Les médecins à la table du paysan
At the Peasant’s Table with the Physicians

Summary/Abstract: This article discusses the manner in which peasant food is mentioned in the Romanian medical writings throughout the 19th century. The physicians’ interest in peasant food appeared in the first decades of the 19th century, gaining momentum in its second half. Of the multitude of medical writings that tackle the subject I have selected for analysis three works: one by Doctor Constantin Caracas, published in 1830, and two other works awarded by the Romanian Academy in 1895. If in Caracas’s work the peasant food resembles the peasant, namely, it is coarse and primitive, by the end of the century, even if the situation did not change fundamentally, the physicians N. Manolescu and G. Crãiniceanu started to discover recipes worthy of inclusion in the national gastronomic heritage. In other words, peasant gastronomy followed closely the changes in the status of the peasant in the national ideology.

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