Golescu, Scrieri alese, ed. Mihai Moraru (Bucharest: 1990), 259 and Mihai Eminescu, Opere alese, vol. 3 (Literatură populară), ed. Perpessicius (Bucharest: 1965), 396. 25  Romanian poet, composer and folklorist (c. 1796/1798–1854). 26  Anton Pann, Culegere de proverburi sau Povestea vorbii (Bucharest: 1982), 86. 27  “Mânia mea este spre voi pentru sfânta duminecă şi altele sărbători mari [pe] care nu le cinstiţi cum se cade, cu paza sfintei bisereci, ci vă îndeamnă diavolii de lucraţi şi beţi în crâşmă în zioa sfintei dumineci […]. Biserica nu o păziţi, care vă este feredeu de spălare [a] sufletelor de greşeli, ci iubiţi crâşma mai mult decât beserica şi în loc de preot pe jidov. [Pe jidovii crâşmari] îi aveţi mai cinstiţi decât pe preoţii carii slujesc în biserica mea spre sfinţirea voastră”. Emanuela Timotin (ed.), Cele mai vechi cărţi populare în literatura română, vol. 10, Legenda Duminicii (Bucharest: 2005), 155.

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agenda. In his poem Pan Tadeusz (completed in 1834), the tavern run by old Yankel, the establishment’s lease-holder who also acts as the local “rabbi’s helper,” is located next to the church and, architecturally, it is “in the likeness of a temple,” looking very much “like a synagogue.” On a Sunday, as they “came out of the chapel, when mass was finished,” Polish peasants and noblemen, would drop by at Yankel’s tavern to “have a drop and a little revelry.”28 This might appear as an idyllic picture of the Jewish-run tavern as a place of crosscultural sociability,29 and the Romanian sources do not seem to contain a comparable number of similar representations. It is an intriguing contrast between the two cultures, which merits further investigation. The sociologist Henri Stahl noted that the church competed with the tavern also in terms of the locations they occupied on the mental maps of residents in neighbourhoods, towns and villages. “It is a very curious fact,” he wrote in 1910, “that the locals […] do not orient themselves with the help of street names or house numbers; when giving directions, they take the church, or the main tavern, as their reference point, as they have always done: ‘from Costică’s tavern, you turn right and it’s the third house!’”30 In an article of 1879, in which he described “Jewish inn-keeping” as a “real scandal,” as a “gangrene on the body of society,” Mihai Eminescu deplored the fact that on a Sunday the Romanian peasant chose the tavern (a site of “spiritual prostitution”) over the church (a site of spiritual elevation): “The [Jewish] taverns are places of degradation and spiritual prostitution and the freedom they enjoy of staying open on Sundays and holy days means that the church is empty on such major days while the tavern is full.”31 In a letter of 1875, Vasile Alecsandri32 asked Titu Maiorescu33 to help raise funds for the building of a church in the village Mirceşti (Iaşi county), in order to make a “contribution […] to save a people’s soul from the devilish grasp of Moisi [Moses, the tavernkeeper], i.e. Satan.” The old church had burnt down in 1864, precisely because the heavy-drinking priest had left the church in a rush to go to the tavern, and failed to snuff out the candles, “so desirous was he to trade the chalice for the ale mug and the altar for the tavern counter.” “[Now] the village is being dragged 28  Adam Mickiewicz, Pan Tadeusz, trans. Miron Radu Paraschivescu (Bucharest: 1956), 146–7. 29  For a discussion of the social context of this benign imagery, see Dynner, Yankel’s Tavern, 28–9. 30  Henri Stahl, Bucureştii ce se duc, 3rd ed. (1st ed. 1910) (Iaşi: 2002), 90. 31  Mihai Eminescu, Chestiunea evreiască, ed. Dumitru Vatamaniuc (Bucharest: 1998), 105. 32  Vasile Alecsandri (1821–1890), poet, playwright, folklorist, politician, founding member of the Romanian Academy, major personality in Moldavia, and later in the kingdom of Romania. 33  Titu Maiorescu (1840–1917), Romanian literary critic, writer, academician and politician.

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into poverty by squire Moisi,” Alecsandri wrote, “and squire Moisi wouldn’t be too pleased to see a [new] church being built which lures his customers away.”34 In the 18th and 19th centuries, many foreign visitors to the Romanian lands wrote about the natives’ “propensity to drink” and especially about their predilection for “strong liquors.” Around the mid-19th century, the Austrian Adolf Schmidl35 noted the following about the Romanians of north-western Transylvania: “On Sundays and feast days, the entire male population congregates in taverns, which more often than not are in the hands of Jewish leaseholders […] In the course of the week, and especially on market days, the Romanians cannot walk past them without going in and drinking themselves into a stupor, both sexes in competition with each other.”36 But an inclination for hard drinking was not necessarily a product of the tavern, the reverse was often the case.

Figure 17.1 Jewish tavern vs Christian church. Caricature from a Romanian anti-semitic pamphlet (1937) which shows the endurance of the Jewish tavern-keeper stereotype into the 20th century. Courtesy of Andrei Oişteanu. 34  Vasile Alecsandri, Cele mai frumoase scrisori, ed. Marta Anineanu (Bucharest: 1972), 228–232. 35  Adolf Anton Schmidl (1802–1863), Austrian geographer. 36  Klaus Heitmann, Imaginea românilor în spaţiul lingvistic german, 1775–1918: Un studiu imagologic, trans. D. Hâncu (Bucharest: 1995), 168–9.

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The opposition between the two ‘central institutions’ of the village was perpetuated by the antisemitic interwar discourse. A caricature of the period represents Shtrul’s tavern, teeming with drunken Romanian peasants and, right across the road, the church, deserted on “the Lord’s holy day,” with the rhyming caption: “Shtrul the thief, Shtrul the clown/wants to bring the altar down/ with a fiendish flicker in his eye/he built his tavern nearby.”37 The competition between the Christian church and the Jewish tavern could be measured quantitatively. “It is the intention of Judaism,” read an article in the antisemitic newspaper Porunca Vremii in 1941, “to destroy and debase this people, as evidenced in the existence of only 8,722 churches against 95,000 taverns.”38

Jewish Lease-holdings

“Leasing taverns and selling alcohol are some of the oldest occupations of Jews in Moldavia,” wrote Moses Schwarzfeld in 1888. “In Wallachia, too, from early times, it was chiefly the Jews who sold raki (acquavite), an occupation which they still practise today, but on a smaller scale.”39 The latter observation would appear to be accurate. After a motion in parliament by A.C. Cuza40 in 1894 on increasing rates of alcoholism and their link to Jewish tavern leaseholders, the Minister for Religious Affairs, Take Ionescu,41 responded by saying that “in most parts of the country, at least this side of the river Milcov (i.e. in Wallachia), the retailers of spirits are generally good old Romanians.”42 The historian Liviu Rotman also believes that “the image of the ‘Jew as tavernkeeper to the village’ is based on exaggerations.” In the census for 1903–4, for example, the percentage of Jewish tavern-keepers was only 2.5 per cent of the

37  “Ştrul cel vesel, Ştrul tâlharul / Vrea să năruie altarul, / şi clipind şiret din pleoape, / şi-a pus cârciuma aproape.” Iuda (caricatures by Petre Lazăr, rhymes by Radu Barda) (Bucharest: 1937), 18. 38  Jean Ancel, Contribuţii la istoria României: Problema evreiască (1933–1944), Part one, vol. 2, trans. Carol Bines (Bucharest: 2001), 20. 39  Moses Schwarzfeld, “Excursiuni critice asupra istoriei evreilor în România”, Analele Societăţii Istorice “Iuliu Barasch,” 2 (1888): 79. 40  A.C. Cuza (1857–1947), professor of political economy at the University of Iaşi, politician and antisemitic campaigner. 41  Take Ionescu (1858–1922), Romanian politician, lawyer and journalist, who was Prime Minister of Romania in 1921–22. 42  Adolphe Stern, Din viaţa unui evreu-român: Însemnări din viaţa mea, vol. 2, ed. Ţicu Goldstein (Bucharest: 2001), 105 (vol. 1, 1st ed.: 1915).

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total number of lessees of such establishments in Romania.43 “We should not imagine,” wrote the historian Constantin C. Giurescu, “that leasing taverns was a Jewish specialty.”44 Documents from the latter half of the 16th century speak of Jewish traders in wine in Moldavia, including the famous Joseph Nasi, Duke of Naxos.45 However, the oldest evidence for the consistent presence of Jewish tavern-keepers in Romanian-inhabited lands date from around the mid-17th century.46 This defied the period’s church laws, which did not allow Christians to receive food or drink from Jewish hands. Thus, Pravila bisericească, a code of canon law printed at the Monastery of Govora in 1640, stipulated that “[t]he man who would defile himself by taking from the hands of a Jew wine” or other goods “which a Christian is not allowed to taste” “must call the priest for a blessing before he could touch them.”47 However, around 1654 on the landed estate of the Cantacuzino boyars in the county of Iaşi, documents reveal the identity of the “earliest Jewish tavern lease-holder in Moldavia, Moscu the Jew [Moscu Jidovul].”48 He would appear to have been one of the thousands of refugees from Ukraine who fled the pogroms organized by Cossack bands led by the hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky in 1648–51. Documents of 1670 mention a certain “Lazor the tavern-keeper,” who had built himself a “house and cellar” in Stoeşti (in the market town of Focşani). He might have been the same as “Lazor the tavern-keeper, a Jew from the land of Moldavia” who sold his pot

43  Liviu Rotman, Şcoala israelito-română (1851–1914) (Bucharest: 1999), 50. 44  Constantin C. Giurescu, Contribuţiuni la studiul originilor şi dezvoltării burgheziei române pînă la 1848 (Bucharest: 1972), 164. 45   Izvoare şi mărturii referitoare la evreii din România, vol. 1, ed. Victor Eskenasy (Bucharest: 1986), 57 and Izvoare şi mărturii referitoare la evreii din România, vol. 2, Part two, ed. Mihai Spielmann (Bucharest: 1988), 197. 46  Wine and spirits merchants (often ethnic Jews) employed tasters to certify that the beverages on sale were genuine, high-quality products. Occasionally, these tasters were secretly paid by the manufacturers to take advantage of the buyers’ credulity. The semantic changes underwent by the terms used to designate this occupation might suggest that this was the case. In German and in Yiddish the terms used included: (ge)schmack = taste, schmecken = to taste, schmecker = taster. The linguist Lazăr Şăineanu claimed in 1896 that the Yiddish term şmac entered the Romanian language with the sense “reek, bad taste in a drink,” while şmecher ended up meaning ‘a cunning guy, a charlatan’. See entries in Lazăr Şăineanu, Dicţionarul universal al limbei române (Craiova: 1896). 47  Carol Iancu, Evreii din România (1866–1919: De la excludere la emancipare (Bucharest: 1996), 39–40. 48  Nicolae Iorga, Istoria comerţului românesc, vol. 1 (Bucharest: 1925), 276.

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still in 1706. In 1738, the latter’s son, Hershku the Jew (Herşcu Jidovul), was also a tavern-keeper at Focşani.49 In the early 18th century (around 1714), the scholar and prince Dimitrie Cantemir mentioned “trade and tavern-keeping” as privileged occupations of Jews in Moldavia: “they exert no trade apart from commerce and inn-keeping” (“opificium, praeter mercaturam et cauponariam, nullum exercent”). To be able to exert these activities, they had to “pay special dues, which were higher than ordinary ones” (“tributum annuum peculiare, gravius ordinario”).50 In the same period, Anton Maria del Chiaro, court secretary in Wallachia in the period 1710 to 1716, wrote that the Wallachian Jews earned a rather “hard living by selling raki and other goods.”51 In 1717, two Jewish brothers, originally from Pressburg (today Bratislava, Slovakia), obtained from the Habsburg authorities a license which allowed them to install a brandy distillery and a brewery in Timişoara, where they were also granted a monopoly on the sale of these drinks.52 In a document dated 1723 addressed to the Hungarian Aulic Chancellery in Vienna, the local authorities of Szátmar county made references to Jews engaged in brewing ales, in tavernkeeping and the retail of spirits in the area.53 An official memorandum of 1798 from the Jews of the city of Oradea (Hung. Nagyvárad, Ger. Großwardein) specified that “for [the] seventy years” since they had obtained a license from the “High Royal Chamber” in 1798, they had been selling “kosher wine, ales and spirits and had been paying their dues and lease-holding fees.”54 The Jews of another Transylvanian town, Arad, complained to the local authorities in 1754 that on far too many major holidays of the year (Easter, Christmas, Whitsun, Sundays, etc.) they were not allowed to distil brandy.55 Visiting foreigners also noted the presence and activities of Jewish leaseholders in Romanian territories. In 1742, the Greek traveller Markos Antonios Katsaitis, passing through the Danubian port Galaţi, described low-rise clapboard houses, inhabited by “many Jews who sell raki, wine, tobacco and do 49   Izvoare şi mărturii, vol. 2, Part one, 12, and Iorga, Istoria comerţului, vol. 2, 38. 50  Dimitrie Cantemir, Descriptio Moldaviae, ch. 16, cited in Dan Horia Mazilu, Noi despre ceilalţi: Fals tratat de imagologie (Iaşi: 1999), 134. 51   Călători străini despre Ţările Române, eds. Maria Holban et al., vol. 8 (Bucharest: 1983), 386. 52   Izvoare şi mărturii, vol. 2, Part one, 30, and Victor Neumann, Istoria evreilor din Banat: O mărturie a multi- şi interculturalităţii Europei central-orientale (Bucharest: 1999), 11. 53  Anton Dörner, Evreii din comitatul Satu Mare în secolul al XVIII-lea / The Jews of Satu Mare County in the 18th Century, vol. I (1723–1760) (Cluj-Napoca: 1998), 135. 54   Izvoare şi mărturii, vol. 2, Part two, 448. 55  Ibid., 12.

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other business.”56 Swiss-German author Franz Joseph Sulzer noted in 1781 that “Here [in Chernowitz] as well as in other places in Moldavia and Wallachia, they [the Jews] are generally well-off from their gains as distillers and purveyors of spirits and from other trades.”57 Around the same time, a few Jews in Bucharest ran “stills which they had made with their own money on places given to them by the Princes.”58 One of them, Pilat, “guild master of the Jews,” is documented in 1759 as selling his pot still in the city’s Brezoianu neighbourhood.59 Migrating from Slav-populated areas in eastern Europe (Poland, Ukraine, Russia), Jews introduced the manufacture and consumption of grain-distilled raki (made from corn, wheat, and rye) to the Romanian lands. In the 18th and early 19th century, the production and consumption of raki made of grain (Rom. horilcă, vutcă, secărică) overtook that of plum-made raki (Rom. ţuică, şliboviţă, palincă) as well as that of raki obtained from the distillation of grapes left over from the making of wine (Rom. tescovină, rachiu de drojdie). In earlier periods, Jewish traders sold grain-made raki which they brought over from Poland or Ukraine, before they started producing it themselves in pot stills installed and leased on the lands of Romanian monasteries or boyars. A document from 1756 references “Jewish stills” near the market town Soroca (in northern Bessarabia) used for “boiling” horilcă (strong beverage from fermented fruit), the importation of which was prohibited.60 Unsurprisingly, the vocabulary of distillery and brewing includes many terms of Slavic origin: cîrciumă (with the variant crîşmă = tavern, public house), podgorie (vineyard), povarnă and velniţă (still; pot still), vodcă, horilcă (strong distilled drink), butelcă (barrel, casket), ploscă (flask, gourd), vadră (pail), etc. In this period, the Principalities came to be known as “Constantinople’s granary” (to use the words of the Austrian Consul Ignatius Stefan Raicevich around 1785).61 Because they were vassals to the Ottoman Porte, they were under contractual obligation to sell their surplus of cereals to the Turks at 56  Gheorghe Crutzescu, Podul Mogoşoaiei: Povestea unei străzi, 2nd ed. (1st ed. 1943) (Bucharest: 1987), 19. 57   Franz Jozeph Sulzer, Geschichte des transalpinischen Daciens (1781), cited in Elias Schwarzfeld, “Evreii din Moldova sub Reglementul Organic. Studiu istoric,” Anuar pentru israeliţi (1891–1892) 14 (1891): 208. 58  Iorga, Istoria comerţului, vol. 2, 41. 59  Radu Ştefan Vergatti, “Dinamica demografică şi aspecte socio-profesionale ale obştii evreieşti din Bucureşti (1810–1939),” Revista de istorie socială 2–3 (1997–1998): 185. 60  Nicolae Iorga, Istoria industriilor la români (Bucharest: 1927), 173. 61  Pompiliu Eliade, Influenţa franceză asupra spiritului public în România. Originile: Studiu asupra stării societăţii româneşti în vremea domniilor fanariote, trans. Aurelia Dumitrașcu (Bucharest: 1982), 113 (1st ed.: Paris: 1898). For the concept of ‘granary’ to

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Figure 17.2

Ukrainian tree fellers in a Jewish tavern. Engraving by F. Lewicky, Podolia (1870). Courtesy of Andrei Oişteanu.

minimal prices under the terms of a tribute called zahire (Rom. zaherea). Even in the aftermath of the Treaty of Edirne signed by the Russians and Ottomans in 1829, whereby Moldavia and Wallachia gained administrative autonomy and rights to free foreign trade, the Ottoman Empire retained its monopoly on the purchase of surplus grain from the Romanian provinces. In this context, the Romanian land-owning boyars sought a better deal by farming out their surplus grain to lease-holders, Jews and foreigners alike, operating on their own lands. For this reason, during the 18th and 19th centuries, land-owning the Ottoman Porte, see the contributions by Violeta Barbu and Gheorghe Lazăr in the present volume.

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boyars and monasteries encouraged the colonization of villages and boroughs with “dirt-poor Israelites, arriving mostly from Galicia,” as described by Mihai Eminescu in 1879.62 These new arrivals leased the pot stills and taverns operating on the estates, using cereals claimed by the owners to have “gone bad” already, as well as “rye and millet, because these goods are not in demand in Constantinople.”63 This socio-economic nexus was described by the Romanian author Mihai Eminescu in an article published in the Iaşi periodical Convorbiri literare in 1876: We all wonder at the multitude of taverns in our country—of the multi­ tude of Yids—, and the cause is the plentiful amount of raki, the multitude of stills, but where are these coming from? Under Ottoman rule there were […] regulations on exports. The exportation of grain was banned. Consequently, unused grain had to be turned into exportable goods: cattle. One thing led to another. The still consumed the excess grain and provided food for the cattle [= the dregs]. The still produced the raki, the raki had to be consumed, and there was a lot of it. Therefore, many taverns were built. These needed tavern-keepers. Many Jews were brought over …”64 It was a simple model of economic symbiosis which had already been noted by the Metropolitan Neophytos I of Crete in his journal of visitation in Wallachia in the 1740s. In 1746, as he inspected a landed estate of the Metropolitanate in Călăraşi county (Wallachia), he noted briefly the following: “Here some Jews have a still for which they pay rent to the Metropolitanate.”65 This practice was confirmed in Moldavia’s constitution of 1831 called the Organic Regulations, in a chapter on the “Israelite Community”: “The Jews have a right to work in distilleries […] if they have an agreement negotiated with the landowners.”66 Aiming to deconstruct the legend of the “Jewish invasion of the Romanian Principalities, and of Moldavia in particular” and to demonstrate the way in which the land-owning boyars and monasteries encouraged the settlement 62  Eminescu, Chestiunea evreiască, 29. 63  Iorga, Istoria industriilor, 173–4. 64  Mihai Eminescu, Scrieri politice şi literare: Manuscrise inedite şi culegeri din ziare şi reviste, vol. 2 (1870–1877) (Bucharest: 1905), 98. 65  Mihail Carataşu, Paul Cernovodeanu and Nicolae Stoicescu (eds), “Jurnalul călătoriilor canonice ale mitropolitului Ungrovlahiei Neofit I Cretanul,” Biserica Ortodoxă Română 98 (1980): 243–315. 66  Schwarzfeld, “Evreii,” 210.

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of Jews to “populate” rural areas and establish markets and market towns in Moldavia, Elias Schwarzfeld wrote: Naturally, only a relatively small number of Jews came to settle in and populate villages. They were not engaged in farming, although later they did lease landed estates, without, however, working the land themselves; they became tavern-keepers as lease-holders of village taverns, which became known as ‘Jewish lease-holdings,’ and were in charge of water mills, fords, bridges, the equipment for producing the raki and the stills […], which people needed as much as they needed ploughmen or day labourers. They were also artisans, much needed by land-owners. They managed fish ponds and performed a number of services which the Christian population could not provide, also practising small-scale trades which, for being rudimentary, were nonetheless useful to rural areas.67 From time to time, the Jews were “deprived of their right to sell alcohol” as well as of their “rights to lease taverns.” In Transylvania, for example, such legislation was passed quite regularly in 1801, 1810, 1818, 1836, 1842, 1845, and later.68 “The Jews (Rom. jidovi) should not be free to lease taverns in villages. These should be run by Christians,” read a law voted in 1842 by Moldavia’s Obşteasca Adunare (representative assembly).69 As a result of such restrictions, the number of Jewish tavern leaseholders in Moldavia declined significantly from 739 in 1839 to only 110 in 1845.70 Disappointed with the law of 1873, which “put a ban on the sale of spirits by Jews,” (only one of many such restrictive laws passed in both Romanian Principalities in the 18th and 19th centuries), Moses Gaster71 countered in his memoirs with an idyllic representation of the interactions between the Romanian population and the Jewish inn-keepers who, he alleged, “had lived in perfect harmony and friendship with the natives.”72 Around the 67  Elias Schwarzfeld, Din istoria evreilor: Împopularea, reîmpopularea şi întemeierea tîrgurilor şi a tîrguşoarelor în Moldova (Bucharest: 1914), s.p. 68  Ladislau Gyémánt and Lya Benjamin (eds.), Izvoare şi mărturii referitoare la evreii din România, vol. 3, Part two (Bucharest: 1999), 129. 69  Lya Benjamin (ed.), Evreii din România în texte istoriografice: Antologie (Bucharest: 2002), 338. 70   Izvoare şi mărturii, vol. 3, Part one, 43. 71  Moses Gaster (1856–1939), Romanian scholar of Jewish origin, folklorist and historian of old Romanian literature and religions. Expelled from Romania in 1885, he settled in London. 72  Moses Gaster, Memorii ( fragmente): Corespondenţă, ed. Victor Eskenasy (Bucharest: 1998), 159.

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Figure 17.3

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Romanian and Albanian burghers in a tavern in Iaşi (Moldavia). 19th-century drawing. Courtesy of Andrei Oişteanu.

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same time, in the above-cited article of 1876, Mihai Eminescu in his turn argued that the Jewish tavern-keeper was not responsible for the Romanian peasant’s hard-drinking habits, but considered the tavern lease-holder and the leaseholding system in general as products of a socio-economic nexus. The real culprit in Eminescu’s eyes was the Romanian landowner, who paid peasants with vouchers, which they could use to buy drinks at the public house: “The owner dictated to his subjects the amount of raki to be purchased per year. Some payments for labour were made in raki.”73 Sometimes, laws (such as the law of 1811 voted in the Transylvanian Diet) sought to prevent Jewish tavern-keepers from selling liquor to peasants in exchange for cereals or foodstuffs.74

The Legend of the Poisoned Drinks

In the early 14th century, in Western Europe a legend emerged according to which Jews—in collusion with other marginals and outsiders such as lepers, Muslims and heretics—poisoned wells with the deliberate aim of harming or killing Christians. Another fear was born around the same time about Jewish doctors allegedly poisoning their Christian patients. For centuries, such allegations were added to the portrait of the ‘imaginary Jew,’ engendering a stigma which justified spontaneous pogroms and burnings at the stake.75 In Orthodox Europe in general, and in the Principalities in particular, such legends hardly circulated. One notable exception can be found in the account of French writer Saint-Marc Girardin76 who in 1836 noted that he had heard of Jews poisoning wells from a Moldavian informant.77 As this is the only reference to the legend in the Romanian cultural space, I would submit that it is an instance of cultural transfer, either from Catholic Galicia to Orthodox Moldavia, or from the writer’s native France to the less familiar host culture (Moldavia).

73  Eminescu, Scrieri politice şi literare, vol. 1, 98. 74   Izvoare şi mărturii, vol. 3, Part one, 352–3. 75  Carlo Ginzburg, Istorie nocturnă: O interpretare a Sabatului, trans. Mihai Avădanei (Iaşi: 1996), 40; Léon Poliakov, Istoria antisemitismului, vol. 1, trans. Lelia Băluş, Janina Ianoși and Adriana Fianu (Bucharest: 1999), 104 and 136. 76  Saint-Marc Girardin (1801–1873), French writer and politician who travelled in the Romanian territories. 77  Saint-Marc Girardin, Souvenirs de voyages et d’études (Paris: 1836), apud Moses Schwarzfeld, Excursiuni, 115.

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However, in Eastern Europe the same type of mentality—according to which the Jew is a dangerous agent, determined to destroy Christendom— created another legend: the poisoning of alcoholic drinks by the Jewish tavern-keepers. Watering down liquor was a fairly commonplace practice, irrespective of the tavern-keeper’s ethnicity. For example, the French classical scholar Ernest Desjardins wrote that Jewish retailers often sold liquor mixed with water.78 Romanian writer Nicolae Filimon,79 who depicted early 19thcentury mores in the Wallachian capital, Bucharest, wrote: “I have seen tavernkeepers watering the wine down and weighing with dishonest scales.”80 As far as the Jewish tavern lease-holders were concerned, the legend launched accusations of a much more serious nature: they were accused of adulterating liquors with toxic substances. A few narratives from the Romanian areas, arranged chronologically, might shed light on these shady stories. In an overview of professions practised by the Jews in Moldavia and Wallachia (including the lease-holding of taverns), Moses Schwarzfeld wrote that no reference was made to the “legend of the poisoned drinks” around the year 1800.81 The politician and leading figure of the Polish Enlightenment, Stanisław Staszic, for instance, never mentioned the poisoning of liquors, although in 1790 he described the drinking establishments run by Jews in Poland in great detail and in a highly negative light.82 If such a legend had been circulating, he would not have hesitated in disseminating it. In 1832, in the aforementioned Organic Regulation of Moldavia, the reason for the restrictions imposed on the sale of wine by Jewish tavern-keepers was that the wine was “often unclean and spoilt” and that the Jewish lease-holders had been found to “taint and sully their beverages.”83 The perception of drinks sold by Jews as “unclean” stemmed from the perception of the Jews themselves as “unclean,”84 78  Ernest Desjardins, Les juifs de Moldavie (Paris, 1867), cited in Eliade, Influenţa franceză, 104. Ernest Émile Antoine Desjardins (1823–1886) was professor of epigraphy and classical studies at the Collège de France. 79  Romanian prose writer (1819–1865), the author of the first realist novel in Romanian, Ciocoii vechi şi noi (1863). 80  Nicolae Filimon, Ciocoii vechi şi noi and Nenorocirile unui slujnicar, ed. Domnica Filimon (Bucharest: 1987), 2. 81  M. Schwarzfeld, Excursiuni, 81. 82   Stranger in Our Midst: Images of the Jews in Polish literature, ed. Harold B. Segal (Ithaca & London: 1996), 38–42. 83  Schwarzfeld, “Evreii,” 204. Izvoare şi mărturii, vol. 3, Part two, 23. 84  See the chapter “Filthy, Stinking Jew” in Andrei Oişteanu, Inventing the Jew: Antisemitic stereotypes in Romanian and other Central-East European Cultures (Lincoln & London: 2009), 66–85.

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but also from representations of ‘kosher’ food and drink as being dubious and tainted. The Moldavians of the town of Fălticeni were “forced to buy in disgust [kosher] meat from the Jews,” read a document of 1837.85 In 1798, Jewish residents of Oradea complained that the local authorities had banned Jewish tavern-keepers from selling alcoholic drinks to Christians “under pretext that they sold kosher wine.”86 In 1842, as he crossed Moldavia from north to south, Dr Iuliu Barasch87 observed that the province had “an abundance of liquor”: “one can find not only the acrid home-made wine of the countryside,” but also “raki sold in taverns, adulterated with sulphuric acid.” I would note for the time being that doctor Barasch referred to taverns in general, not only to those run by Jews. It is quite probable in fact that Barasch did not single out Jewish taverns, because only a few lines earlier, he had expressed his disgust for the squalid Moldavian taverns while praising the Jewish ones: “One could not find taverns more miserable and more deprived than in Moldavia. The relatively better ones are run by Jews, and as a result these have a more numerous clientele.”88 Around the same period (1834), the Polish poet Adam Mickiewicz paid tribute to the honesty of Jewish tavern-keepers in Poland-Lithuania, as exemplified in the character of Yankel in the poem Pan Tadeusz: The Jew was old, and through the years had gained A name for honesty. No one e’er complained Or gentleman or peasant, nor they should For everyone knew Yankel’s drinks were good. He kept a strict account, nor cheated ever […]89 In contrast, the villagers of Geoagiu de Sus (Hung. Felgyógy) in central Transylvania complained to the local authorities in 1846 that the Jews “mix vitriol into their raki (Hung. pálinkát vitriollal elegyitik), which is very harmful to health.” The authorities decided to send a commission and launch an inquiry and “should the raki be found to be mixed with a dangerous substance, an easy-to-use chemical should be used to identify the addition.” The village community had been petitioning Transylvania’s Gubernium since 1839 for the 85  Artur Gorovei, Folticenii: Cercetări istorice asupra oraşului (Folticeni: 1938), 82. 86   Izvoare şi mărturii, vol. 2, Part two, 448. 87  Iuliu Barasch (1815–1863), doctor, teacher and promoter of culture and science, founder of the Jewish Enlightenment in Romania. 88  Iuliu Barasch, “Evreii în Cracovia, Galiţia, Bucovina, Moldova şi Valachia: Impresii de călătorie din anii 1841–1842,” Anuar pentru israeliţi 16 (1894): 45–181. 89  Adam Mickiewicz, Pan Tadeusz, trans. Kenneth R. Mackenzie (New York: 1992), 164.

Jewish Tavern-Keepers and the Myth of the Poisoned Drinks

Figure 17.4

Polish peasants in a tavern run by Jews. Woodcut after a painting by Wladisław Grabowski (1850–1885), meant to support the myth of the poisoning of beverages by Jewish tavern-keepers. Courtesy of Andrei Oişteanu.

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local Jews to be expelled. As their petitions had no effect, they resorted to accusations of malpractice in the taverns. A periodical published in Cluj at the time commented sarcastically on the incident: “Folk in Geoagiu de Sus who blame the vitriol or other substances for the harm caused by alcohol should perhaps look at the ill effects of immoderate alcohol consumption.” Other reasons for the expulsion of the Jews were invoked by the burgers of Aiud (Hung. Nagyenyed, Ger. Straßburg am Mieresch) in 1843. They alleged that human bones had been found in the cauldrons used for brewing the raki.90 In 1866, Gustave Le Cler, a member of a military mission sent by Napoleon III to the Romanian Principalities, noted that “in this country, grain is not consumed as bread, but as concentrated alcohol, of the type used for lighting [?!], which is sold to peasants as a drink.”91 Another Frenchman, the aforementioned Ernest Desjardins, wrote in 1867 that the Jews of Moldavia “did not drink raki” themselves, but sold the counterfeit liquor: “[t]hey mix it with vitriol, cheating on the Romanians and poisoning towns and villages.”92 Also around the mid19th century, the poet and playwright Vasile Alecsandri mentioned the “tainted raki” consumed in “Jewish taverns” (Rom. crîşmele jidoveşti).93 Moreover, a character in one of his plays, a Jew from Galicia who ran a tavern in Iaşi, admitted selling “raki mixed with vitriol.”94 In another of Alecsandri’s plays, Lipitorile satului [The village leeches], the tavern-keeper Moise sold the peasants a drink made of “one part raki and two parts water mixed with vitriol.”95 In his comments on the play, B.P. Hasdeu96 appears to confirm the practice in real life.97 Leon Volovici has argued that it was largely Vasile Alecsandri who was responsible for the emergence of the stereotypical image of the Jew with all his vices, including his role as ‘poisoner’ of the Romanian peasant. This caricature became an item in the inventory of clichés of the burghers and, crucially, in the 90   Izvoare şi mărturii, vol. 3, Part two, 424, 474. 91  Gustave Le Cler, La Moldo-Valachie (1866), quoted by Dumitru Drăghicescu, Din psihologia poporului român (Bucharest: 1996), 389. 92  Nicolae Iorga, Problema evreiască la Cameră (o interpelare), cu o introducere de A.C. Cuza şi Note despre vechimea evreilor în ţară (Vălenii-de-Munte: 1910), 48. 93  Vasile Alecsandri, Proză, ed. Georgeta Rădulescu-Dulgheru (Bucharest: 1983), 91. 94  George Călinescu, Istoria literaturii române, de la origini pînă în present (2nd ed., Bucharest: 1982), 314. 95  Vasile Alecsandri, Opere, vol. 6 (Bucharest: 1979), 466. 96  Bogdan Petriceicu Hasdeu (1838–1907), Romanian polymath, member of the Romanian Academy and politician. He was a writer and a pioneer in many areas of Romanian linguistics, history, law, and folklore. 97  Bogdan Petriceicu Hasdeu, Trei Ovrei: jupânul Shylock allu Shakespeare, domnul Gobseck allu Balzac şi jupânul Moise allu Alexandri (Bucharest: 1865), 43.

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mental repertoire of the politicians. When, for instance, in 1864 the “Israelite question” was debated in the General Assembly (Rom. Adunarea Generală), Mihail Kogălniceanu made the following declaration to his parliamentary peers: “[G]entlemen, if you want to understand the Jews of Moldavia, you should go to the theatre and see the play The Village Leeches [by V. Alecsandri], and convince yourselves that it is not fiction, but the actual truth.”98 In the same period, a certain A. Kălimănescu published in Iaşi an antisemitic pamphlet entitled Jidanii în România [The Kikes of Romania], in which he wrote about the Jews that, being “corrupted and corrupting,” “the Kikes pour vitriol and other chemicals in the raki they give to the Romanians, and thus destroy their souls, making them oblivious of their duties to God, and destroy their minds, rendering them oblivious of their duties and rights as citizens; they thus weaken their bodies and shorten their lives.”99 It was the kind of rhetoric also deployed by Ion Ghica, writer, diplomat and former prime minister, when he wrote about the “Jewish tavern-keepers,” whom “we allow to corrupt and kill” people with “all sorts of poisoned beverages.” In a text written in 1884, while he was ambassador in London, Ghica channeled his thoughts via an imaginary English friend: Do you think it right to let those go free and unpunished who, day by day and hour by hour, using poisoned drinks, destroy the vigor and health of a good and useful labourer, stultify his mind, deaden his senses until they reduce him to the abject state of an animal, inebriating him to a state of delirium tremens, and making his miserable life one of sorrow and pain, a thousand times worse than death? We cannot stand by and see our society exploited by such monsters.”100 Mihai Eminescu, too, believed that tavern lease-holding was the typical occupation of the Romanian Jew. In his articles, especially in those published between 1876 and 1881 in the newspapers Curierul de Iaşi and Timpul (in Bucharest), Eminescu accused the “Jewish lease-holder” of faking and poisoning the liquors they sold: “[t]hey [the Jews] introduced and exploited the vice of drunkenness into the villages, adulterated the drinks with venomous chemicals, thus poisoning physically, and corrupting morally our populations […] As an alien race, they declared a war unto death against us, using liquor mixed 98  Leon Volovici, Ideologia naţionalistă şi “problema evreiască” în România anilor ’30 (Bucharest: 1995), 31. 99  A. Kălimănescu, Jidanii în România (Iaşi: 1865), 7. 100  Ion Ghica, Scrisori către V. Alecsandri (Bucharest: 1887), 442.

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with poison instead of knives or guns.”101 The “venomous chemicals” alluded to remain unspecified, although elsewhere, in two different instances, Eminescu wrote about Jew-leeches who allegedly sold “hemlock-made raki in the villages” or who caused a “slow death” by administering “vitriol” to the Romanian peasant.102 It is worth noting that, as evidenced in Eminescu’s general journalistic discourse, the Jew did not adulterate the liquors for financial gain, but in order to cause powerful noxious effects in the Romanians’ bodies. Another Romanian writer of the late 19th century, Ion Luca Caragiale,103 adopted an altogether different stance towards the issue of the Jewish leaseholders as poisoners. His novella O făclie de Paşti [An Easter candle], published in 1889, has Leiba Zibal, a Jewish tavern-keeper in northern Moldavia, as a protagonist. Here, the author blames the viciousness of the villagers: “[t]he people of Podeni are wicked and quarrelsome! … Insults … slander … profanity … accusations of poisoning [the liquors] with vitriol.”104 Gruia, the eponymous hero of a novella by Ion Agârbiceanu,105 assaults the “village Jew” because he is convinced that he “sells poisoned liquor” to Christians.106 In his short story Zamfira, the writer Calistrat Hogaş107 does not deny that drink-poisoning took place, but denies—in characteristically sarcastic style—the fact that this practice might be exclusively linked to the Jewish tavern-keepers: A type of hilarious patriotism is deployed every day and everywhere in our country; accusers shout loudly and write vehemently that the Yid tavern-keeper is poisoning our rural population, and on this theme such a storm has brewed that you would fain believe that the solution to our national regeneration is to be found at the bottom of Itzik’s or Schloim’s raki flask. This is a mistake. Uncle Ion, our own national tavern-keeper, has got as many, or as few, Gods, as any dutifully sidelocked Abraham […]; the only difference would be that, in his case, the raki-poisoning substance is genuinely Romanian rather than genuinely Jewish. Now, this would be an important step indeed towards national regeneration, but one must 101  Eminescu, Chestiunea evreiască, 149–50. 102  Ibid., 39, 159. 103  Major Romanian playwright, novelist and journalist (1852–1912). 104  Ion Luca Caragiale, Opere, vol. 3, eds. Al. Rosetti, Şerban Cioculescu and Liviu Călin (Bucharest: 1962), 29. 105  Transylvanian-born Romanian writer and journalist (1882–1963). 106  Ion Agârbiceanu, Opere. Schiţe şi povestiri, ed. Ilie Rad (Bucharest: 2014), vol. 1, 850. 107  Romanian writer (1847–1917).

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also consider the fact that the Romanian, being a sceptical fellow, could not care less if the poison that kills him is Jewish or genuinely Romanian. Moreover, Calistrat Hogaş also created fictional tavern-keepers who were ethnic Romanians and who “handled an entire army of glasses and carafes” with “a dexterity worthy of the most skilled Abraham.”108 In a novel by Vasile Voiculescu,109 entitled Zahei Orbul [Zakai the Blind Man], the central character is said to have gone blind because of “the poisoned drink” served him by a Romanian tavern-keeper in the town Brăila. And, as a final example, in a novella by D.D. Pătrăşcanu,110 the wine offered by Father Grigore “is a wholesome, natural beverage”, unlike “the sour-tasting drinks sold by the Yids in short measures.”111

The Poisoned Beverages: The Science behind the Myth

The accounts and narratives presented above show that, in the period under consideration, the range of harmful substances alleged to have been used by Jewish tavern-keepers to adulterate or poison liquor was fairly comprehensive. They included: vitriol, concentrated lighting spirits, methylic and salicylic alcohol, glycerine, sulphuric ether, caustic soda (lye) and other toxic substances and chemicals. The most often quoted, from the first half of the 19th century onwards, was vitriol. Yet, at the time, vitriol (sulphuric acid) was an expensive and rare chemical hardly affordable by impoverished rural tavern-keepers. Moreover, it is hard to imagine that such practices could have been acceptable from a moral or religious perspective. For example, at the end of the 17th century, the ascetic Kabbalah prescribed a heavy penance (73 days of fasting) for the sin of counterfeiting wine.112 It is also worth keeping in mind that in the 19th century the terminology of chemical substances could generate confusion. The term “vitriol,” for instance, was rather vague, especially for ordinary laypersons. For instance, in the play Carnival [Rom. D-ale carnavalului], written by I.L. Caragiale in 1884, the residents of the modest suburbs of the town of Ploieşti, and especially Miţa, a “daughter of the people,” used the expression “vitrionul englezesc” (English vitriol) to designate “a sort of metal” which “burns 108  Calistrat Hogaş, Pe drumuri de munte (Bucharest: 1988), 97. 109  Romanian novelist and poet (1884–1963). 110  Romanian writer (1872–1937). 111  Călinescu, Istoria, 674. 112  Simon Dubnov, Istoria hasidismului, vol. 1, trans. Dumitru Marian (Bucharest: 1998), 72.

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everything, especially one’s eyes.”113 However, initially, concentrated sulphuric acid was referred to as “vitriol oil” (and even “vitriol butter”) in common parlance, while diluted sulphuric acid was called “vitriol spirit.” The term “vitriol” itself did not designate sulphuric acid as such, but any of its salt derivates (sulphates). In his Dictionary of 1896, for instance, Lazăr Şăineanu defined “vitriol” as “the traditional name given to all sulphates.”114 A type of sulphate added to alcoholic drinks by peasants and publicans was potash alum.115 The substance was widely available in any grocery or “Jewish drugstore” (Rom. spiţerie jidovească). A fictional character created by Ion Creangă, “Master Shtrul, from Tîrgul-Neamţului, a grocer by trade” but also a “pharmacist” (Rom. spiţer), sold such substances in his store, alongside medicinal herbs and “other poisons.”116 Early 19th-century customs registers from the towns of Bîrlad, Focşani and Galaţi, for instance, include entries on Jewish merchants who imported potash alum.117 Potash alum solution was not only used to treat phylloxera, the blight which affected vineyards, but was also added to wine to clarify it and make it last longer without turning bad. Here is a popular recipe collected in the late 19th century in northern Moldavia: “For wine to last longer without turning bad, pour potash alum into the casket to stop it from going sour.”118 It is noteworthy that the Romanian folklorist Dimitrie Lupaşcu collected such recipes not only from ethnic Romanians in Bukovina and Moldavia, but also from the Jewish population in the area, which was a new trend in ethnographic studies at the time. Thus, of the 67 respondents approached by Lupaşcu, eight (twelve per cent of the total) identified themselves as Jewish. Another additive used to “prevent wine form going sour” was sulphur (Rom. pucioasǎ) or a sulphite popularly called must de pucioasă, as described by Ion Ionescu de la Brad, the founding father of modern Romanian agronomy in the mid-19th century: “This ‘sulphur must’ does not ferment, it tastes sweet, and smells strongly of sulphur; it only takes the content of two or three carafes 113  Caragiale, Opere, vol. 3, 254. 114  Şăineanu, Dicţionarul, s.v. 115  Sulphate of potassium and aluminium, called in everyday jargon piatra acră (sour stone) or sarea acră (sour salt). 116  Ion Creangă, “Moş Nichifor Coţcariul,” in the collection Ion Creangă, Poveşti, Amintiri, Povestiri (Bucharest: 1980), 232. 117  Iorga, Istoria comerţului, vol. 2, 140; Contribuţia evreilor din România la cultură şi civilizaţie, eds. Nicolae Cajal, Hary Kuller (Bucharest: 1996), 194; Izvoare şi mărturii, vol. 3, Part one, 519–520. 118  Dimitrie Lupaşcu, Medicina babelor: Adunare de descîntece, reţete de doftorii şi vrăjitorii băbesci (Bucharest: 1890), 121.

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of it poured into a barrel of wine to cleanse the entire barrelful.”119 The use of sulphates (Rom. vitrioluri) to preserve wine could provide a possible explanation for the origins of the legend, as the term vitriol (short for “vitriol spirit” and “vitriol oil”) came to designate sulphuric acid. Another possible explanation of the myth of poisoned beverages could be based on tavern-keepers’ use of sulphuric acid and lime for removing the smell of mould in the barrels of wine and raki. In the mid-19th century, Ion Ionescu de la Brad described this practice thus: The smell of mould, which can ruin the taste of wine […] can only be removed in the following manner […]: take one part vitriol (acidum sulfuricum dilutum) and two parts water, cleanse the vessels with this solution of vitriol, then wash them with lye, ashes or diluted limestone and then rinse with pure water […]; once they are dry, burn some sulphur in them, in the accustomed manner. In this way, one must cleanse all the tanks, casks, presses and barrels used in wine-making.120 The use of lye for cleaning wine-making equipment could be the origin of the legend according to which tavern-keepers adulterated drinks with caustic soda. A carol from Maramureş (in northern Transylvania) would seem to point to the adulteration of beverages as an enduring stereotype of the Jewish tavern-keeper (Avrum = Abraham) in rural areas: “Let us drink wine and let us drink rum/ from Abraham’s caskets./ But Abraham is no good man/ for he gave us wine with lye.”121 It is highly probable that many tavern-keepers (including Jews) adulterated the spirits which they produced or sold, but it is hard to imagine that they would use sulphuric acid for the purpose. It is more likely that they used a more basic type of acid, which was cheaper, easier to obtain and less noxious: acetic acid, i.e. vinegar, obtained through natural fermentation. For example, the dry distillation of wood produced pyroligneous acid, which contained acetic acid and alcohol and was used to make an inferior alcoholic drink, commonly called “wood-shaving wine” (Rom. vin de surcele). Around the mid-19th century, some Jews were manufacturers of vinegar, as suggested by census entries of 1859 for the town of Piatra Neamţ: “Leibish Esigmacher [Leibish the 119  Ion Ionescu de la Brad, Opere agricole, vol. 2 (Bucharest: 1868), 157–8. 120  Ibid., 137. 121  “Să bem vin şi să bem rum, / Din hordău, di la Avrum. / Da Avrum nu-i de omenie, / Că ni-o dat vinu leşie”. Pamfil Bilţiu, Gheorghe Gh. Pop (eds.), “Sculaţi, sculaţi, boieri mari!”: colinde din judeţul Maramureş (Cluj-Napoca: 1996), 383.

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vinegar-maker]”.122 Around the same time, a Jewish man called Moses Rat owned “a factory of vinegar made of water and spirit” near Iaşi, while Moses Juster manufactured spirit and vinegar at Piatra Neamţ.123 But the chief substance used for counterfeiting drinks was the so-called “essential vinegar,” concentrated acetic acid, probably produced artificially. The Romanian peasants of Bucovina used “essential vinegar” to make a type of raki. In 1903, the folklorist Elena Niculiţă-Voronca deplored the “[unwholesome] drinks in use lately” and gave the following as an example: “People swear to give up raki, but at weddings, saints’ days, etc. they still need a drink. For this purpose, they take essential vinegar, mix it with a few pailfuls of water, then they boil chicory, which is used in coffee, capers, allspice, cloves and, by boiling this mix they obtain drinks for their table.”124 The writer Sholem Aleichem has a description of a method for counterfeiting wine (“Akkerman wine”) used by the Jewish tavern-keepers in western Ukraine, who mixed chopped raisins, water, oats, spirit, a “kind of powder” (or “two kinds of powder for a rouble”) and sometimes a red colorant.125 The misuse of any of the above-mentioned substances was hazardous. “Whoever uses vitriol spirit should take care lest it spoils the cask,” read a text from around the middle of the 19th century. The drink was likely to corrode the cask containing it: “Strong vinegar spoils the cask,” warned old Romanian and Turkish proverbs, collected by Anton Pann.126 There were accidents. A document from the late 19th century recorded the story of a Jewish man from the market town Bozieni (Neamţ county, in Moldavia) who, “believing that the bottle had raki in it, drank a little vitriol and lost his voice.”127 The writer Ion Călugăru describes a case of intoxication with ‘essential vinegar’ in an autobiographical novel about his childhood in the Jewish quarter of the northern Moldavian town of Dorohoi in the early 20th century: “[t]he little boy drank essence of vinegar foolishly and fell like dead […]; he was gripped by severe

122  “Leibiş ce face oţătu—Leibiş Esigmacher”. Pincu Pascal, “Catagrafia evreilor din Piatra Neamţ din anul 1859,” Studia et Acta Historiae Iudaeorum Romaniae 4 (1999): 76. 123  I. Kara, Obştea evreiască din Podu Iloaiei: File din istoria unui “ştetl” moldovenesc (Bucharest: 1990), 40. 124  Niculiţă-Voronca, Datinele şi credinţele poporului român, vol. 1, 197. 125  Şalom Alehem [Sholem Aleichem], Opere alese, trans. I. Ludo (Bucharest: s.a.), 454. 126  Lazăr Şăineanu, Influenţa orientală asupra limbei şi culturei române (Bucharest: 1900), 101. 127  Report of the prefect of Neamţ county (Moldavia), sent to the country’s chief doctor. Arhivele Statului din judeţul Neamţ, Fond serviciul sanitar, dosar 11890 [State archives of Neamţ county, Fonds health services, file 11890].

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pain and fainted. They blamed Tzipra [= a Jewish woman] who, they said, had tried to poison the little Romanian lad.”128 Conclusions The use of sulphates (at the time called “vitriols”)129 for the preservation of wine and raki, the use of sulphuric acid, lye and lime for the washing of brewing equipment and of acetic acid for counterfeiting drinks, or mere accidents, all could lie at the origin of the enduring myth of drinks poisoned by the Jewish tavern-keepers. An already present horizon of expectations facilitated the construction of the myth: confusing information of a scientific or anecdotal nature was superimposed on imagery firmly embedded in contemporary mentalities. The key representation here was that of the “poisoning,” “dirty” Jew, who himself drank the “kosher” beverages perceived as “unclean.” Further research is needed on the specific history of Jewish tavern leaseholding in Romania. Like elsewhere in East-Central Europe, the drama of the Jewish rural communities was played out against the complex backdrop of “the close relationship between Romanian statehood, international human rights, and the severe social dislocation that accompanied the arrival of capitalist agriculture.”130 In a modernizing country where land reform was inadequate and the local peasantry disenfranchised, the conflict between land-less, impoverished ethnic Romanian peasants and the better-off Jewish leaseholders was fuelled by intellectual debates and by patchy legislation which failed to solve either the ‘peasant question” or the “Jewish question.” Did Romania have its own Yankels, the honest, avuncular rural Jews in whose taverns the village community met in joyous cross-ethnic, cross-class revelry, as they did in Mickiewicz’s poem? Or were rural Jewish lease-holders—supported by noble landowners—little better than the devilish poisoners of drinks portrayed in the sample of texts studied here? As shown here, racial stereotypes were enduring and, when wielded by intellectuals who were also often close to political 128  Ion Călugăru, Copilăria unui netrebnic (1st ed. Bucharest 1936) (Bucharest: 1962), 19. This autobiographical novel is set in a shtetl of northern Moldavia (Dorohoi) in the period 1907–17. 129  For the use of vitriols in early modern Europe to prevent wine from going bad, see Castilia Manea-Grgin’s chapter. 130  Iulia Onac, “The Brusturoasa Uprising in Romania,” in Sites of European Antisemitism in the Age of Mass Politics, 1880–1918, eds. Robert Nemes and Daniel Unowsky (Brandeis University Press: 2014), 67.

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circles, could turn into a potent, exclusionary discourse. Around two hundred laws and decrees adopted by successive Romanian governments in the period 1878 to 1914 were aimed at excluding Jews from many areas of economic and professional activity.131 The interlocking economic and ideological rationales for these processes are still open to debate. Bibliography Archival Sources Piatra Neamţ, Arhivele Statului din judeţul Neamţ, Fond serviciul sanitar, dosar 11890 [State archives of Neamţ county, Fonds health services, file 11890]. Published Primary Sources Agârbiceanu, Ion, Opere: Schiţe şi povestiri [Works: sketches and short stories], vol. 1, ed. Ilie Rad (Bucharest: 2014). Alecsandri, Vasile, Cele mai frumoase scrisori [Selected letters], ed. Marta Anineanu (Bucharest: 1972). Alecsandri, Vasile, Opere [Works], vol. 6 (Bucharest: 1979). Alecsandri, Vasile, Proză [Prose writings], ed. Georgeta Rădulescu-Dulgheru (Bucharest: 1983). Ancel, Jean, Contribuţii la istoria României: Problema evreiască (1933–1944) [Contributions to the history of Romania: the Jewish question], vol. 2, Part one, trans. Carol Bines (Bucharest: 2001). Barasch, Iuliu, “Evreii în Cracovia, Galiţia, Bucovina, Moldova şi Valachia: Impresii de călătorie din anii 1841–1842” [The Jews of Cracow, Galicia, Bukovina, Moldavia and Wallachia: a travel account of 1841–1842], Anuar pentru israeliţi 16 (1894): 45–181. Benjamin, Lya, Mihai Spielmann and S. Stanciu (eds.), Izvoare şi mărturii referitoare la evreii din România [Sources and testimonies on the Jews of Romania], vol. 2, Part two (Bucharest: 1990). Benjamin, Lya (ed.), Evreii din România în texte istoriografice: Antologie [The Jews of Romania in the historiography: an anthology] (Bucharest: 2002). Bilţiu, Pamfil and Pop, Gheorghe Gh. (eds.), “Sculaţi, sculaţi, boieri mari!”: Colinde din judeţul Maramureş [Arise, great boyars!: carols from Maramureş county] (ClujNapoca: 1996). Călinescu, George, Istoria literaturii române, de la origini până în present [A history of Romanian literature from its origins to the present day], 2nd ed., ed. Al. Piru (Bucharest: 1982) (first published Bucharest: 1941).

131  Ibid., 68.

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Călugăru, Ion, Copilăria unui netrebnic [A good-for-nothing’s boyhood] (Bucharest: 1962) (first published Bucharest: 1936). Caragiale, Ion Luca, Opere [Collected works], eds. Al. Rosetti, Şerban Cioculescu and Liviu Călin, vol. 3 (Bucharest: 1962). Carataşu, Mihail, Paul Cernovodeanu and Nicolae Stoicescu (eds.), “Jurnalul călătoriilor canonice ale mitropolitului Ungrovlahiei Neofit I Cretanul” [A journal of the canonical visitations of Neophytos of Crete, Metropolitan of Ungrovlachia], Biserica Ortodoxă Română 98 (1980): 243–315. Creangă, Ion, Poveşti, Amintiri, Povestiri [Tales, memoirs, stories] (Bucharest: 1980). Eminescu, Mihai, Scrieri politice şi literare: Manuscrise inedite şi culegeri din ziare şi reviste, vol. 1 (1870–1877) [Political and literary works: unpublished manuscripts and journalistic miscellanea] (Bucharest: 1905). Eminescu, Mihai, Chestiunea evreiască [The Jewish question], ed. Dumitru Vatamaniuc (Bucharest: 1998). Eskenasy Victor (ed.), Izvoare şi mărturii referitoare la evreii din România [Sources and testimonies on the Jews of Romania], vol. 1 (Bucharest: 1986). Filimon, Nicolae, Ciocoii vechi şi noi [Upstarts old and new] and Nenorocirile unui slujnicar [The misfortunes of a clerk], ed. Domnica Filimon (Bucharest: 1987). Furtună, Dumitru, Cuvinte scumpe: Taclale, povestiri şi legende româneşti [Precious words: Romanian sketches, tales and legends] (Bucharest: 1914). Gaster, Moses, Memorii ( fragmente): Corespondenţă [Memoirs (excerpts): correspondence], ed. Victor Eskenasy (Bucharest: 1998). Ghica, Ion, Scrisori către V. Alecsandri [Letters to V. Alecsandri], (Bucharest: 1887). Golescu, Iordache, Scrieri alese [Selected writings], ed. Mihai Moraru (Bucharest: 1990). Gyemánt, Ladislau and Lya Benjamin (eds.), Izvoare şi mărturii referitoare la evreii din România [Sources and testimonies on the Jews of Romania], vol. 3, Parts one and two (Bucharest: 1999). Hasdeu, Bogdan Petriceicu, Trei Ovrei: Jupânul Shylock allu lui Shakespeare, domnulu Gobseck allu lui Balzac şi jupânulu Moise allu lui Alexandri [Three Jews: Shakespeare’s Master Shylock, Balzac’s Mr Gobseck and Alexandri’s Master Moses] (Bucharest: 1865). Hogaş, Calistrat, Pe drumuri de munte [Mountain trails] (Bucharest: 1988). Holban, Maria, Maria M. Alexandrescu-Dersca Bulgaru and Paul Cernovodeanu (eds.), Călători străini despre Ţările Române [Foreign travel narratives on the Romanian lands], vol. 8 (Bucharest: 1983). Ionescu de la Brad, Ion, Opere agricole [Writings on agronomy], vol. 2 (Bucharest: 1868). Mickiewicz, Adam, Pan Tadeusz, Romanian-language trans. Miron Radu Paraschivescu (Bucharest: 1956); English-language trans. Kenneth R. Mackenzie (New York: 1992). Pann, Anton, Culegere de proverburi sau Povestea vorbii [A collection of proverbs], (Bucharest: 1982). Rebreanu, Liviu, Ion (Timişoara: 1988).

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Spielmann, Mihai (ed.), Izvoare şi mărturii referitoare la evreii din România [Sources and testimonies on the Jews of Romania], vol. 2, Part one (Bucharest: 1988). Sadoveanu, Mihail, Opere [Collected works], vol. 4, ed. Cornel Simionescu (Bucharest: 1987). Timotin, Emanuela, Cele mai vechi cărţi populare în literatura română [The oldest Romanian popular narratives], vol. 10: Legenda Duminicii [The Sunday legend] (Bucharest: 2005). Secondary Literature The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe, published by the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, New York, URL: http://www.yivoencyclopedia.org/ [accessed 3 August 2017]. Barbu, Daniel (ed.), Firea românilor [The character of the Romanians] (Bucharest: 2000). Cajal, Nicolae and Hary Kuller (eds.), Contribuţia evreilor din România la cultură şi civilizaţie [The Jewish contribution to Romanian culture and civilisation] (Bucharest: 1996). Cała, Alina, The Image of the Jew in Polish Folk Culture (Jerusalem: 1995). Caraman, Petru, Colindatul la români, slavi şi la alte popoare: Studiu de folclor comparat [Carol-singing among the Romanians, Slavs and other peoples: a study in comparative folklore] (Bucharest: 1983). Crutzescu, Gheorghe, Podul Mogoşoaiei: Povestea unei străzi [Podul Mogoşoaiei: the story of a street], 2nd ed. (Bucharest: 1987) (first published Bucharest: 1943). Culianu, Ioan Petru, Gnozele dualiste ale Occidentului [Western theories of dualism], trans. Tereza Petrescu (Bucharest: 1995). Dynner, Glenn, Yankel’s Tavern: Jews, liquor and life in the Kingdom of Poland (Oxford: 2014). Dörner, Anton, Evreii din comitatul Satu Mare în secolul al XVIII-lea / The Jews of Satu Mare County in the 18th Century, vol. 1 (1723–1760) (Cluj-Napoca: 1998). Drăghicescu, Dumitru, Din psihologia poporului român [The psychology of the Romanian people], ed. Elisabeta Simion (Bucharest: 1996) (first published Bucharest: 1907). Dubnov, Simon, Istoria hasidismului [A history of Hasidism], vol. 1, trans. Dumitru Marian (Bucharest: 1998). Eliade, Pompiliu, Influenţa franceză asupra spiritului public în România. Originile: Studiu asupra stării societăţii româneşti în vremea domniilor fanariote [French influence on public culture in Romania. The origins: a study on Romanian society under the Phanariot regimes] trans. Aurelia Dumitrașcu (Bucharest: 1982). (First published as De l’influence française sur l’esprit public en Roumanie, Paris: 1898). Evseev, Ivan, Dicţionar de magie, demonologie şi mitologie românească [A dictionary of Romanian magic, demonology and mythology] (Timişoara: 1997).

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Ginzburg, Carlo, Istorie nocturnă: O interpretare a Sabatului [The night battles: witchcraft and agrarian cults in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries], trans. Mihai Avădanei (Iaşi: 1996). Giurescu, Constantin C., Contribuţiuni la studiul originilor şi dezvoltării burgheziei române până la 1848 [Contributions to the study of the origins and development of the Romanian middle classes up to 1848] (Bucharest: 1972). Gorovei, Artur, Folticenii: Cercetări istorice asupra oraşului [Fǎlticeni: historical research on the town] (Folticeni: 1938). Heitmann, Klaus, Imaginea românilor în spaţiul lingvistic german, 1775–1918): Un studiu imagologic [The image of the Romanians in German-language writings: an imagological study], trans. D. Hâncu (Bucharest: 1995). Iancu, Carol, Evreii din România (1866–1919): De la excludere la emancipare [The Jews of Romania (1866–1919): from exclusion to emancipation], trans. C. Litman (Bucharest: 1996). Iorga, Nicolae, Istoria comerţului românesc [A history of Romanian commerce], 2 vols. (Bucharest: 1925). Iorga, Nicolae, Istoria industriilor la români [A history of Romanian industries] (Bucharest: 1927). Iorga, Nicolae, Problema evreiască la Cameră (o interpelare), cu o introducere de A.C. Cuza şi Note despre vechimea evreilor în ţară [The Jewish question (a motion in parliament) with an introduction by A.C. Cuza and notes on the earliest history of the Jews in this country] (Vălenii-de-Munte: 1910). Kălimănescu, A., Jidanii în România [The kikes of Romania] (Iaşi: 1865). Kara, Iţic, Obştea evreiască din Podu Iloaiei: File din istoria unui “ştetl” moldovenesc [The Jewish community of Podu Iloaiei: pages from the history of a Moldavian shtetl] (Bucharest: 1990). Lazăr, Petre (caricatures), Barda, Radu (rhymes), Iuda (Bucharest: 1937). Lupaşcu, Dimitrie, Medicina babelor: Adunare de descântece, reţete de doftorii şi vrăjitorii băbesci [Old women’s medicine: a collection of incantations, folk remedies and old wives’ spells] (Bucharest: 1890). Mazilu, Dan Horia, Noi despre ceilalţi: Fals tratat de imagologie [We and the others: an alternative imagological treatise] (Iaşi: 1999). Mazilu, Dan Horia, Voievodul dincolo de sala tronului: Scene din viaţa privată [The prince in his chambers: scenes of private life] (Iaşi: 2003). Muşlea, Ion, and Ovidiu Bârlea, Tipologia folclorului: Din răspunsurile la chestionarele lui B.P. Hasdeu [A folklore typology: a selection of responses to B.P. Hasdeu’s questionnaires] (Bucharest: 1970). Neumann, Victor, Istoria evreilor din Banat: O mărturie a multi- şi interculturalităţii Europei central-orienale [A history of the Jews of Banat: multi- and inter-culturalism in East-Central Europe] (Bucharest: 1999).

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Niculiţă-Voronca, Elena, Datinele şi credinţele poporului român, adunate şi aşezate în ordine mitologică [Taditions and beliefs of the Romanian people, collected and presented in mythological order], vol. 1 (Iaşi: 1998) (first published Cernăuţi 1903). Niculiţă-Voronca, Elena, Studii în folclor [Folklore studies], vol. 2 (Cernăuţi: 1912). Oişteanu, Andrei, Mythos & Logos: Studii şi eseuri de antropologie culturală [Mythos and logos: studies and essays in cultural anthropology] (Bucharest: 1997) (2nd ed., 1998). Oişteanu, Andrei, Inventing the Jew: Antisemitic stereotypes in Romanian and other Central-East European cultures (Lincoln & London: 2009). Oişteanu, Andrei, Imaginea evreului în cultura română: Studiu de imagologie în context est-central-european [The image of the Jew in Romanian culture: A study of imagology in a Central-East European context], 3rd ed. (Iaşi: 2012). Onac, Iulia, “The Brusturoasa Uprising in Romania,” in Sites of European Antisemitism in the Age of Mass Politics, 1880–1918, eds. Robert Nemes and Daniel Unowsky (Brandeis University Press: 2014), 67–77. Opalski, Magdalena, The Jewish Tavern-Keeper and his Tavern in Nineteenth-Century Polish Literature (Jerusalem: 1986). Pamfile, Tudor, Povestea lumii de demult, după credinţele poporului romîn [The story of the world of yore, according to Romanian popular beliefs] (Bucharest: 1913). Pamfile, Tudor, Mitologie românească: Duşmani şi prieteni ai omului [Romanian mythology: enemies and friends of man] Bucharest: 1916). Pincu Pascal, “Catagrafia evreilor din Piatra Neamţ din anul 1859” [A register of the Jews of Piatra Neamţ for 1859], Studia et Acta Historiae Iudaeorum Romaniae 4 (1999): 67–93. Poliakov, Léon, Istoria antisemitismului [A history of antisemitism], vols. 1–2, trans. Lelia Băluş, Janina Ianoși and Adriana Fianu (Bucharest: 1999). Rotman, Liviu, Şcoala israelito-română (1851–1914) [The Israelite-Romanian school 1851–1914] Bucharest: 1999) Şăineanu, Lazăr, Dicţionarul universal al limbei române [A universal dictionary of the Romanian language] (Craiova: 1896). Şăineanu, Lazăr, Influenţa orientală asupra limbei şi culturei române [Eastern influence on the Romanian language and culture] (Bucharest: 1900). Schwarzfeld, Elias, “Evreii din Moldova sub Reglementul Organic: Studiu istoric” [The Jews of Moldavia under the Organic Regulation: a historical study], Anuar pentru israeliţi (1891–1892) 14 (1891): 191–223. Schwarzfeld, Elias, Din istoria evreilor: Împopularea, reîmpopularea şi întemeierea târgurilor şi a târguşoarelor în Moldova [Aspects of Jewish history: the demography and origins of Moldavia’s small market towns and boroughs] (Bucharest: 1914). Schwarzfeld, Moses, “Excursiuni critice asupra istoriei evreilor în România” [Critical remarks on the history of Jews in Romania], Analele Societăţii Istorice “Iuliu Barasch” 2 (1888): 17–122.

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Schwarzfeld, Moses, Evreii în literatura populară română: Studiu de psichologie populară [The Jews in Romanian folk literature: a study in popular psychology] (Bucharest: 1892). Segal, Harold B., Stranger in Our Midst: Images of the Jews in Polish literature (Ithaca & London: 1996). Stahl, Henri, Bucureştii ce se duc [Vanishing Bucharest], 3rd ed. (Iaşi: 2002) (first published 1910). Stern, Adolphe, Din viaţa unui evreu-român: Însemnări din viaţa mea [The life of a Romanian Jew: notes on my life], vols. 1–3, ed. Ţicu Goldstein (Bucharest: 2001) (first published 1915). Vergatti, Radu Ştefan, “Dinamica demografică şi aspecte socio-profesionale ale obştii evreieşti din Bucureşti (1810–1939)” [The demographic dynamics and socioprofessional structures of the Jewish community of Bucharest 1810–1939], Revista de istorie socială 2–3 (1997–1998): 165–235. Volovici, Leon, Ideologia naţionalistă şi “problema evreiască” în România anilor ’30 (Bucharest: 1995) (first published as: Nationalist Ideology and Antisemitism: The case of Romanian intellectuals in the 1930s, trans. Charles Kormos, Oxford-New YorkSeoul-Tokyo: 1991).

General Index ‘Afife Kadın, wife of Sultan Mehmed IV coffee allocations of 71 “Barbaria” (as descriptor of the Romanian Principalities) 429, 432, 454 Abdülaziz, Sultan 81, 93 Abdülhamid I, Sultan 315n, 317 Abdülhamid II, Sultan 81, 85 Abdülmecid, Sultan Banquets and Europan-style food during the reign of 93 Kitchens at Beşiktaş Palace during the reign of 80 Abtsdorf, see also Rom. Mănăștur, Hung. Kolozsmonostor Water mills at 276 Ádám, Lázár, baker in the city of Cluj (Transylvania) Bakery of the Saint Elisabeth almshouse and 281 Adrianople, see also Edirne Imports of okra from 87 Reference to ~ in Ami Boué’s work 464 Aegean, Sea 6, 11, 462 Olive cultivation and 39, 47 Viticulture in 35 Agârbiceanu, Ion, Romanian writer The myth of Jewish drink-poisoning in the work of 500, 500n, 506 Ahmed II, Sultan And food allocations in the Divan 57, 59, 60, 60n, 61 Ahmed III, Sultan And food allocations at the palace 60, 61 And the Ottoman monopoly on (Wallachian) Romanian grain exports 314 And the use of nahils at circumcision ceremonies 440n ‘Aispurh’, see Ausbruch (Austrian wine) And imports of wine to Oltenia (in Wallachia) 322 Aiud (Hung. Enyed, Ger. Straßburg am Mieresch), city in central Transylvania And expulsion of Jews in 1843 498 Wine-making in 165

Akkerman, see Bilhorod-Dnistrovskîi, Cetatea Albǎ ‘Akkerman wine’ 504 Alba Iulia (Hung. Gyulafehérvár, Ger. Weissenburg), city in Transylvania And 17th-c food purchases for the princely court 20, 301 And early Transylvanian railways 420 And official banquets 174 And purchases of oil for Wallachian nobility 325 And wine production 165 Alecsandri, Vasile, Romanian poet And coffee-drinking in Moldavia 121–2 And the myth of Jewish drink poisoners  484, 484n, 485, 485n, 498, 498n, 499n, 506, 507 Aleppo, town in Syria ‘Aleppo pepper’ in Transylvanian cuisine  105 Alexandria, Orthodox Patriarchate of 228n Gifts of food to Patriarchs in the Romanian Principalities 226 Alonso de Herrera, Gabriel, Spanish agriculturist and writer 352 Alparéth (Hung.) (Ger. Alberecht), village in central Transylvania Grain mills at (16th c) 274, 274n, 275, 275n, 277 Also Torja, see Turia de Jos Aman, Dimitrie, Wallachian merchant 334, 316, 316n Amasya, city in the northern Turkey And exports of apples to Istanbul 86 And exports of dry okra to Istanbul 87 And bread imports in Transylvania  103 America (Central America) 3, 15, 20 And herbal remedies 368n, 375 And the adoption of turkey at the Ottoman palace 84 And the introduction of haricot beans into Europe 83 And the introduction of potato to the Ottoman Empire 86–7

514 America (Central America) (cont) And the introduction of spices into Ottoman cuisine 86 coffee-houses in 143 and the production of cochineal dye 365 Amphissa (Salona), town in Greece As olive-growing region 66 Anatolia, region of Turkey 10, 10n, 27, 34, 76, 82n, 109, 218n And the use of honey, pekmez and sultanas as sweeteners 108 Introduction of butterfat into 46 Mediaeval food culture in 36, 36n, 37n, 49, 51n Olive cultivation in 42 Production of nan-ı nohud (chickpea bread) in 60, 60n production of rice in 304 Andrinople (Fr.), Adrianople (Eng.), see Edirne 464 Angelos, Christophoros, Greek scholar 230 Anghel, Athanasie, Metropolitan of Transylvania And use of bread in Eucharist 229 Antim, Monastery in Bucharest And tax on coffee 136 Antioch (Antakya), town in Turkey, Orthodox Patriarchate of~ 226 Apafi, Mihály I, Prince of Transylvania 105, 151, 151n, 157, 158 Apahida (Hung. Apahida, Ger. Bruckendorf), village in central Transylvania Water mill in 276 Apicius (Marcus Gavius), Latin gourmet 104, 359, 369n, 445 Apor, Farkas, Transylvanian (Székely) noble 159 Apor, István, Transylvanian count, treasurer of Transylvania 153–4, 153n, 155 Apor, Lázár (1595–1643), Transylvanian (Székely) noble, army commander of Ciuc district 158 Apor, Péter (1676–1752), Transylvanian baron, royal judge of Székely Land, historian and gourmet 18, 152, 155, 155n, 157n3, 159n2, 160, 160n, 165n, 166n, 168, 184 Description of peasant wedding 159, 159n On coffee 164, 164n

General Index On dining utensils used by Transylvanian nobles 153–4, 154n On the use of ‘extendable’ tables in Transylvanian manors 150, 150n On the use of lard in cooking 161, 161n On the use of portable cutlery among Transylvanian nobles 155–6, 156n On rank and table seating 158 Apostol, cattle dealer (Rom. gelep) in Wallachia 315 Arabic Peninsula 127 Arad (Hung. Arad, Ger. Arad), city in northwestern Transylvania 416, 420, 488 Ardeal, see Transylvania Argeş, town and county in Wallachia 235n, 259 ~ Monastery in Wallachia 329 Argetoianu, Constantin, member of Wallachian gentry Purchases of food in 1774 330 Argetoianu, Mariuţa, gentry lady from Wallachia Dealings with merchants 313, 332n Asia 451 Asia Minor 460, 471n, 472, 478 Central ~ 9, 65, 77, 110, 121n And dairy produce used by Turkic peoples 117 And origins of çorba 109 And the use of Sal ammoniacum  356 Asiye Sultan, daughter of Sultan Ahmed II  60n Aş Kapısı (Food Gate), Gate in the district Beşiktaş of Istanbul 81 Athos, Mount, mountain and peninsula in north-eastern Greece 179 Monastic establishments at 179, 244, 476 Attica, historic region in Greece 67, 460 Augsburg, town in Germany ~ dinnerware 106, 196, 197, 252 Ausbruch, Austrian wine, see ‘Aispurh’ Austria 322 Austrian administration of Oltenia (Wallachia) 220, 220n, 314, 314n, 319 Austrian representations of the Romanians  125, 219, 219n, 255, 255n, 485

General Index Impact of Austrian cuisine in 17th-c Croatia 22, 348, 348n, 369 Impact of Austrian cuisine in 19th-c Bulgaria 383, 397 Austrian influence on the use of sugar centrepieces in Wallachia 441 Austrian ‘sphere of influence’ in Romania 452, 452n Austrian Empire, see also Habsburg Empire 223 Austro-Hungarian, Empire xxiii, 405 Aydıncik (Edincik), town on the Mediterranean coast of Turkey olive cultivation around 40, 41 Aydonat (Paramythia), town in Greece 42 Aynalıkavak, district along the Bosphorus in Istanbul 87 Ayşe Fahriye, Ottoman lady writer, author of Ev Kadını [The Housewife] 79, 79n, 90n, 92n, 96 Ayvalık, port and district on the Aegean Sea, Turkey 68 Bacci, Andrea, Italian philosopher and physician 352n, 354n Bad Borseck, see Borsec Baia Mare (Hung. Nagybánya, Ger. Frauenbach), town in northern Transylvania Trade and 298, 302 Bajmóc, see Bojnice Baksić, Petrus Deodatus, Catholic bishop of Sofia 91, 245n Abundance of exotic food on Wallachian princely tables (1640) described by  250n Blessing of food in the Romanian Principalities (1640) described by 225n Fasting in the Romanian Principalities (1640) described by 240–1, 240n, 241n Balkan Peninsula 304, 312n, 462 Flight of peasants in the 220 Trade routes in the 295–6 Settlement of Slavs in the 461 Balş, Iordache, Great Vistier (treasurer) of Moldavia Coffee-drinking and 136 Banat, region in western Romania xvii, 109–10, 110n, 125, 243n, 247, 260, 388

515 Jewish lease-holders in 488n, 509 Bandinus (Bandini), Marcus (Marco), Catholic Bishop of Marcianopolis 176n, 184n, 208, 237n, 259 On fasting among 17th-c Moldavian Catholics 139n, 192n on frugality among the Romanians in the 17th c 183, 183n, 428n On gifts of food to travellers in Moldavia 189n2, 191n On Moldavian wines 186n On the consumption of horse meat in 17th-c Moldavia 173n On the consumption of mare’s milk in 17th-c Moldavia 174n Bánffy, Anna, Transylvanian noblewoman, wife of Székely Ádám Wedding banquet of 156, 156n Barasch Iulius, Romanian (Jewish) physician and scholar On taverns and drinking habits in Moldavia (1842) 496, 496n2, 506 Bargrave, Robert, British traveller 235, 235n, 259, 407, 423 On beer in Transylvania 415, 415n On bread in the Romanian Principalities (1652) 183, 183n Basil the Great, Saint 193, 242, 242n, 253, 482 On fasting 240, 240n Bassetti, Bartolomeo, Franciscan missionary in Moldavia (17th c) 225 Prayers for food 226, 226n Bayezid II, Sultan (1481–1512) 53 Bălaş, kahvecı in Moldavia 140, 140n Bârlad, town in southern Moldavia 502 Beci, see Vienna Bekken, Hans, baker in Cluj (Transylvania) 282 Belgrade (Beograd) ix, xxii, 14n, 22, 67, 219, 376, 377, 386, 386n2, 387, 387n, 397, 398, 399, 451 Bellanger, Stanislas, French diplomat and traveller 444, 444n, 456 on banquet in Bucharest (1836) 445–6 Bengescu, noble family from Wallachia 242 Food purchases of 330 Bengescu, Stoica, Wallachian boyar 242 Bentham, Jeremy, British traveller On coffee-houses in Bucharest 141, 141n

516 Beograd, see Belgrade Berger, Florence British writer 406, 411, 411n On food and coffee in Bucharest (1877) 410, 415, 417, 423, 423n Berzenczei, Márton, Transylvanian (Székely) cook of Prince Apafi Mihály I 157 Bessarabia, historic region of Moldavia (Romania), now Republic of Moldova 384, 499 Beszterce, see Bistrița Beşiktaş, district and palace in Istanbul, former residence of Ottoman sultans 81 Kitchens at 80 Bethlen, Gábor, Prince of Transylvania and King of Hungary xxii, 100, 155, 271, 282, 309 ‘Master of spices’ court office created under reign of 108 Purchases of foodstuffs for 293, 298, 304, 306 Tableware in the house of 154, 154n Wedding banquet of 157 Bethlen, Miklós, Transylvanian count, chancellor and historian And coffee-drinking 164 And food during military campaigns 159, 167, 167n Dining habits of 152 Dining hall of 151, 151n On preparing fish in aspic 161, 161n Beuthelt, Imre, citizen of the city of Cluj (Transylvania) And ownership of bakery (17th c) 279, 280 Beykoz, district in Istanbul ‘Beykoz flour’ 82, 82n Beylerbeyi Palace, former Istanbul summer palace of the Ottoman sultans 93 Bilhorod-Dnistrovskîi, town in Ukraine, see Akkerman Bistriţa (Hung. Beszterce, Ger. Bistritz), town in north-eastern Transylvania 172, 209, 410 Bistritz, see Bistrița Bitola, city in south-eastern Macedonia 465, 472 Black Sea xxiii, 6, 37, 44, 105, 116, 129n, 412, 418n, 424, 472, 478 Blancardus, Nicolaos (Blankaart Nikolaas), Flemish doctor and scholar 230, 230n On blessed bread (17th c) 231

General Index Bogorov, Ivan, Bulgarian traveller and writer On the ‘modern Bulgarian housewife’ (19th c) 283, 283n Bohemia 312, 445 Bojnice (Bajmóc), town in Slovakia Trade and 298 Boner, Charles, British traveller (1863) 24, 406, 407, 408, 408n, 409, 409n, 410, 410n, 412, 418, 418n, 420, 420n, 423, 424 On mineral baths in Transylvania 414, 414n On Transylvanian wines 413, 413n Bonfini, Antonio (Bonfinus Antonius), Italian humanist 424 On Transylvanian wines 412, 412n Bordeaux (wine) 354, 411, 445 Bornemisza, Pál, Catholic Bishop of Transylvania and writer And supposed acclimatization of tobacco in Transylvania 164 Bornemisza, Anna, Princess of Transylvania, spouse of Apafi Mihály I 100n, 111, 111n, 113, 117, 117n2, 123, 158, 158n, 159n, 161, 163n, 168, 301, 302, 308 Recipes for rice in cookbook of 304, 304n Recipe for roast meat in cookbook of (1680) 114, 114n Recipe for squid and snails in cookbook of 306, 306n Recipes for stag meat in cookbook of  160, 160n Borsec (Hung. Borszék, Ger. Bad Borseck), town and spa resort in Transylvania 412, 414, 414n Bosnia xxii, xxiv, 14, 15, 34, 373, 387, 393, 455, 465 Hardali and muselez wines in 360, 360n Bosphorus 87, 143 Botero, Giovanni, Italian geographer 283n Boué, Ami, French writer and traveller 24, 382, 382n, 453, 453n, 462, 463, 463n, 473, 474 Ethnographic method of 466 On maize gruel 464, 464n On pasta and rice 465, 465n On types of meat consumed across the Balkans (1840s) 463–4, 464n Brandenburg, von, Katarina, Princess of Transylvania, wife of Prince Bethlen Gábor

General Index Food centrepiece at wedding banquet of 147 Brassó, see Brașov Brașov (Hung. Brassó, Ger. Kronstadt), city in south-eastern Transylvania 138n, 142, 145, 153,196, 239, 239n, 243n, 249, 272, 277, 309, 310, 327, 328n, 410, 420 And spice trade in Transylvania 297, 297n, 305 Customs tariffs of (1654) 304, 306, 306n Brăila, Romanian port on the Danube 436, 501 Brăiloiu, Constantin, Wallachian boyar And purchases of medicine and foodstuffs 327 And purchases of wine in the year 1800 323 Brăiloiu Elenca, gentry lady, wife of ~ Constantin Orders of foodstuffs 326, 327n Brăiloiu, gentry family of Wallachia And criteria for hiring a cook 331 Brâncoveanu, Constantin, Prince of Wallachia 22, 26, 123, 219n, 229, 239n, 243, 260, 313, 320, 321n, 334, 337, 342, 372, 373 And oldest cookbook in Wallachia 182 Influence of Italian culinary culture at the court of 255, 255n, 347, 347n, 369 And use of forks 255, 255n And purchases of food 324n, 330n Brâncoveanu, noble family from Wallachia 330 Brâncoveanu, Ştefan, Prince of Wallachia, son of ~ Constantin 255n Brillat-Savarin, Jean-Anthelme, French lawyer, politician and gastronome 1, 381n, 400, 433, 445–6, 460n, 476 Broos (Rom. Orăștie; Hung. Szásaváros) In Charles Boner’s travel narrative (1865) 410, 410n, 413, 413n Brukenthal, Samuel von, Baron, governor of Transylvania 327, 327n, 408 Bucharest, capital of Wallachia (var. Bukarest, Buchorest; Rom. Bucureşti) xxiv, 136, 221, 226, 228, 248, 256, 315n, 317, 327n, 329n, 332n, 406, 434, 439, 442, 445n, 489, 495, 499

517 Coffee-houses in Bucharest 142 In travel literature 137, 141, 245, 254, 406, 410, 411, 412, 415, 417, 418, 420, 423, 438, 442, 443, 444, 447, 448–9, 450, 452, 455 Bucioc, Costea, Moldavian boyar 190 Bucovina (Bukovina), historic province in northern Romania and Ukraine 247, 482 production of raki in 504 Buda (the eyalet of ~ , the vilayet of ~) see also Budapest xxii, 100, 101, 106, 119, 272, 273, 291, 312n Buda Law 285, 285n, 292 Budapest (Buda, Budim, Pesta, Peşta), capital of Hungary 13n, 120, 325, 405, 407 Bulcsesti Sára, Transylvanian noblewoman, wife of Székely Laszlo Tableware in the testament of 155, 167 Bulgaria xxiii, xxiv, 4n, 12, 12n, 22, 26, 34, 377, 378, 395, 396, 400, 401, 446, 451, 461, 475 Census of 1880 in 383 ‘National cuisine’ in 393–4 Burmov, Todor, Bulgarian writer 383, 383n, 398 Bursa, town in Turkey 48 Bread from 103 Butterfat from 41, 41n Consumption of olives in 37, 38 Burton, Nathanael, British missionary 406, 420, 421, 421n, 422, 424, 452, 454, 456 In Bucharest 423, 423n On food and wine in Wallachian inn 411, 411n2, 416, 416n2, 417, 417n On food in the Romanian Principalities 434–5, 434n, 435n, 453 On Romanian polenta (mămăligă) 416, 416n On Transylvanian inns (1837) 409–10, 409n, 415, 415n Burzenland, see Țara Bârsei Businello, Pietro, Venetian diplomat 219, 219n Byzantine Empire, see Byzantium Byzantium 218, 221n, 232n, 235n, 240n, 242n, 246n, 249, 262, 262, 264, 265, 266, 267, 311, 338

518 Caffa (Kaffa, Kefe, Feodosia), city in Crimea 41, 116, 116n Cahul, town and county in Bessarabia (Republic of Moldova) 129 Caillat, Joseph, French physician and traveller 430, 430n, 431n, 454, 456 And sharing food with the locals in Wallachia 446–7, 447n On eating habits in the Romanian Principalities 433, 433n2 On the therapeutic virtues of fruit preserves 434n Canta, Ioniţă, Moldavian chronicler 136, 136n Cantacuzino, Moldavian and Wallachian noble family 100n, 209, 321n, 330, 333, 342, 349, 359, 487 And 18th-c cookery book 244, 257 Cantacuzino, Constantin, Wallachian nobleman and historian 22, 342, 342n, 359, 360, 368, 372 And links with Italy 22, 347, 349, 349n, 369 Cantacuzino, Dumitraşco, ruler of Moldavia 177, 177n And fasting 192–3 Cantacuzino, Radu, Wallachian nobleman and scholar 349 Cantacuzino, Şerban, Voivode (ruling prince) of Wallachia 118, 130, 130n, 238, 238n, 261 Cantacuzino, Ştefan, Voivode (ruling prince) of Wallachia 224n Cantemir, Antioch, Voivode (ruling prince) of Moldavia and poet, son of ~ Constantin  135, 135n Cantemir, Constantin, Voivode (ruling prince) of Moldavia 130, 130n And coffee-drinking 134, 134n Cantemir, Demetrios, Voivode (ruling prince) of Moldavia, scholar, son of ~ Constantin  110n2, 124, 130n, 131, 131n, 134n, 135n, 144, 171, 171n, 173, 174n, 175, 175n2, 190n, 193n, 194, 194n2, 208, 248n, 258, 258n On Jewish tavern lease-holders in Moldavia 488, 488n On Moldavian hospitality 189, 189n On Moldavian wines 186, 186n, 187, 187n On the drinking habits of the Moldavians 188, 188n On the eating habits of the Moldavians 184, 184n

General Index Caracaş, Constantin, chief medic in Wallachia 145 Bread recipe described by 234n On coffee-drinking in Wallachia 132, 132n, 136, 136n, 141–2 Caragea, Gheorghe Ioan, Prince of Wallachia 316n Caragea, Constantin, administrator of a county (ban) in Moldavia And coffee-drinking 135–6 Caragiale, Ion Luca, Romanian writer 501, 502n, 507 Author of novella about Jewish tavernkeepers in Moldavia (1889) 500, 500n Carpathians, mountains 104, 108, 112, 180, 222n, 245, 293, 415, 417 Round about the Carpathians by Andrew F. Crosse (1878) 406, 414n, 417n, 424 Carra, Toma, Greek jurist 236 Cato (Marcus Porcius), Latin historian 352 Călărași, town and county in Wallachia 491 Călugăru, Ion, Romanian writer On poisoning with essential vinegar in Moldavia 504, 505n, 507 Cârstea, Wallachian cattle dealer (gelep) 315n Čakovec (Hung. Csáktornya, Ger. Tschakturn), estate of the Zrinski family in Croatia 12n, 29, 343n, 350, 373, 374 Çelebi, Evliya, Ottoman scholar and traveller 33n, 34, 35, 35n, 36, 37, 40, 42, 47, 49, 75, 103, 103n, 123, 184, 184n, 372 On ‘floating’ water mills on the Danube 238 On muselles wine 360, 360n On pastrami 108, 108n, 112, 112n, 317n On tea-drinking in Istanbul 63n On the consumption of olives and fat in the Ottoman Empire 41, 41n2, 42 On Wallachian celery 245, 246n Cernăuţi (Czernowitz), capital of the province Bukovina (Ukraine) 409 Çeşme, coastal town and district in Turkey Production of olives in (16th c) 39 Cetăţuia, Monastery in Moldavia, near Iaşi 213 Kitchen at 179, 179n China 128, 360 And origins of pilau rice 116 And origins of sugar table figurines 440

General Index Chishull, Edmund, British diplomat 218n, 260, 407, 421, 421n, 424 On banquet at Bucharest court (1702) 253–4, 254n On eating habits in the Romanian Principalities 412–13, 413n Çırağan Palace, former Istanbul residence of the Ottoman sultans on the Bosphorus 80, 89 Cluj (Hung. Kolozsvár, Ger. Klausenburg), town in Transylvania 13n, 19, 28, 99, 107, 107n, 122n, 125, 126, 162, 177, 186, 197n, 213, 215, 271, 272, 272n, 291, 292, 293, 309, 310, 373, 409, 410, 419, 420, 423, 498 Bakeries in 278–84, 278n, 280n, 281n, 282n, 283n Bread provision in (16–17th c) 273 ‘cabbage à la Cluj’ 116, 116n, 119 Customs accounts of (17th c) 296, 300, 303, 307 Lack of bakers’ guilds in 284 Lack of millers’ guilds in 278 Meat provision in 284–90, 284n, 286n, 287n, 288n, 289n, 290n Mills in and around 273, 274, 274n, 275, 276, 276n, 277, 277n Regulations on slaughterhouses in 285, 285n Coler, Johannes, Protestant priest and scholar Author of Oeconomia, ruralis et domestica (1591–1606) 348n, 352, 355, 355n, 368, 370 Columbus, Cristopher, Italian navigator and explorer 95 The Columbian Exchange 17 Columella (Lucius Iunius Moderatus), Latin agronomist 351, 357, 358, 358n3, 368, 370 Constantinople, see also Istanbul 23, 88n, 96, 97, 137n, 141n, 218n, 226, 227, 234, 234n, 246, 249, 260, 262, 324, 406, 408n, 424, 425, 431, 434, 438, 439, 439n, 443, 450, 450n, 456, 462, 489 Earliest coffee-houses in 128 Demand for Romanian livestock in 314 Romanian grain exports to 237, 311, 318, 419 Corinth, historic region in Greece 465, 465n Corvinus, Mátyás I, King of Hungary (Corvinus, Matthias) xxii, 107, 167, 167n, 419n

519 ‘Hungarian meat loaf’ served at the court of 103, 103n Costa, Petru Ianuş Hagi, Wallachian merchant 313, 326, 328, 329n Costa, Petru Polihronie, Wallachian merchant 328, 329, 329n Costin, Miron, Moldavian boyar and historian 171n2, 190n, 194, 194n, 208 Cotnari, town and vineyard in Moldavia 175, 186, 186n, 211, 216, 225 Cotroceni, Monastery in Bucharest 131, 246n, 334, 337 Inventory of 332n Purchases of coffee at 324, 324n Craiova, city in Oltenia county (Wallachia)  134, 316, 323, 326, 328, 334, 337 Craven, Elisabeth Lady, British aristocrat and traveller 218n, 260, 405, 406, 408, 408n, 417, 418n, 424 Creangă, Ion, Romanian writer 502, 502n, 507 Crete 6, 11, 42, 45, 462, 471n, 491 Neophytos of Crete, Metropolitan of Ungrovlachia 507 Crimea xxii, 54, 54n, 218 Crimean linen 445 Crimean War 93, 406, 408, 424, 435, 436n, 437, 438n, 451, 452, 457 Keffe, port in Crimea 116, 116n Crișana, historic region in western Transylvania 118 Croatia 8, 12, 18, 22, 24, 29, 350, 374, 388, 397 Crosse, Andrew F., British amateur scientist and traveller 406, 410, 414, 414n, 417, 417n, 424 Csáktornya, see Čakovec Csanádi, Ferenc, citizen and mayor of the city of Cluj (Transylvania) 16th c 275, 275n Csehi, András, Transylvanian, servant of Prince Bethlen Gábor 155 Csikpálfalva (Păuleni-Ciuc) 165 Cuza, Alexandru C., Romanian politician 498n, 509 On Jewish tavern-keepers in Modavia 486, 486n Cuzi, Hagi, Balkan merchant 324n Cyprus 73, 230, 424, 445, 456 Czernowitz, see Cernăuți Čakovec (Hung. Csáktornya, Ger. Tschakturn), Croatian town 12n, 29, 343, 373, 374 Pomiculture at the Zrinski court at 350

520 Da Cortona, Benedetto, Franciscan missionary in Wallachia And debate around the sacramental host 229 D’Haussez, Charles, Baron, French politician 406 And impressions of Transylvania 413, 414, 416, 416n, 420, 424 Damascus, city in Syria Apricots from 86 Danube, river 7, 115n, 129, 129n, 247, 297, 314, 314n, 337, 406, 410, 447, 457, 461 And trade 259, 312n, 315n, 317n2, 318, 332, 436, 436n Baron d’Haussez, Alpes et Danube (1837) 416n, 424 Fish sourced from (17th c) 172, 438 ‘Floating’ water mills on 238 Steam navigation on 429 Danubian Principalities (Romanian Principalities, see also Moldavia and Wallachia) xxiii, 6, 19, 170, 410, 424, 429, 478 Alcoholic beverages in 416 Patrick O’Brien, Journal of a residence in the Danubian Principalities in the autumn and winter of 1853 436, 436n, 456 Sherbet in 415 De Marcellus, Marie Louis, French diplomat 328n, 438, 438n, 444, 446, 458 And impressions of Bucharest 443, 443n2 On wedding banquet in Bucharest (1820) 439, 439n, 442, 453 Del Chiaro Anton Maria, Italian writer and court secretary in Wallachia 260 On agriculture in the Romanian Principalities 219n, 222n On bread in Wallachia 227, 227n, 249, 249n, 250, 250n On coffee-drinking in 17–18th-c Wallachia 130n, 132n2, 139n, 324n On court banquet in Wallachia 253, 253n On Easter food offerings in Wallachia 232, 232n On fasting in Wallachia 243, 243n2 On gifts of food to visiting dignitaries in Wallachia 226, 226n, 329n On Jewish inn-keepers in Wallachia 488 On the consumption of escargots and snails in Wallachia 244, 244n, 320

General Index On wedding banquet in Wallachia 250, 250n Dernschwam, Hans, merchant and writer from Bohemia 102, 103n, 108, 123 On boza 121, 121n On çorba and breakfast soups 109, 109n, 111, 111n On eating with one’s fingers 105, 105n On tarhana 110, 110n On the eating habits of the Hungarians (16th c) 106, 106n2 On the preparation of meat dishes in the Ottoman Empire 112, 116, 116n2 Desjardin, Ernest, French historian and geographer On Jewish liquor retailers in Moldavia (19th c) 495, 495n, 498 Dezsö, noble family from Transylvania And mill ownership (16th c) 276 Digby, Kenelm, British diplomat and philosopher 346n, 371 Dimaras, Konstantinos, Greek scholar 468, 468n, 475 Döbel, Ernst, German traveller`447, 447n, 448, 448n, 456 And impressions of Bucharest and the Romanians 449, 455 On Romanian polenta (mămăligă) 438, 449, 453 Dobrudja, Romanian historic province xxiv, 116, 120 And watermelons as gifts 247 The preparation of kŭtmi in 395 Dolmabahçe Palace, former Istanbul residence of the Ottoman sultans in the 19th century 96 Banquet at (1856) 93 Kitchens at 80, 81n, 90n Donáth, Klára, Transylvanian noblewoman Wedding purchases for (1691) 166 Dositheos, Patriarch of Jerusalem 252n, 266 And the debate on the Eucharist 229, 229n Draganovich, Jerotei, Serbian friar 380n2, 398 Dubrovnik, see Ragusa Dumitraşco, Cantacuzino, Voivode (ruling prince) of Moldavia Famine during the reign of (17th c) 177, 177n Non-observance of fast 192–3

General Index Edincik, see Aydıncik Olives from 40, 41 Edirne (Adrianople, Andrinople), district and city on north-western Turkey 34, 38, 312n, 317 And trade in dry okra 87 Milanese-style sweets made in 465 Treaty of (1829) 490 Edremit, district and city on the western coast of Turkey Olive production in 42, 42n, 43, 45, 46, 48, 66, 66n, 76 Egypt (Misir) 73 Capers and rock candy from 246 Mehmet Ali, Paşa of 45 Milk supplies from 83 Okra consumption in 433, 447 Rice imports from 83 Sugar imports from 326 Elliott, Charles Boileau, British traveller 429, 429n, 437, 454, 454n, 456 And food-sharing in Wallachia 430, 432, 432n Fruit preserves in Wallachia described by 431, 431n Emen, see Yemen Eminescu, Mihai, Romanian poet and journalist And antisemitic stereotypes in Romanian culture 483, 483n, 491 On Jewish tavern-keepers in Romania 491, 491n, 494, 494n, 499, 499n, 500, 500n, 507 On the drinking habits of Romanian peasants 484, 484 England 138n, 218n, 260, 341n, 342n, 368n, 369n, 373, 376, 400, 406, 407, 413n, 424, 425, 450, 456 And trade with the Romanian Principalities 302, 302n, 309 Enyed, see Aiud Epirus, historic region in Greece and Albania 461, 462n Erdély, see Ardeal, Transylvania Esigmacher, Leibiş, vinegar producer from Piatra Neamț (Romania) 503–4, 504n Estienne, Charles, French humanist and physician Author of Praedium rusticum (1554) 352, 353, 353n, 354, 354n, 360n, 365n, 368n, 371

521 Ethiopia 127 Eustratie, Dabija, Voivode (ruling prince) of Moldavia 196 Evelyn, John, British writer and gardener 352n Eyüp, district of the city of Istanbul Yoghurt from 83 Fallmerayer, Jakob Philipp, Austrian traveller, journalist and historian 467, 467n2, 476 Fatma Sultan, daughter of Mehmed IV Coffee allocations for 71, 71n Făgăraş (Hung. Fogaras, Ger. Fogarasch, Fugreschmarkt), city in Transylvania 417 Cafés at 423 Sugar miniature of 156, 156n Fălcoianu, Dumitrache, Wallachian boyar Purchases of tableware in 1781 331 Feodosia, see Caffa Feridün, Ahmed Bey, Ottoman chronicler 129 Feriye, district along the Bosphorus in Istanbul Vegetable gardens in 87 Ferrari, Giovanni Battista, Italian agronomist Author of Hesperides (1646) 358n, 371 Fethiye (Mekri), city in south-western Turkey 42 Filimon, Nicolae, Romanian writer 507 On taverns in Bucharest 495, 495n Filstich, Johann, Transylvanian scholar 218n, 232n, 260 Filstich, Lőrinc, Comes (Sheriff) of the city of Cluj (Transylvania) 280 Fioravanti, Leonardo, Italian doctor and alchemist 371 Influence of ~ on 17th-c elite cookbooks in Wallachia 348, 348n, 349, 349n, 366, 366n2, 367, 367n, 368 Flachat, Jean-Claude, French traveller On the use of dark flour in 18th-c Romania 235n Florence 347 And the origins of alkermes 366 Council of 229 Florina, town in north-western Greece 471 Macedonian culinary traditions in 472, 473, 473n, 476 Focșani, town in southern Moldavia (Romania) 449, 487, 502

522 Fogaras, see Făgăraș Fogarasch, see Făgăraș Frankfurt 158n, 285 Frauenbach, see Baia Mare Friedel, Johann, Austrian traveller 239 Frontali, Giovanni Bartolomeo, Franciscan missionary in Moldavia 241, 241n, 244n Frontignan, town and district in southern France; variety of wine 322 Fugreschmarkt, see Făgăraș Gál Szabó, miller in Cluj (Transylvania) 274n Galata, district of Istanbul 103, 440 Night-bars in (16th c) 122 Pubs in 35 Restaurants and cafes in (19th c) 94 Trade in (17th-c) 42 Galata, Monastery in Moldavia, near Iaşi Orchards of 175 Galați, town and port on the Danube in Romania 129n, 171, 229, 312, 313n, 333, 488, 502 Bread in (1652) 183 Galen, Greek physician and surgeon 352 Galeotto, Marcio, scholar, head librarian of King Mátyás Corvinus 167–8, 168n Galicia, historic province in the Polish Kingdom 491, 494, 498, 506 Gallo, Agostino, Italian agronomist and humanist 352n Gaşpar Graţiani, Voivode (ruling prince) of Moldavia 190 Gellyén, Imre, chief judge of the city of Cluj (Transylvania) Owner of bakery 282 Geoagiu de Sus (Hung. Felgyógy), village in central Transylvania And allegations of drink-poisoning by Jews (1846) 496 Gérando, Auguste de, French writer and traveller 13n, 26, 123, 407, 424 On Romanian polenta (mămăligă) 416, 416n On the preparation of popcorn (kakas) 118n Gerard, Dorothea, Gerard Emily’s sister 407 Gerard, Emily, Scottish novelist and journalist 23, 24, 405, 407, 407n, 417n, 420, 422, 423, 424, 425

General Index Germany 224, 352, 409n, 410n, 414, 415n, 416n, 423, 424, 447 Sugar table decorations in 441 Gernyeszeg, see Gorneşti Gheorgachi, “the logothete” (secretary) of a Voivode (ruling prince) in Moldavia 131n, 145, 254 On court table manners (1762) 133 Gheorghe Duca, Voivode (ruling prince) of Moldavia Distilleries and breweries owned by (17th c) 188, 188n Ghica, Ion, Romanian politician and writer 507 On Jewish tavern-keepers (1884) 499, 499n Ghica, Raliţa, wife of Ban Constantin Caragea And coffee-drinking in Moldavia (1760) 136 Girardin, Saint-Marc, French politician and writer 494, 494n2 Giurgevo, see Giurgiu Giurgiu (Giurgevo), port on the Danube (Romania) 312n, 411, 438, 438n, 451 German influence on cuisine in 452 Glykis, Nikolas, Greek publisher 225 Goar, Jacques, French liturgist and theologian On the origins of coliva (Rom. cake of the dead) 252, 252n Golescu, Constantin, Wallachian boyar Orders of food for (1780) 326n Golescu, Iordache, Wallachian boyar 483, 483n, 507 Golescu, Radu, Wallachian boyar And criteria for hiring a cook (1807) 331 Gorneşti (Hung. Gernyeszeg), village in Transylvania 169 Castle inventory (1689) from 151, 152n Govora, Monastery in eastern Wallachia 487 Grataroli, Guglielmo, Italian doctor and alchemist Author of De vini natura (1565) 353n, 354n Graz 319n, 348 Greceanu, Maria, noble lady from Wallachia 336 Purchases of sugar for (18th c) 326, 326n Greece xxiii, xxiv, 10, 12, 18, 34, 42, 44, 228, 252, 321, 369, 381n, 439n, 443n, 446, 457,

General Index 460, 460n, 461n, 466, 467, 468, 469, 471n, 473n, 474, 475, 476, 477 Grekov, Michail, Bulgarian writer 382n, 384, 384n, 400 Griselini, Francesco, Italian traveller 243n, 260 Grosswardein, see Oradea Gülnuş Sultan, Ahmed III’s mother Allocations of food for 60 Gyerőffy, Gáspár, mill owner in Cluj (Transylvania) 277 Gyulafehérvár, see Alba Iulia Gyulaffy, László of Ráthoth, Transylvanian counsellor and commander-in-chief of the army Testament of (1589) 167 Habsburg Empire (Austrian Empire) xxii, 5, 6, 8, 24, 100, 104, 150, 151, 219, 275n, 288n, 314n, 378, 380, 397, 441n, 453, 478, 488 Annexation of Oltenia by 314 Gulyás (goulash) as anti-Habsburg symbol 115 Habsburg, dynasty 100, 102, 104, 106n Hacı, Mehmed Ağa (Müridoğlu), notable of Edremit 48 Olive trade of 42, 42n Hasdeu, Bogdan Petriceicu, Romanian historian and writer 481, 498, 507, 509 On the adulteration of drinks by Jews in Moldavia 498, 498n2 Halkidiki, Peninsula in Greece 461 Haller, János, Transylvanian noble, counsellor and member of the government 152, 152n Purchases of tableware (1694) 154, 155 Haller, Petru, Transylvanian nobleman 106, 106n2, 125 Hamard, Pierre-Jean, French traveller 424 On the sherbet kiosks in Bucharest (1885) 412, 412n Hamic, Turkish kahvecı in Bucharest 131, 131n Harmenopoulos, Constantine, Byzantine scholar and legal scholar 236, 236n Haskovo, town in south-eastern Bulgaria 383 Hăbăşescul, Ioan, Moldavian boyar 184 Henry II, king of France 366n Heresbach, Konrad, German reformer and humanist 352n Hermannstadt, see Sibiu

523 Herșcu (Hershku), Jewish tavern-keeper in Focșani (Moldavia) 488 Herzegovina 14, 373, 465 Heynod, see Huedin Hiltebrant, Conrad Iacob, Swedish envoy 174, 174n Hippocrates, ancient Greek physician 352 ‘Hippocrates’ sleeve’, device for filtering water 362, 364, 365 Hogaș, Calistrat, Romanian writer 507 On the poisoning of drinks in Moldavia (19th c) 500, 501, 501n Hozzw, István, citizen of the city of Cluj (Transylvania) Wife of ~ as baker of bread 278n Hranislav, Gavril, Serbian writer 380n, 398 Huedin (Hung. Bánffyhunyad), town in Transylvania 423 Hunter, William, British traveller On coffee-drinking in Bucharest (1792) 137, 137n, 138, 138n, 139n Hunyadi, János, see Iancu of Hunedoara Hüseyn, Mirza Bayqara, Sultan of Khorasan 129 Iancu of Hunedoara (Hunyadi, János), Voivode of Transylvania, regent of Hungary xxii, 103n, 419, 419n Iași, city and county in Moldavia xiii, 122, 131, 134n, 136n, 137, 137n2, 138n3, 139n, 142, 142n, 144, 145, 171, 172, 175, 179, 179n. 180n2, 181, 188, 196n, 208, 210, 213, 225, 411, 412, 435, 439, 443n, 445n, 484, 486, 491, 493, 499, 504 Hungarian bread-makers in 183 Jewish tavern-keepers in (1654) 487 Ritual bread in (17th c) 192 Sherbet served in (1820) 414 Taverns in (19th c) 498 Tax registers of (1755) 140, 140n2 Ibn Māsawaih, Yūhannā, Persian physician and scholar On alkermes 366 Ioannina, town in Greece Coffee shops in 465 Ionescu de la Brad, Ion, Romanian agronomist 507 On wine additives used in Romania (19th c) 502–3, 503n

524 Ionescu, Take, Romanian politician On the sale of spirits in Romania (19th c) 486, 486n Iovipali, Nica (Nicoliţă), Balkan merchant from Wallachia And purchases of food for the Wallachian elite (18th c) 320, 330 Irby, Adelina, British traveller 462 And food-sharing in Bosnia (1866) 455, 455n Islam And fasting 242n And the consumption of alcohol 88, 89, 360 And the consumption of olives and olive oil 33 And the use of animal fat in cooking 65 The influence of Islamic cuisine 345n İsmail (Izmail), city on the Danube in Ukraine 129n The production of butterfat in 44 Istanbul (Tsarigrad, Constantinople), capital of the Ottoman Empire 7, 11, 11n, 12n, 13n, 14n, 22, 26, 29, 30, 33, 35, 35n, 44, 45, 45n, 46, 47, 48, 49, 53, 56, 64, 65, 73, 74, 75, 78, 80n, 81, 95, 95n, 96, 97, 98, 102n, 103n, 105, 105n, 116n2, 123, 126, 129, 230, 233, 234n, 266n, 296, 306, 317, 321, 324n, 332n, 376, 377, 377n, 384, 385, 387, 390, 393, 398, 399, 442 Allocations of food in 54n Coffee-houses in 18n, 465 Dairy in the markets of (19th c) 83 The adulteration of butterfat in (18th c)  44 The consumption of fish in (19th c) 85, 90–1, 91n, 92n The consumption of haricot beans in (19th c) 83 The consumption of olive oil by elites in Istanbul 17, 38, 39, 40, 40n, 41, 42, 43, 43n, 44, 45, 69n, 84, 84n The consumption of oranges in 86–7 The consumption of tea in 63n The consumption of turkey in 68 The consumption of wheat in (19th c) 82, 82n The consumption of vegetables in (19th c) 87–8

General Index The culinary culture of 16, 17, 30, 34, 77n, 79, 79n, 80, 80n, 82, 83, 84, 85n, 88n, 89, 89n, 95, 121n, 381, 384, 384n, 388, 396n, 397, 399 The impact of the Columbian Exchange on the cuisine of 17 The kitchens of elites in (19th c) 81, 81n Prices and wages in 53n Pubs in 35 Beverages in 88–9, 89n, 122 Egg dishes in the cuisine of (19th c) 90 Sweets in the cuisine of (19th c) 91 Pasta in the cuisine of (19th c) 91 European influences on the cuisine of (19th c) 93–4 Soups in the cuisine of 111, 111n Romanian sheep exports to 112 The introduction of maize in the cuisine of 118n Moldavian butter exports to 174 Romanian pastrami-makers in 185, 317n Sugar table decorations in 440, 440n Italy 46, 118n, 257, 346, 346n4, 352, 370n, 373, 392n, 400, 413 And exports of figs and chestnuts to Transylvania (17th c) 298 And the impact of Italian cuisine in Wallachia and Croatia (17th c) 347, 348, 348n And the use of forks in the 14th c 431n Sugar sculpture in 440 Ivaz, Turk, kahvecı in Bucharest And ownership of coffee-house 131, 131n Ivireanul, Antim, Metropolitan of Wallachia 137n, 143, 224, 224n, 245n, 248, 248n, 252n And prayers for food in Wallachia (17th c) 225–6 Izmail, see İsmail Jerusalem 9n, 30, 72n, 76, 131, 226, 229, 317, 406, 424, 456 Jerusalem artichokes 87, 88, 347n Jianu, Stan Hagi, Wallachian boyar and merchant 442n And food purchases from Transylvania (18th c) 322, 322n And table decorations in Wallachia (18th c) 323, 323n, 441, 441n

General Index Jianu, Zamfir, Wallachian boyar And orders of food from Transylvania (1781) 330n Joseph II, Habsburg emperor xxii, 408 Juster, Moise (Moses), vinegar and ethyl alcohol producer from Piatra Neamț (Romania) 504 Kádár, Márton, baker in Cluj (Transylvania) 282 Kakavélas, Jeremia, Orthodox theologian and professor 110, 110n Kálnoky, Borbála, Transylvanian countess, wife of of Kálnoky Sámuel 159 Kálnoky, Sámuel, Transylvanian (Székely) count, Vice-Chancellor of Transylvania 151n Dining-room in the manor of 151 Hunting at the manor of 159 Kamil, Mehmet, professor at the Ottoman medical school 78, 78n, 90n, 92n, 96 Kanuni, Sultan Süleyman (the Magnificent)  xxii, 129 And ceremonial table decorations 120 Karavelov, Liuben, Bulgarian writer and journalist 398, 398n Katsaitis, Markos Antonios, Greek scholar and geographer 488 Kălimănescu, A., Romanian antisemitic writer 509 On the ‘corrupting’ influence of Jews in Moldavia (1865) 499, 499n Kefe, see Caffa Khmelnytsky, Bogdan (Bohdan), Hetman of the Zaporozhian Cossacks in the Polish Kingdom (Ukraine) 487 Kiepert, Heinrich, German geographer 462 Klausenburg, see Cluj Kogălniceanu, Mihail, Romanian writer and politician 188n, 208, 499 Kolozsmonostor (Rom. Mănăștur, Ger. Abtsdorf), suburb of Cluj 294 Mills at 276, 276n Kolozsvár, see Cluj Kondoidis, Anastasios, Greek scholar And coffee-drinking in Moldavia (18th c) 131 Konstantas, Grigorios, Greek scholar 461, 461n, 474

525 Köröspatak, see Valea Crişului Košice, town in Slovakia 157, 272 Kronstadt, see Brașov Küçük Kaynarca, village in Bulgaria Treaty of (1774) xxii, 315 Kunisch, Richard, German folklorist and traveller On table manners in the Romanian Principalities (1861) 431, 431n Kŭrdjali, town in central Bulgaria Kŭtmi as cooked in 395 Kütahya, town in Turkey Pastrami from (17th c) 108 Kuun, Géza, Transylvanian count, Orientalist scholar 101, 102n La Varenne, François Pierre (de), French cook and author 346n, 371 And culinary culture in Croatia 348, 348n, 368 Lambru, Gheorghe Hagi, Balkan merchant from Pest 314 Landerer Füskuti, Mihály, Hungarian publisher and librarian 99n, 100n, 109 Larisa, town in Greece 465 Lazor, The Jew, tavern-keeper in Focșani (Moldavia) 487 Le Cler, Gustave, French diplomat 498, 498n Leake, William Martin, British antiquarian and topographer 461, 461n, 474 Leipzig (‘Lipţa’) 140, 383n Tea from ordered by Wallachian boyars (18th c) 319n, 325n Lejean, Guillaume, French ethnographer and traveller 462 Lesbos (Mitylini, Midilli), Greek island in the Aegean Sea 66 Olives from 41, 65 Levant, historical name for a large area in eastern Mediterranean 10, 67, 88n, 96, 415, 423 Balkan-Levantine merchants 296, 296n Coffee trade via Levantine ports 17 Levantine 5, 244, 259 Levantine merchants in the Romanian Principalities 20 Levantine trade routes in Hungary 297n2 Levantine trade 298, 299, 302, 302n2, 309, 310

526 Levant, historical name for a large area in eastern Mediterranean (cont) Venetian-Levantine culinary style 234, 235n, 253 Liebig, Justus von, German scientist And Transylvanian wines 413 Lithgow, William, Scottish traveller 407, 420, 424 On Transylvania 421, 421n, 422 Locadello, Bartolomeo, Venetian merchant 218n Lorántffy, Zsuzsanna, Princess of Transylvania, wife of Prince Rákoczi György I And sending lemons to her husband 164 Louis II, King of Hungary 100 Louis XIV, King of France 363n, 372 And drinking wine cordials 362 And eating with fingers 431n Lupașcu, Dimitrie P., Romanian folklorist 502, 502n, 509 Lupu, Vasile, ruling prince of Moldavia 225n, 267 Wedding banquet of daughter (1645) 185, 194 Macedonia xxiv, 14, 18, 24, 28, 221, 222, 259, 459, 461, 462, 462n, 466, 469, 469n, 470n, 475, 476 Macedonian culinary culture 471, 471n, 472, 473, 474 Macedonian regionalism vs. Greek hegemonic culture 453n The consumption of red peppers in 472, 472n, 473 Mackenzie, Georgina, British traveller  454, 455n, 462 Macmichael, William, British traveller 406, 414n, 424 On fruit sorbet in Transylvania (1817) 414 On mutton stew in the Romanian lands 417 Magalotti, Lorenzo, Italian scientist and diplomat 363 Mahmut Nedim Bin Tosun, Turkish military commander and writer 80, 80n, 90n, 92n, 96 Makarios III, Patriarch of Antioch And gifts of food to the Moldavian ruling prince (1653) 176, 185 Food allocation for 234n

General Index Manisa, province and port on the Aegean Sea in Turkey And consumption of olives at the palace 39, 39n, 40 Manisa melons 86 Manouk Bei, Wallachian merchant 410 Maramureș, county in northern Romania 503, 503n, 506 Maria, daughter of Voivode (ruling prince) Vasile Lupu Wedding banquet of (1645) 185, 194 Marosvásárhely, see Târgu Mureș Martial, Latin poet Epigram of 450 Martinique Coffee from 138 Matthaios (Matei), Metropolitan of Lycian Myra And the debate on Eucharist bread (1621) 227–8 Maurer, Maria, Romanian schoolteacher and writer Cookbook of (1849) 380n, 399 Mavrocordat Nicolae, Prince of Wallachia and Moldavia 314n Mavrocordat, Constantin, Prince of Moldavia and Wallachia, son of ~ Nicolae 131n, 134n, 144 And coffee-drinking 134 Mavrogheni (Mavrogenis), Nicolae, Prince of Wallachia Maxim of Peloponnese, Greek scholar Mănăștur, see Kolozsmonostor, Abtsdorf Mediaş (Hung. Medgyes, Ger. Mediasch), town in Transylvania Wine and vineyards in 413, 413n Medici, Catherine de, queen of France And the origins of alkermes 366n Mediterranean (sea and region) 6, 9, 105, 137n, 179, 380, 429, 440 Cuisine in 76, 234n, 243n, 267 Culinary traditions of 379, 470 Olive cultivation on the coast of 34, 65 Thyme grown in 108 Mehmed Ali (Muhammad Ali) Paşa, governor of Egypt 45 Mehmed II the Conqueror, Sultan (1441–1446) (1451–1481) 38, 39n, 48, 106, 106n Mehmed IV, Sultan 71, 71n Food allocations for mother of 60, 60n

General Index Mekri, see Fethiye Menochio, Giovanni Stefano, Italian Jesuit scholar 351, 351n, 371 Mera (Hung. Méra), village in Cluj county (Transylvania) Three-wheeled mills in 276 Methoni (Modon), town in Greece 42 Mexico Chocolate from 127 Mickiewicz, Adam, Polish poet 483, 484n Author of Pan Tadeusz (1834) 496, 496n, 505, 507 Middle East 42n, 48, 52, 89, 96, 234n, 266, 315n, 336, 437 And exotic imports to Moldavia (17th c) 177 And origins of rice 116 Butterfat used for cooking in 65 Midili, see Lesbos Mihai, Tudoran, Wallachian merchant 326n Pepper purchased by (1786) 330 Milcov, river, historic frontier between Moldavia and Wallachia 486 Misir, see Egypt Mitylini, see Lesbos Mohács, town in Hungary Battle of (1526) xxii, 100 Moldavia, Romanian historic province xiii, xxii, xxiii, 14, 16, 110, 119, 124, 129, 131, 131n, 134n, 135n, 143, 144, 145, 165, 169, 171n, 195, 208, 209, 210, 211, 212, 213, 214, 215, 216, 221, 236n, 241n, 248n, 258n, 259, 261, 262, 263, 265, 267, 310, 311, 406, 407, 409, 415, 416, 420, 421, 424, 425, 439n, 443n, 447, 449, 478, 483, 484n, 488n, 490 Allocations of food to visiting envoys in 177, 182 And the spice trade 105, 107 Bee-keeping in (17th c) 177–8, 211, 313 Beverages in (17th c) 186–9, 188n, 215, 412, 502 Cattle exports from (16th–18th c) 112 Cereal exports from 171, 234 Coffee-houses in 141, 141n2, 142, 142n Coffee- and tea-drinking in 17, 121, 127, 128, 128n, 130, 130n, 131, 132, 134, 136, 137, 139, 140, 143 Consumption of sugar in 109 Corn cultivation in 118

527 Culinary practices in 18, 171, 174, 175, 184, 185, 194, 197, 198, 325n, 502 Dairy consumption in (17th c) 174 Fasting in (17th c) 192, 242 Food and dishes from (19th c) 120 Food imports in (17th c) 176 Food trade in (17th–18th c) 312n Fruit grown in (17th c) 175 Hospitality in (17th c) 189 Hunting in (17th c) 173 Jewish population in Moldavia 479, 505n, 506, 509, 510 Jewish tavern-keepers in 486, 487–9, 491, 492, 493, 496, 498, 499, 500 Myth of ‘poisoning of beverages’ by Jews in 495, 496, 504, 504n Myth of ‘poisoning of wells’ by Jews in 494 Kitchen- and dining-ware in (17th c) 197 Lack of cookery books in (17th c) 182 Pastrami consumed in (17th–18th c) 185, 317 Prayers and blessings of grain in (17th c) 225, 233 Ritual food in (17th c) 247 Sweeteners used in (17th c) 175 Table manners in, viewed by travellers 449–50 The consumption of millet in (17th c) 184 Monastir, see Bitola Montenegro xxiii, xxiv, 14, 446, 465 Moravia 312 Moria, village in Lesbos island (Greece) Olive oil production in (16th c) 66 Moruzi, Alexandru, Prince of Wallachia 332 Moscu, Ioan Hagi, Wallachian merchant and boyar Food purchases of 323n Moscu the Jew, tavern-keeper in Iaşi county (Moldavia) 487 Moselle, wine-producing county in eastern France 360 Mount Athos, see Athos Movilǎ, Moldavian ruling family 184n, 195, 211 Dinnerware in inventories of 196 Mülbach, see Sebeș Müridoğlu, see Hacı Mehmed Ağa Mustafa II, Sultan 57, 60, 62n2 Allocation of bread for 61, 61n

528 Nagybánya, see Baia Mare Nagyszeben, see Sibiu Nagyvárad, see Oradea Naima Efendi, Turkish historian 218, 261 Nasi, Joseph, Duke of Naxos, Ottoman statesman of Jewish origin 487 Neale, Adam, British physician and author 406, 409, 409n, 415n2, 416n, 424 On alcoholic beverages in Moldavia (1820) 415 On refreshments in Moldavia (1820) 414 On the Romanian polenta (mămăligă) 416 On ‘wine-houses’ in the Romanian Principalities (1820) 411 Neculce, Ion, Moldavian boyar and chronicler 145, 171n, 177, 177n, 191n, 196, 223, 223n, 261 And coffee-drinking in Moldavia (16th c) 128, 128n, 129, 135, 135n On fasting 193, 193n, 248n Neofit Rilski, Bulgarian monk and teacher 387 Neophytos (Neofit) of Crete, Metropolitan of Wallachia 507 On Jewish tavern-keepers in Wallachia (1740s) 491 Neumarkt am Mieresch, see Târgu Mureș Nicolantin, Antonie, Wallachian merchant 320n Orders of luxury food of 325, 329 Niculiţă-Voronca, Elena, Romanian folklorist 190n, 214, 481n, 482n2, 504n, 510 On the adulteration of drinks in Moldavia (1903) 504 Notarás, Chrysanthos, Patriarch of Jerusalem 131, 229 Noyes, James Oskar, American physician and traveller 406, 410, 417, 424, 453, 456 On conviviality in Wallachia (1856) 437– 8, 437n, 438n On plum brandy (ţuică) in the Romanian Principalities 416, 416n On the Romanian polenta (mămăligă) 416, 416n O’Brien, Patrick, Irish barrister and traveller 435–6, 452, 456

General Index On Russian quarantine stations on the Danube 436, 436n Odorhei (Hung. Udvarhely), town in Szekely Land (Transylvania) Oltenia, Romanian historic province in eastern Wallachia 219, 219n, 220n, 221n, 251, 313n, 314, 441 Merchants in 313, 316, 328, 329, 334 Purchases of food by boyars in 320, 322, 326, 330, 441, 441, 456 Oradea (Hung. Nagyvárad, Ger. Großwardein), vilayet of ~, town in Transylvania 114, 119, 409, 420 Jewish lease-holders in 488, 496 Orăştie (Hung. Szászváros, Ger. Broos), town in Transylvania Inns in 410 Otetelişanu, Constantin, Wallachian boyar Purchases of (1794, 1803) 320, 322, 327 Ottoman Empire (Sublime Porte, Ottoman Porte) xxii, xxiii, xxiv, 5, 6, 6n, 7, 7n, 8, 13, 14n, 16, 19, 20, 24, 27, 29, 30, 33, 43n, 48, 52, 74, 75, 77, 100, 101n, 125, 126, 127, 128, 150n, 171, 196, 217, 220, 221, 226, 231, 254, 258, 265, 266, 288, 296, 304, 310, 311, 311n, 314, 337, 360n, 371, 380, 384, 426, 442, 443–4, 444n, 447, 458, 489 And ‘Balkan cuisine’ 4n, 16, 17, 22, 23, 24, 113, 124, 138. 139, 141, 197, 259, 262, 350, 350n2, 368–9, 369n, 370, 378–9, 380, 381n, 384, 385, 388, 389n, 390, 393, 394, 395, 396–7, 397n, 454, 460, 465n And exports of coffee to the Romanian Principalities and Transylvania 138 And exports of food items to East-Central Europe 246, 295, 296, 297, 299, 300, 302, 303, 304, 307–8, 323–4, 387 And the Ottoman impact on Transylvanian cuisine 99, 100, 101n, 102, 103, 104, 107, 109–11, 112, 115, 116, 119–20, 122, 162n, 165n, 166 Beverages in the 88, 89, 89n, 96, 121, 122, 411n Coffee-houses in 143 European influences on Ottoman culinary culture 92–5, 94n, 98, 381 Ottoman culinary culture 9, 9n2, 10, 10n, 11, 11n2, 16, 17, 22, 29, 30, 33, 34, 35–6, 41,

General Index 50, 50n, 51, 51n4, 52, 57n, 64, 72, 74, 75, 76, 77, 77n, 78, 78n, 79, 80, 82, 82n, 83, 84, 84n, 85, 86, 87, 87n, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 96, 97, 98, 105, 106, 108, 111, 113, 113n, 114, 116, 117, 118, 118n, 123, 124, 125, 129n2, 145, 146, 381, 381n, 382, 387, 399, 400, 477 Romanian trade with 112, 174, 175, 239, 312–13, 313n, 314n, 315, 315n2, 316, 316n, 317, 317n, 318, 335, 336, 490, 490n The consumption of olive oil in the 64n, 66–7, 392 Ozanne, James William, British aristocrat and journalist 406, 424 On cafés in Bucharest (1878) 411–12, 423 On eating schnitzel in the Danubian port Giurgiu (1878) 411, 411n Paget, John, British agriculturalist and traveller 406, 406n, 407n2, 420, 420n, 422, 422n, 423, 424, 425 And inns in Transylvania (1839) 408–9, 409n, 418–19, 418n On coffee in the Romanian Principalities 415, 415n On Gypsy music at dinners in Transylvania 418 On meat dishes in Transylvania 417, 417n On the Romanian polenta (mămăligă) 416, 416n On wine-making in Transylvania 413, 413n Pahomie, Abbott of Hurezi Monastery And purchases of caviar (early 19th c) 321 Pann, Anton, Romanian poet, folklorist and musician 483, 483n, 507 Papazoglu, Dumitraki, Balkan merchant in Wallachia 317, 317n, 336 Papazoglu, Andrei Nicolae, Balkan merchant in Wallachia And the trade in luxury items in Wallachia (18th c) 327n Paris, capital of France Congress of xxiii Passarowitz (Požarevac), Serbian village Treaty of (1718) 219 Paton, Archibald Andrew, British diplomat 406, 422, 422n, 424 On inns at Sibiu (Transylvania) (1850) 410, 410n, 416, 416n, 420, 420n

529 Paul of Aleppo (Paul de Alep), Syrian archdeacon 209, 261 On beverages and drinking habits in Moldavia 187, 187n, 188, 188n On dinnerware in elite households 196, 196n On fasting in the Romanian Principalities 192–3, 192n, 193n, 244, 244n On fishing in Moldavia 172, 172n On fruit trees in Moldavia (17th c) 175, 175n2 On funeral feast in the Romanian Principalities 225–6, 226n, 227n, 251, 251n2 On gifting rituals 226, 226n On gifts of food to visiting dignitaries in Moldavia 176, 176, 176n2,183, 183n, 185n,188, 188n On kitchen stoves in Moldavia 179, 179n On official banquets in the Romanian Principalities 254, 254n2 On ritual bread in Moldavia 192, 192n On the baking of bread in the Romanian Principalities 234, 234n On the blessing of food at Easter 193, 193n, 225, 225n On the slaughter of pigs at Christmas 256, 256n Pătrășcanu, Dumitru D., Romanian writer  501 Păunica, wife of Transylvanian merchant Hagi Constantin Pop 323, 327n Pârşcoveanu, Ştefan, Wallachia boyar And acclimatizing lemon trees in Wallachia (18th c) 328 Peloponnese, peninsula in south-eastern Greece xxiii, 218n, 460, 461, 471 Maxim of Peloponnese 228, 261 Pera, district of Istanbul 465 Cafés at (1850s) 94 Night bars run by Christians at (16th c) 122 Pesta, see Budapest Peşta, see Budapest Petki, István, Transylvanian (Székely), district captain in Székely Land And seating order in noble manors (18th c) 158 Petru, German gardener in Wallachia 328

530 Phanar, Greek Christian quarter of Istanbul Phanariot regimes in the Romanian Principalities 101, 253n, 264, 439, 439n2, 441, 442–3, 443n, 444 Philippidis, Daniel, Greek scholar 461, 461n, 474 Philippopoli (Plovdiv), town in Bulgaria 395, 400, 464, 464n Pilat, the Jew, Jewish guild master in Bucharest 489 Pliny the Elder (Gaius Plinius Secundus), Latin historic and naturalist 352, 359, 361n, 413 Plovdiv, see Philippopoli Poland 211, 221, 225n, 311, 415n, 441, 478 Jewish inn-keepers in 24, 479n, 489, 495, 496, 508 Politis, Nikolaos, Greek diplomat and scholar 466–7, 466n, 467n, 468, 468n, 474 Pop, Constantin Hagi, Wallachian merchant 320, 320n2, 321, 322, 323, 324, 325, 326, 326n2, 327, 327n, 328, 328n, 334, 442, 456 And the trade in luxury items in Oltenia (Wallachia) (18th–19th c) 329, 330, 331, 441, 441n Popovici, Cernea, Wallachian merchant 324, 326 Popovič-Midžina, Katarina, Serbian writer 381n, 390n, 399 Požarevac, see Passarowitz Praid (Hung. Parajd, Ger. Salzberg), salt-mine in Transylvania 408 Probota, Monastery in Moldavia 176, 179, 179n, 215 Provence (‘Provenţiia’), region in southeastern France Olive oil from 323, 441 Qahve Bashi, (unlocated) place name in Moldavia 129 Quintinie, Jean-Baptiste de la, French lawyer and gardener 352n Rabi‘a Sultan, mother of Prince İbrahim and Prince Selim Allocations of food for 60n Racoviţă, Mihai, Prince of Moldavia 135, 135n, 165

General Index Radvánszky, Bela, historian 124, 153n2, 154n, 168, 169, 306n, 309 Author of cookery books 99n, 104n, 107, 111, 114n2, 115n, 116n, 117n Radziwiłł, Janusz, Polish magnate, son-in-law of Voivode (ruling prince) Vasile Lupu Wedding banquet of (1645) 185, 194 Ragusa (Dubrovnik), port in Dalmatia (Croatia) 8, 259, 315n, 360, 406 Raicevich, Stephan Ignaz, Austrian diplomat in Wallachia 261, 489 On Greek merchants in Wallachia (18th c) 315n Rákóczi, György I, Prince of Transylvania, father of ~ György II 164, 220n, 267, 275 Rákóczi György II, Prince of Transylvania, son of ~ György I 164 Rákóczy, Ferenc II, Prince of Transylvania xxii Rákóczy, Hungarian noble family Rákóczi Inn in Transylvania 419 Rålamb, Claes Brorson, Swedish diplomat 254n2, 257 Ramsay,Gustaf Adolf,Finnishofficer 449,449n Rebreanu, Liviu, Romanian writer 507 And reference to Jewish inn-keepers (1920) 482, 482n Reclus, Jacques Elisée, French geographer and writer 462 Renan, Ernest, French linguist, philosopher and writer 468n, 474 Rhine Valley (‘Renu’), region in Germany Wine from, imported to the Romanian Principalities (18th c) 322 Romanian Principalities; see Danubian Principalities, Moldavia and Wallachia Roumelia (Roumeli, Turkey-in-Europe), historical name for the Balkans 246, 247, 470 Russia Russian quarantine stations and officials on the Danube 23, 436 Russian influence in the Romanian Principalities xxii, xxiii, 128, 140, 223, 234, 239, 318, 318n, 319, 325, 336, 436, 448, 451, 452, 490 Rycaut, Paul Sir, British scholar and traveller 231, 231n, 261, 371 On the Bosnian drink hardali 360n

General Index Sadoveanu, Mihail, Romanian writer 508 And drinking habits in Romania 482, 482n Šafárik, Pavel Jozef, Slovak linguist and Slavist 462 Safranu, Manicati, Balkan merchant from Transylvania And the trade in luxury items in the Romanian Principalities 323n, 327n Sagiaxis, Georgios, Greek ethnographer and linguist 469 Saint Sava, Monastery in Iași (Moldavia) And petition against coffee-houses in Moldavia (1790) 142 Saint Spiridon, Monastery in Moldavia And food purchases in 1772–1800 137 Salona, see Amphissa Salzberg, see Praid Sarajevo 14, 14n, 22, 377, 387, 390 And influence on Bulgarian cuisine 397 Bosnian culinary culture in 360, 387, 388 Sava, Ioan Tetoveanul, Wallachian merchant And the coffee trade in Wallachia 325 Saz, Leyla (Leyla Hanimefendi), Turkish composer and writer On consumption at Çirağan Palace (Istanbul) (19th–20th c) 89–90, 90n Scappi, Bartolomeo, Italian cook 371, 374 And influence on Romanian gastronomy 349–50, 350n, 361, 361n, 368 Author of Opera dell’arte del cucinare (1570) 346, 347, 347n, 348n European influence of 347, 347n2, 370n Schässburg, see Sighișoara Schmidl, Adolf, German traveller On Jewish-run taverns in Transylvania (19th c) 485, 485n Schwanz von Springfels, Friedrich, German traveller On the Romanian polenta (mămăligă) 238, 238n Sebeş (Hung. Szászsebes, Ger. Mülbach), town in Transylvania Vineyards around (1865) 413 Segesvár, see Sighișoara Selim I, Sultan 53, 60n And coffee ritual 129

531 Serbia xxii, xxiii, xxiv, 14, 34, 103n, 378, 380, 388, 388n, 397, 446, 465 Serbian cookbooks 379, 381, 386, 386n, 387, 390n, 393n, 397, 398, 399 Serbian influences on Bulgarian cooking 383, 387, 393, 394 Șerban, Constantin, Voivode (ruling prince) of Wallachia 226, 249n, 257 Serres, Olivier de, French author and soil scientist 352 Sestini, Domenico, Italian traveller 47, 261 On the Romanian polenta (mămăligă) 239, 239n On food in funerary rites in the Romanian Principalities 251, 251n2 Sibiu (Hung. Nagyszeben, Ger. Hermannstadt), town in Transylvania 19, 20, 106n, 144, 295, 297, 301, 301n, 302, 307, 308, 310, 328n, 330n, 334, 337, 405, 407, 408, 410 And the spice trade 298, 298n2, 299, 299n, 302, 302n, 308 And the trade in luxury foodstuffs 320, 322, 323n, 326, 327, 327n, 328, 456 Coffee and tobacco in the customs registers of 305 Citrus fruit in the customs registers of 305 Customs accounts of (17th c) 295, 295n, 296, 296n, 297, 297n, 298, 310 Ginger in the customs registers of 301 Olive oil in the customs registers of 305, 305n Raisins in the customs registers of 303, 303n Rice in the customs registers of 304, 304n Saffron in the customs registers of 300, 300n Snails in the customs registers of 306 Siebenbürgen, see Transylvania Sighișoara (Hung. Segesvár, Ger. Schässburg), city in southern Transylvania Millers’ guilds in (16th c) 278 Tablecloths made in 153 Simeon, Bishop of Thessaloniki And the origins of the Romanian funerary cake coliva 252, 252n Skene, James, Scottish traveller and writer 410, 410n, 424

532 Slaveikov, Petko R., Bulgarian poet, journalist and folklorist 12n, 30, 377, 377n2, 399 As author of Bulgarian cookbook (1870) 384, 384n, 385, 385n, 386n, 387, 397, 398, 399 Smith, John, British mercenary and traveller 407, 417, 424 On sherbet in Transylvania (1601) 414, 414n Smrikarov-Samokovec, Dimitri, Bulgarian writer 21n, 377, 377n As author of Bulgarian cookbook (1874) 377, 378, 379, 380, 384, 386, 387, 387n, 388, 388n, 390n, 391, 392, 392n, 393, 394, 394n, 396, 397, 397n, 398, 399 On akitma 395 On tarhana 389 South and Central America, see America South-East Asia, see Asia South-East Europe, see also Europe 3, 4n Soutsos (Suţu), Ruxandra, Wallachian Princess 439n Sugar centrepiece at wedding banquet of 439, 442, 443, 444 Spain 322, 346, 440 Staszic, Stanisław, Polish politician And negative views on Jewish-run taverns in Poland 495 Stefani, Bartolomeo, Italian cook Author of L’Arte di ben cucinare (1662) 348, 370n Influence of on Romanian culinary culture 348, 350, 361 Steriady (Colonelu), Ecaterina, Romanian writer Author of Buna menajeră (1871) 381n, 399 Stoenescu, Milco, Wallachian merchant 313 Stoker, Bram, British writer 23, 24, 417, 417n Strassbourg, Paul, Alsatian diplomat and traveller 220, 249n, 254n Straßburg am Mieresch, see Aiud Sublime Porte, see Ottoman Empire Suceviţa, Monastery in Moldavia 170, 172, 174, 175, 180n, 183, 184, 195, 196, 199, 200, 201, 202, 203, 204, 205 Sulzer, Franz Joseph, Austrian historian and ethnologist 261

General Index On Jewish-run distilleries and taverns in the Romanian Principalities (1781) 489, 489n Szalay, Pál, Transylvanian court cook, ennobled (1580) 157 Szatmár (Rom. Sătmar, Ger. Sathmar), county in Transylvania Jewish brewers in (1723) 488 Széchenyi, István, Hungarian count and entrepreneur 410n Székely Land (Ţara Secuiască), historic region in eastern Transylvania 101, 112, 149, 150n, 151n, 152, 152n, 153, 153n, 161, 162n, 168, 169, 422n The production of beer in (16th– 17th c) 165, 165n Székely, Laszlo, Transylvanian (Székely) noble 155 Székely, Ádám, count, chairman of the Transylvanian treasury, son of ~ Laszlo 156, 156n Széki, István, Transylvanian General Tax Collector Wedding banquet of (1691) 166 Szenczi Molnár, Albert, Transylvanian Protestant priest and scholar 168 On the use of paprika in Hungarian cuisine (17th c) 163n Ştirbei, Barbu, Prince of Wallachia And purchases of food (1781) 322, 326, 328, 328n, 331 Ştirbei, Dumitrana, Wallachian boyar lady And purchases of food (1780) 325, 327n, 328n Tanara, Vincenzo, Italian agronomist 348n, 350, 352, 358, 371 Thasos, island (Tr. Taşöz) And the production of olive oil (16th c) 66 Tăutu, Ioan, Great Logothete in Moldavia And the beginnings of coffee-drinking in the Romanian Principalities 128, 128n, 129, 146 Târgu Mureș (Hung. Marosvásárhely, Ger. Neumarkt am Mieresch), town in central Transylvania 123, 302

General Index Teleki, Emma, Hungarian countess 118n, 407 Teleki, Mihály, Transylvanian count, chancellor Castle inventory of (1689) 151–2, 151n Temeschwar, see Timişoara Temesvár, see Timişoara Teodosie, cattle dealer (gelep) from Wallachia And the trade in livestock in the Romanian Principalities 315n Thessaloniki 312n, 460n, 461, 462n, 469, 469n, 475, 476, 477 Sweets and coffee-shops in 465 Thessaly, historic region in Greece 259, 460, 461, 462n, 466, 471n Thúry, József, Hungarian Turcologist 102, 102n Timișoara (vilayet of ~) (Hung. Temesvár, Ger. Temeschwar), city in western Romania 119, 260 Jewish distillery and brewery in (1717) 488 Tiraqueau, André, French jurist 351, 351n, 371 ‘Toader from Braşov’, kahvecı in Moldavia 142 ‘Tocaia’, see Tokay Tokay, wine-producing district in Hungary 322, 323n, 441 Tököly, Imre, Voivode (ruling prince) of Transylvania 100, 114 Topkapı Palace, first Istanbul residence of the Ottoman Sultans in the early modern period 41n, 47, 50n, 52n, 53n, 72, 73, 75, 80 Tótfalusi Kis, Miklós, Transylvanian publisher and writer 99n, 100n Author of cookbook (1798) 100n, 104, 104n2, 107, 109, 110n, 111n, 119n, 124, 342n, 373 Townson, Robert, British traveller 424 And impressions of conviviality in Transylvania 406, 409, 409n, 415, 415n Trabzon (Trebizond) xxii, 129, 245 Transylvania (Transilvania, Erdély, Siebenbürgen) xxii, 6, 7, 8, 14, 15, 18, 19, 20, 23, 24, 26, 100, 102, 103n, 105, 106, 106n2, 119, 138, 138n, 148, 151n2, 153n,

533 154n, 156n, 157n, 168, 169, 174, 180, 197, 215, 218, 219, 229, 239, 242n, 247, 256, 259, 262, 267, 271, 272, 273, 275n, 278n, 291, 292, 296, 328n, 397, 406 And the import of Habarnicza (squid) (16–17th c) 306 And the origins of goulash (gulyás) 115, 115n Beverages and drinking in 175, 187, 450n Boza and braga consumed in 121 Coffee-drinking and tobacco in 164, 189n, 305n, 310 Eating habits in 150, 150n2, 151, 152, 153, 154, 155, 164, 165, 166, 167, 183 Food and gastronomy in 13, 18, 100n, 103, 108–9, 112, 117, 118, 120, 120n, 121, 150, 157, 158–9,158–59n, 161, 162, 163, 164, 167, 182n, 245, 293, 343n, 348, 369, 374, 380n, 389n, 405 Gifts of food among nobles in 160 Guilds in 192 Jewish inn-keepers in 485, 488, 492, 494, 496, 503 Merchants and trade in 138, 138n, 140, 186, 239, 249, 293, 296, 298, 303, 305, 306, 307, 309, 310, 312, 320, 322, 325, 325n, 327, 330n, 331, 337, 441 Mills in (16–17th c) 277, 277n The consumption of meat in (17– 19th c) 112, 113, 115, 158–9, 284 The Ottoman impact on the cuisine of 16, 17, 31, 99, 101, 102, 103–4, 105, 107, 108, 109, 110–11, 113, 116, 116n, 119, 121, 122, 162n, 165n, 308, 393n The pané cooking technique used in  114 The spice trade in 295, 296, 297, 298, 298n, 299, 301, 302, 308 West-European travellers in (18th–19th c) 405–25, 428, 433n, 434, 434n, 450 Trebizond (Trabzon), city in Turkey xxii, 129, 245 Tsarigrad (Rom. Ţarigrad,), see Constantinople, Istanbul Tschakturn, see Čakovec Türabi Efendi, Ottoman gentleman and writer, translator of The Refuge of Cooks (1864) 79, 79n, 90n, 92n, 96

534

General Index

Turia de Jos (Hung. Also Torja), village in Székely Land (Transylvania) Curia of Apor Lázár at 158 Kitchen at the manor of the Kálnoky family at 159, 165 Тŭrnovo (Veliko ~), city in northern Bulgaria 383 Twardowski, Samuel, Polish writer On wines in Transylvania (1622) 412n

Sales of Transylvanian mineral water in (1878) 414, 414n Viquesnel, Auguste, French traveller 462 Voiculescu, Vasile, Romanian poet and writer And the myth of drink poisoning by Jewish inn-keepers 501 Vojvodina, region in Serbia Culinary traditions in 378, 388, 393, 394, 397

Țara Bârsei (Ger. Burzenland), region in south-eastern Transylvania Millers’ guilds in 278 Țara Românească, see Wallachia Țara Secuiască, see Székely Land

Walker, Mary, British traveller 425 On Transylvanian hotels (1888) 410, 410n, 411, 412, 412n Wallachia (Ţara Românească), Romanian historic province xxii, xxiii, 14, 17, 18, 19, 21, 54, 54n, 118n, 124, 130n, 134n, 135n, 136, 142n, 144, 145, 169, 208, 209, 210, 214, 216, 406, 407, 421, 424, 425, 439n2, 442, 454, 478, 490, 506 And food trade 112, 185, 185n, 311–38, 441–2, 456 And Jewish inn-keepers 488, 489, 491 And the concept of a ‘Balkan cuisine’ 466 And the spice trade 105 Beverages and drinking in 165, 215, 412, 416n, 486, 495 Coffee-drinking in 127, 128, 128n, 136, 137, 139, 140, 141, 141n3, 142, 143 Cookery books in 182, 342 European influences on the food culture of 22, 422, 438, 454 Exports of salt from 86 Farming and food culture in 107, 109, 118, 177, 217–67, 359, 411n, 464 Hospitality and conviviality in 409, 410, 411, 430–1, 432, 434, 434n, 435, 437, 439, 448, 451 Ottoman influences on the gastronomy of 119, 141, 452 Tea-drinking in 140 Walsh, Robert, Irish priest and traveller 406, 425, 456 On akitma (kŭtmi) served in Bulgaria (1827) 395 On pub landlord in Transylvania (1827) 450, 450n3 On the drinking habits of Bucharest residents (1827) 450

Ümmügülsüm Sultan, daughter of Mehmed IV Allocations of coffee for (1692) 71 Valea Crişului (Hung. Köröspatak), village in Székely Land (Transylvania) Dining room in the house of Count Kálnoky Sámuel at (1689) 151 Váralja, mediaeval suburb of the city of Cluj (Transylvania) Mills at (late 16th c) 274, 274n Varlaam, Metropolitan of Moldavia 180n, 190n, 191n, 192n, 209, 262 On fasting (1643) 242, 242n Varna, city in Bulgaria And trade routes in the Balkans 312n Akitma served at table near (1826) 395 Varro (Marcus Terentius), Latin author and agriculturist 351 Văcărescu, noble family from Wallachia 334 Dinnerware of (1771) 326, 331 Venice, city in Italy 11, 105, 225, 234n, 252, 257n, 267, 348, 348n, 349 And trade with the Romanian Principalities 246, 265, 298, 309, 326 Vienna (Beci, Wien), 11, 67, 138n, 151, 151n, 405, 424, 436, 447, 478, 488 And trade with the Romanian Principalities 312n, 326, 330 And Transylvanian trade 138n, 154, 272, 298, 299, 299n, 302, 312 ‘Little Vienna’, nickname for the Danubian port Ruschuk 452

General Index Wesselényi, noble family from Transylvania 282, 282n, 291 Wesselényi, Polixena, Hungarian countess 406, 406n Whyte-Melville, George, British writer and traveller 451, 451n, 453, 456 And perceptions of German influences in Wallachia 452 And perceptions of French influences in Bucharest 452 Wilkinson, William, British diplomat 406, 419, 419n, 425 On ‘brandy shops’ in the Romanian Principalities (1820) 411 On social inequality in Transylvania (1820) 421, 421n On the Romanian polenta (mămăligă) (1820) 416, 416n2 Wolf, Andreas, German doctor in Wallachia 132n On coffee-drinking in the Romanian Principalities (1784) 136n, 325n Yankel, Jewish tavern-keeper in Adam Mickiewicz’s poem Pan Tadeusz 479n, 484, 484n, 496, 505, 508 Yemen (‘Emen’) Coffee from 138, 246, 324

535 Yıldız Palace, former Istanbul residence of the Ottoman Sultans in the 19th century 80, 82n, 95 Dairy at 83 Kitchens at 81 Ypsilantis Alexandros, Prince of Moldavia and Wallachia, see Ipsilanti, Alexandru Zamfirache, Gheorghe Hagi, Wallachian merchant 330 Zápolya, János, Voivode of Transylvania, King of Hungary 100, 286, 286n Zrinski, Nicholas VII, Croatian nobleman 8, 12n, 29, 30, 341, 343n, 344, 356, 358, 369, 373, 374, 375 Manuscript recipe collections in the library of 351, 352, 353, 355, 357, 358, 358n, 359, 363n, 367, 368 Vineyards and cellars on the domains of 350, 350n West- and Central European influences at the court of 22, 342n, 347, 347n, 348, 348n, 368 Zygabenos, Euthymios, Greek scholar Against the use of unleavened bread in the sacrament (1710) 228–9, 228n