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ITALIAN RECIPES IN A WALLACHIAN 18TH CENTURY MANUSCRIPT

Gabriela E. Dima

Abstract

The paper focuses on the oldest known collection of recipes written in Romanian, namely an undated manuscript of an unknown author, elaborated in Wallachia. The authors of the text edition published in 1997 presumed that it was written at the court of the prince BrГ®ncoveanu. It is a singular work in its age as the next cookery book in Romanian is from 1842 and has a French model. The manuscript includes 293 recipes and it ends with advice on ink preparation, silvery cleaning, gun cleaning and gunpowder preparation in the manner of the recipes included in the books of В‘secretsВ’ proposed in the Western world. The editors of the text considered that it was an original collection, except for the last part including drinks and advice that is an obvious translation from Italian. After studying the linguistic features of the text, and especially the neologisms used, we can safely assert that the whole book is actually a translation from Italian, though the original source (if there is only one source indeed) could not be identified. This paper will therefore present in detail our arguments in favour of an Italian original for the whole text. Some of the recipes are to be found in the Opera by Bartolomeo Scappi (1570) or in LВ’arte di ben cucinare by Bartolomeo Stefani (1662). There are numerous Italian loans (adapted to Romanian) or even Italian words inserted as such in the text as well as calques after Italian, some of them suggesting that the correlated procedures were not in use in Wallachia (foaming, flouring, etc.). The final proof that the whole book is a translation from Italian resides in the analysis of clumsy expressions present all over the text that indicate Italian contamination.

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DOI resolver: doi.org/10.5593/sgemsocial2018/3.6/S14.039

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