Vizsgálatok Széchenyi István gróf étkezései körül
Inquiries about the Meals of Count István Széchenyi

Summary/Abstract: In the present paper I explore those registers of Count István Széchenyi’s diaries that deal with his meals. The contextualisation of the texts offers various ways of approach and interpretation. On the one hand, the paper offers a view of everyday, mechanically repeated actions by presenting eating as a daily practice. Yet a similar daily activity for the Count was the keeping of his diaries, so the examination of the question of how and why he recorded his meals in the coprus of text is inevitable. Accordingly, the inquiry was simultaneously focussed on the text, the context and the intentions. The eating-related sections of the text cannot only be interpreted in the context of meal itself within the text. While the writer of the diaries mainly reflects on his social life, he also presents and even creates himself in these notes. The analysis consequently only deals indirectly with the problem of meals, for it also draws conclusions about the habits and personality of the diarist, as well as the diaries themseves.

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