The Making of Mămăligă : : Transimperial Recipes for a Romanian National Dish / / Alex Drace-Francis.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Central European University Press eBook-Package 2022
• VerfasserIn: Drace-Francis, Alex,
• Place / Publishing House: Budapest ;, New York : : Central European University Press, , [2022]; ©2022
• Year of Publication: 2022
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (226 p.)

Mămăligă, maize porridge or polenta, is a universally consumed dish in Romania and a prominent national symbol. But its unusual history has rarely been told. Alex Drace-Francis surveys the arrival and spread of maize cultivation in Romanian lands from Ottoman times to the eve of the First World War, and also the image of mămăligă in art and popular culture. Drawing on a rich array of sources and with many new findings, Drace-Francis shows how the making of mămăligă has been shaped by global economic forces and overlapping imperial systems of war and trade. The story of maize and mămăligă provides an accessible way to revisit many key questions of Romanian and broader regional history. More generally, the book links the history of production, consumption, and representation. Analyses of recipes, literary and popular depictions, and key vocabulary complete the work.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Table of Contents -- List of Maps, Graphs, Tables -- Introduction: The Land is Waiting -- Chapter 1. From the Caribbean to the Carpathians: The Coming of Cucuruz, c.1492–1700 -- Chapter 2. Conquerors, Cultivators and Collaborators: Maize at Empire’s Edge, 1700–1774 -- Chapter 3. Climate, Conflict, Contagion and Commerce: The Triumph of Maize, 1774–1812 -- Chapter 4. Maize, Raki or Death: The Revolt of 1821 Reconsidered -- Chapter 5. Mămăligă 2.0: Maize on the World Market, 1829–1856 -- Chapter 6. Independence, Capitalism, Disease and Revolt; Or, Why the Mămăligă Exploded, 1856–1907 -- Chapter 7. Manna valachorum: Recipes at the Interface -- Chapter 8. ‘The sparrow dreams of cornmeal, and the idle man of a feast day’: Mămăligă as Metaphor -- Conclusion: The Land is Waiting -- Appendix: Words and Things -- Glossary -- Mămăligography -- Illustration Credits -- Acknowledgements -- Index