A review of “The Making of Mămăligă: Transimperial Recipes for a Romanian National Dish”, by Alex Drace-Francis
A review of “The Making of Mămăligă: Transimperial Recipes for a Romanian National Dish”, by Alex Drace-Francis

Summary/Abstract: The culinary bibliography on Romanian cuisine is very poor in sources and many documents on modern Romanians’ gastronomic customs are to be founding the testimonies of foreign tourists who travel to these places. It is from them that we can learn a lot about Romanian farmers’ basic meals, survival cuisine and the culinary inventiveness in our ancestors’ kitchen-sleeping rooms. The basics of traditional cuisine are ignored for obvious reasons which can be found in the manuscripts and gastronomic books of old times, in which the recipes used to be limited to the representatives of higher classes: boyars, the nobility, princes or lords and those who could otherwise afford to “waste” 28 eggs for a sophisticated dough, sacrifice one or two chickens from their courtyard or make abundant use of expensive spices and sugar for luxurious meals – markers of high-class status

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