Helena Wielowieyska: At Lukullus and elsewhere:
„… At the beginning of, to animate the imagination, I allow myself to rewrite the menu of the most exquisite cuisine of all time, menu, which he put together, or maybe he just accepted for an approving message, which is one thing, the great Lucius Lucinius-Lukullus himself, excellent commander and consul, a subtle esthete and a sophisticated gourmet, in a word, Przewkowski himself of the first century BC. (It is worth mentioning, that one time, when the cook was not expecting guests that day, he prepared the consul a rather sumptuous dinner, this artist of the table scolded him with words: «Don't you know, that Lukullus is supper today at Lukullus?»)
But to the point. I present the promised menu, this one arranged with the guests in mind:
For a snack of porridge, it is specially bred little mice, stuffed with nightingales brains and rolled in honey and poppy seeds. Then plums with pepper, smoked mustard pumpkin, flamingo heads with celery, oysters with mint leaves and nettles. (Something sharp!). Ostrich heads stewed in honey, boar head stuffed with peacock eggs, Squillies fattened with figs and parrot-tongued pate with truffles in mallow sauce.
More or less the same time (one hundred years one way or the other - what a difference) the menu of lower-level banquets has survived. At a party at the artisans, namely provided for each guest 1 a piece of bread, 4 sardines and an amphora of mulled wine… That is: according to the dike pond…”
One more old Polish proverb could perhaps be quoted at this point: "A frequent visitor, dense peas, coarse salt - to the host's doom”.
But that's how it used to be - and, Unfortunately, it still happens - that for one, "coarse salt."” it meant mismanagement in the packaging of a priceless spice, others basked in gargantuan splendor.
Juliusz Słowacki: Blessed with Prince Radziwiłł Sierotka:
There were three giant-shaped pates in the first room, which upon seeing, the prince cried out. «W. Gentlemen, attack!»- after saying that, he took the cap off the first pate and a lot of live partridges flew out of it, waxwing, pigeons, ortolans, which, having broken the windows, flew out into the courtyard - where still was the long tail of the nobility… and you, that many were armed with mergers, they started shooting the birds in flight, so, with time, it would fly into the hall and fall down with hail, reflected from the ceiling, to our bald spots - but the windows were high, it didn't hurt either of us. - Here the prince summoned the cook to the hall and began to scold him strongly for it, that he didn't bake the game… asked, what was in the great pyramid, standing on the right, replied the prince, that he baked in it the whole Laoconte with the serpents… Then j.o. the prince took a mace of iron from the wall, loaded with nails, he gave it over the pyramid, that until it fell apart - and we saw a dwarf sitting on the ruins of a pate, in flesh-colored clothes, who was all tied up with sausages, as if that Laokont just, matching with the reptiles of Minerva. "And this one also lives" cried the prince angrily. Loga's cook replied, he spoke as if ashamed: "Assaying it, but rose » (He was cooked, but he is risen). «It may be» said Mr Sierotka; and in the third pate co? The cook answered in Italian, and that Andromeda was there, chained to the rock, and devoted to the dragon devoured - how, after breaking the third pate, we found the prince's dwarf, the so-called Djanna, who tied their hands to the pate with the saints of brawn, and in front of her lay a huge pike, having a boar instead of his own head, with the mouth open, which undoubtedly this Carlina might have been a tomb”.