Jarosław Dumanowski

Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń

Culinary Memories: New Type of Ego-Documents? Writings of Paschalis Radoliński from ca. 1823

Researchers of ancient texts categorize more and more forms of expression and types of content as ego documents. As a food historian, I would like to draw attention to such elements in culinary writings. They contain various observations and comments of an individual, personal nature.

Menus are the effect of a dialogue between representatives of the gourmet elite and cooks and servants. The staff of a court or a palace first had to understand, then execute, and finally describe the orders of their landlords. The form of the accounting record often became a testimony to personal discoveries, reflections and problems with understanding the aspirations and wishes of their superiors.

In this context, I would like to present the manuscript records of the nobleman Paschalis Radoliński (1753–1828), which, in addition to culinary recipes and a collection of prayers, included a kind of diary, or, instead, notes devoted to issues of court supplies, cooking and problems with servants. We are dealing with a record of the troubles of everyday life, loneliness and social alienation. The writings of Paschalis Radoliński are a remarkable testimony to the sensitivity and knowledge of a middle-class nobleman, in which the texts of the recipes and diary serve as documentation of the circulation of information, social networking, and the adaptation of innovations.