Essegg: od gastronomije do jezičnoga identiteta
Essegg: from gastronomy to language identity

Summary/Abstract: Although as early as 1910 more citizens of Osijek declared for Croatian as their mother tongue as opposed to German, German was still being dominant. The active supporters of the Croatian language, gathered around the Osijek daily Narodna obrana, wondered at that dominance and attributed it to the political inertia of the citizens of Osijek. In their observations, their disapproval of using German mostly referred to men, while women were mentioned rarely and accidentally. It follows that they have underestimated the influence of women on the spoken language, although it is they who are mothers, educators and teachers of the first words. We find from the Narodna obrana that women from Osijek preferred the German language in communication, and from their cook notebooks, which indicate bilingualism, we also find possible reasons for this. The recipes circulating among them came from the German-speaking area, mostly bearing the characteristics of South German and Austrian cuisine, or were transcribed from printed cookbooks in German. The sharing of recipes, as an integral part of communication among women, was much easier in German, and consequently, other conversations about food and other “women's” work common to all women, regardless of origin. Considering that caring for family nutrition has taken an extremely large part in the daily lives of most women, it is not inconceivable that women form Osijek tried to ease this concern by using only one language, which was German.

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