From the history of fine cuisine from Renaissance to present day. Highlights of Sibiu

Abstract

In the gastronomy of the European elites there have been inter-influences and important takeovers due to matrimonial relations, crusades, wars, pilgrimages etc. The trade also played a significant role, as along the commerce roads were transported, along with other commodities, food and recipes. Usually, printed books are based on older manuscripts. Cookbooks are an important source for researchers in cultural, social and economic history, allowing decoding of the gastronomic discourse of European elites, as they contain preparations considered prestigious and appropriate to a high social status. In gastronomy, as in fashion, prestigious products have been developed, used for representative purposes. Over time, classes placed lower in the social hierarchy - townspeople, as well as wealthy layers of villages - were contaminated by similar ideals, adopting elements from the gourmet behavior of the nobility. As for the old cookbooks, it can be said that they generally propagate an international cuisine with regional varieties.

In Transylvania, at the latest during the Principality - in other words, since the sixteenth century - fine cuisine has developed, based on European international cuisine and elements of indigenous ethnic cuisine. In the 18th century, Sibiu was not only the capital of Transylvania but the city that houses the largest garrison of the Habsburg Empire after Wiener Neustadt. There is no prince in the city, but the city is the residence of the governor and the general comandor. Along with the Habsburg administration, many high ranking military officers from various provinces of the Empire, coming from illustrious families and many officials, also descendants from the elites, have been established here, giving the city a cosmopolitan look. They came with their chefs and Viennese dishes, and fine cuisine is taken over on a large scale. Thus, the Sibiu cuisine becomes a synthesis, in which the old, local recipes coexist with the sophisticated ones taken from Central and Western Europe. If until World War I, the landmark was Vienna and its gastronomic profile, in the interwar period, the influence of Bucharest, with its French and Balkan-oriental cuisine, is becoming stronger, due to the wealth of cooking books that circulated throughout the country. After the establishment of Communism, many recipes of fine cuisine were considered bourgeois and decadent, giving up some, and others renamed and simplified. There were few places that managed to keep, to some extent, the high standards of the past. Due to the food crisis of the last decade of the communist era, preparations were made for cooked dishes and desserts inspired by the war kitchen, using few ingredients and substitutes for missing ones. After 1989, the situation has changed radically, including culinary, making it possible to return to refinement and gastronomic diversity. (Authors)