Gunda Béla et al. (szerk.): Ideen, Objekte und Lebensformen. Gedenkschrift für Zsigmond Bátky - István Király Múzeum közelményei. A. sorozat 29. (Székesfehérvár, 1989)
Mária Kresz†: Kettle and Pot
zék", e.g. “iron pot” (No. 142911). These data show that copper kettles had predecessors made of iron which justifies the name being: “vasfazék”, “iron pot”. “Vasfazék”, “iron pot” is the usual name in many places of Hungary for kettles made of iron. István E c s e d i in his book about food in the region of Debrecen states: “Hungarians of the Tisza region do not say “bogrács”, they call the round-bottomed vessel “vas fazék”. Such a kettle is constantly with them, people carry it on their back, in their cart, and they have a kettle in their home. Such a kettle can have two handles and was used hung up on a crook. In villages it is placed on an iron tripod or on an improvised adobe hearth, or in front of the oven.” In the Nourishment Collection this name “vasfazék” is confirmed by two kettles from Hajdúböszörmény. (No. 55.75.7 and 12.) B á t k y différenciâtes large caldrons in which fodder was cooked for domestic animals and also used to warm water when washing clothes. He states that a different name is used for this type, in Great Cumania it is called “üstkatlan”, e.g. “kettle-caldron”. (A Magyarság Néprajza, p. 71.) The word “üst” was considered to be of Alan origin and its meaning to be related to the word “ezüst”, “silver”. This would mean that “üst”—similarly to the English “kettle”—is a vessel made of metallic material (Magyar nyelvtörténeti szótár, Hungarian Historical Linguistic Vocabulary). Yet according to the more recent etimological vocabulary the above theory is not proven and the word “üst” is of unknown origin (TESZ). Hungarian archeologists have dealt with an earthenware kettle which they term alternatively “bogrács” and “üst”, —a cooking vessel with a rounded base, a vessel that could be hung up. Such vessels have double holes in their rim placed inwardly so that the flames of the fire should not reach the burnable rope by which the vessel is suspended. It was the most typical ceramic vessel of the Hungarians in the Conquest period and the era of the House of Árpád. The earliest literature is by József H ö 11 r i g 1 (1930/32/ 33). Béla Szőke dealing with the archeology of rural settlements pointed out that both round-bottomed ceramic kettles and flat bottomed cooking pots appeared in the same region, but while flat bottomed pots were to be found within the houses of villages, the sherds of earthenware kettles occured in the outskirts of the settlement, around summer huts of herdsmen. (Cserépbográcsaink kérdéséhez, To the problem of our earthenware kettles, 1955; See also Ecsedi 1935; Szabó 1938; Borzsák 1941; Molnár 1943; Méri 1952; Morvay 1955; Holl 1956; Kresz 1960). In 1975 István Fodor summed the results of these researches and demonstrated on several maps the places where such sherds had been found. (Cserépüstjeink származása, The origin of our earthenware kettles, ArchÉrt 1975,250—266. See also by the same author: Der Ursprung der in Ungarn gefundenen Tonkessel, Acta ArchHung 29 [1977] 323-349.). According to his results ceramic kettles occured in all regions throughout the Carpathian Basin, yet south-west of Lake Balaton data seem to be more sporadic. István Fodor states : in the Hungary of the Árpád House in the 10th—13th century thes eceramic kettles were the most typical form of pottery. The Magyars must have learned the art of making them while staying in the region of the river Don in their country called Levédia where the peoples belonging to the Saltovo Culture (probably Bulgarian Turks) also made such earthenware kettles. Further data have been published recently. In 1986 the three volumed “Erdély története” (History of Transylvania, edited by Béla K ö p e c z i) appeared and in volume I. in the chapter by István Bóna a map is published with further data from Transylvania (map no. 20) and a list of place-names (pp. 580—581). Meanwhile the dissertation of B ó n a’s pupil Miklós Takács also appeared (“Die Árpadenzeitlichen Tonkessel im Karpatenbecken”, 1986) with detailed analysis of all the types and subtypes, and a supplemented map. No archeologist, however, raises the question : what could the original name have been of these roundbottomed ceramic cooking vessels? Certainly not “bogrács”, as the word only appeared in the 16th century and was not used for earthenware. Nor is it probable that “üst” was its name, though in principle that is not impossible. If the medieval ceramic kettle is regarded as a predecessor of the round bottomed hangable “vas fazék”, “iron pot”, then we may suppose that its name was also “fazék”, e.g. “pot”. Unfortunately archeologists do not deal with the problem of the appearance of iron kettles after the disappearance of ceramic kettles and so the relationship and continuity of ceramic and metallic kettles can be discussed only as a supposition. Regarding the problem of cooking vessels from the point-of-view of function, then following B á t k y’s distinction about two ways of cooking, and the observations of Béla Szőke, we can state that there were two ways of cooking and two kinds of vessels and both were called “fazék”, “pot”. One is the hangable kettle or pot with a rounded bottom, the other pot has a flat bottom and can stand among the cinders. The hangable earthenware kettle must have been used for cooking out-of-doors on the outskirts of the settlement mainly in summertime; the flat-bottomed pot was used in the village home for cooking on the hearth or in the oven mainly in wintertime. These two kinds of cooking can still be distinguished today. They may differ also according to gender, it is mainly men, herdsmen working out-of-doors who cook in a kettle (Kovács 1969; Erdei 1971), while women do their cooking indoors (Molnár 1933; Borzsák 1941; Molnár 1943; Morvay 1955). A delightful book on masculine out-of-doors cuisine was written with great experience by the eminent sociologist and statesman Ferenc Erdei titled “Ethnographic gourmand cookery” (1971). The book is dedicated to István G y ö r f f y and to all those men from whom Erdei learned this art : “peasants, herdsmen, fishermen, foresters, navvies, artisans of whom I too am a descendant”. The essence of this way of cooking is “that it was always done by men busy with their work and it follows that cooking must be done in a hurry, preparations cannot last long, everything has to be done with few implements, technology has to be basically simplified, the food should be touched as little as possible.” The basic implement is the kettle in which many things can be cooked, but Erdei deals only with meat dishes. These he classifies into three categories as he learnt in Karcag from men adapt at cooking: 1.) “paprikás”, 2.) “pörkölt” (broiled), 3.) neither “paprikás” nor “pörkölt”. 246
