Researchers of Culture Confronted with the “Treasures of Culinary Heritage” in Upper Silesia as Described in the Most Recent Cookbooks
Researchers of Culture Confronted with the “Treasures of Culinary Heritage” in Upper Silesia as Described in the Most Recent Cookbooks

Summary/Abstract: Considering that in the last few years culinary matters have become afashionable topic, the author is making a preliminary attempt at assessing manymyths and authoritative opinions related to it. With respect to this aim, she hasreviewed utilitarian literature, to which culinary handbooks certainly belong (“Con�cerning the studies of comestibles in culture”). In this context, she has singledout cookery books pertaining to only one region, Upper Silesia. This region has acomplicated history, being an ethnic borderland, where after the 2nd World War, thelocal population of Silesians ac�quired new neighbours�: repatriates from the �East�ern Borderlands annexed by the Soviet Union, settlers from central and southernPoland, as well as former emigrants coming back from the West (“‘The treasuresof culinary heritage’ in cookery books from Upper Silesia”). The author discussesseveral Silesian cookery books which focus only on the specificity of traditionalSilesian cuisine, the Silesians’ curious conservatism and attachment to theirregional tastes and culinary customs, their preference for some products anddislike of other ones. From the well-provided shelf of Silesian cookery books, shehas singled out two recently published, unusual culinary handbooks by the Rev.Father Prof. Andrzej Hanich (Opolszczyzna w wielu smakach. Skarby dziedzictwakulinarnego. 2200 wypróbowanych i polecanych przepisów na przysmaki kuchnidomowej, Opole 2012; Smaki polskie i opolskie. Skarby dziedzictwa kulinarnego.2500 wypróbowanych i polecanych przepisów na przysmaki kuchni domowej,Opole 2014), which have become a culinary bestseller in Upper Silesia. The authorperceives these books as an interesting and unusual example of a monothematic“collective lecture” pertaining to the multi-cultural character of Opole Silesia, thenoticeable foreign influences and the globalisation of culinaries. In her opinion,these books constitute a very rich set of materials pertaining to the present-dayculture of consumption in Poland, with a discernible emphasis on Opole Silesia.

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