Cseri Miklós – Bereczki Ibolya (szerk.): Ház és ember. A Szabadtéri Néprakzi Múzeum Évkönyve 23. (Szentendre, Szabadtéri Néprajzi Múzeum, 2011)

KISBÁN ESZTER: Konyhákról bennfentesen: Változó konyhaberendezés Délkelet-Közép-Európában a 19. század elején

Eszter Kisbán CHANGING KITCHENS IN SOUTH-EASTERN MIDDLE EUROPE IN THE EARLY I9TH CENTURYMIDDLE CLASS COOKERY BOOKS The Hungarian author explains the introduction of iron kitchen utensils and the cooking-stove in the western neighborhood of 19

t

h century Hungary. This period is not the start, but an early phase of innovational processes in both regions. Cookbooks are not the most important source of these changes, but their messages have to be acquainted. The author chose books which were written by practicing cooks; they were published as first editions at that time and were addressed to middle class and civil families. She weighs these books against the books written by male cooks, written in accordance with the conditions of an elite kitchen. In this period in Hungary only the latter kind of cookbooks, and translations of cookbooks from German language - more or less shortened - were published. The two books chosen from the Bavarian-AustrianCzech region: Die Bayersche Köchin in Böhmen.... Hrsg. von Maria Anna Neudecker, geb. Ertl, Traiteurin am Franzenspark bei Eger. Karlsbad, 1805 (http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/volltexte/2007/103940), and Allgemeines österreichisches oder neuestes Wiener Kochbuch in jeder Haushaltung brauchbar.

.. Von Anna Hofbauer, Hausinhaberin in Wien. Wien 1825. (http://digital.slubdresden.de). Mrs. Neudecker was a born Bavarian woman, she also worked in Austria, her inn was in a popular pleasure resort in Bohemia. The name Anna Hofbauer seems to be a pseudonym. Both books indicate that in town-houses and in inns they cooked on a fireplace on naked flame, primarily using copper vessels, pots and frying pans. The hinged cauldron was used to boil water, it was not available in every middle-class, but it was strongly recommended for households like that. Meat was roasted on skewers and in frying pans too. Neudecker (in 1

805) did not even mention the enclosed kitchen range; in 1825 it was still used only in a few kitchens. But oven with separate smoke revulsion is often mentioned as a piece of new equipment. Iron pots are also mentioned and used in recipes, but very rarely. In 1825 stoneware also occurs. A (male) chef at the end of the 1820s finds the cooking stove and the newly invented standalone ovens unsuitable for elite kitchens. He adds that these equipments are really useful in civil households. The trained cooks of elite houses hold to the open hearth, and there can be two of them in a kitchen. What is not cooked there, are made on old style furnaces, it is also good to have two of them. An essential part of a kitchen is the cauldron, you must have four of them. There must always be boiling water in an iron or copper cauldron, the other three are for the cooking. (Die Kochkunst für herrschaftliche und bürgerliche Tafeln, oder allerneuestes Österreichisches Kochbuch... von Franz Zelena, ehemahligen Haushofmeister Sr.kais. Hoheit des Erzhegzogs Johann. Wien, 1828. (http://www.slub-dresden.de). These circumstances and further descriptions from that region help to interpret the records of remained Hungarian inventories of stoves and kitchen utensils from the same period. And also the fractional comments on cookbooks and the offers of ware catalogues published in the first half of the 19

t

h century. 18