Pofta Buna Cookbook

Here's a little Christmas present for readers, especially in the USA. The Pofta Buna Cookbook is an authentic source of Romanian recipes written in English and published in the USA, which means all the measurements are in pounds and ounces!

The book was originally published in Ohio over fifty years ago by the young Romanian congregation of St. Mary's Orthodox church in Cleveland and contains many typical Romanian recipes, particularly from the Transylvanian region. Since then, its popularity has seen it go through fourteen reprints and a fifteenth is currently in progress.

If you're looking for an English-language book on Romanian cuisine, then please contact Marie Sandru at the following address to find out more:

Marie Sandru
St. Mary's Society
3097 West 230th Street,
North Olmsted,
Ohio,
44070

Gastronomice

Gastronomice - Alexandru Osvald ‘Pastorel’ Teodoreanu

Alexandru Pastorel was born in 1894 in the town of Dorohoi in the extreme north east of Romania, close to the border with Ukraine. He went on to study law in Iasi in the province of Moldova before serving in the First World War, after which receive his licence to practice law in 1920. Throughout the inter-war period he published several collections of poems, epigrams, and contributed to various journals and publications. He also developed a reputation for being something of a gourmand, his views on wines and food being actively sought out by his peers.

After the Second World War and the communist takeover of Romania, he concentrated more on translating texts and contributed prolifically to gastronomic journals. Gastronomice is a collection of many of these articles and was first published posthumously in 1973. Teodoreanu sadly spent some of his final years in prison, sentenced for his writings, mostly satirical epigrams. He was released shortly before his death in 1964.

The book itself is arranged more like a series of articles about cookery rather than a traditional recipe book. In some ways I believe it reads much more like a blog than a cookbook, with little stories and anecdotes in each section followed by a description of how the meal is prepared.

Frequently throughout Gastronomice Teodoreanu refers to ‘his friend Castache’, who is portrayed as the expert in all things culinary. I haven’t been able to find out much about Costache so I can’t say for sure if he was a real person, a genuine friend of Pastorel’s, or whether he was simple a literary construct through whom the author could present his recipes via the means of a more entertaining dialogue in place of the standard descriptive prose of traditional culinary books and articles. If anyone knows more about Costache, please leave a comment.

Being largely anthological in nature the book isn’t arranged by type of ingredient or even by course, but meanders organically through various styles and products and seasons. Some articles comment on regionalisms and traditions whilst others focus more on a particular ingredient. My impression, from this book and others from the earlier part of the last century, is that in the kitchens of the capital, or at least of the literate middle classes and higher, the variety of meat used was more varied and thus Gastonomice tells us how to prepare some dishes with lamb, with quail, with pheasant, and with crayfish, which rarely feature on the Romanian dining table today (except perhaps in some of the more modern up-market restaurants). There are also some articles on preserving and a few pages at the end on local Romanian wines.

Here is an excerpt from Gastronomice, translated by me (so blame me for any mistranslations) in which Pastorel learns how to make a leek tart:

Leek Tart

My friend Costache has never caught me in front of the oven. I, however, just today, caught him at his desk, doing what? Writing verse! And addressed to whom? To me! Here:

With little talent and some art,
As far as I can see,
You can also make leek tart,
If you know cookery.

However you know nothing
About cooking on the flame, laddy,
So eat up your lovely grub,
Shut up...and give me the recipe.

“Look what it is, Costache,” I say, after reading the following lines:

So don’t have a go at me, boy,
For what’s happening here,
Seeing as you play the poet too
Well, I’ll shut up...but you make the food!

“And what exactly does your heart want?!” replies Costache.
“You need to ask? That which you praised in your poem. And if your tarts are no good, then don’t expect any kind of pity from me.”
“I accept the challenge!” he replied.
“Come on them, let’s see what you’ve got, and if you’ve got nothing, Costache, you’re right out of luck. I’ll destroy you, I’ll wipe you out, I’ll write about you in the newspaper!”
Even though I was only kidding, my friend Costache didn’t particular like the taste of my threats.
We went into the kitchen, where, after putting on his apron and hat, my friend Costache started the proceedings thus:

The two then go on to make a leek tart, which, I must admit, sounds rather lovely, so lovely I’m very tempted to have a go at it myself, although I suppose I should wait until leeks are in season to get the most out of them.

As far as I’ve been able to ascertain, there is no English translation, which is a shame as it is one of those books that is a pleasure to read as much as an education in Romanian culinary tradition and a source of interesting recipes from that period of time. If you are, like me, an expat with some Romanian language skills, you might look for a copy. Even if some of the exchanges between Teodoreanu and ‘his friend Costache’ are a little difficult to follow due to the use of expressions and some archaic terms, the recipes themselves can be followed with a reasonable knowledge of Romanian.

Gastronomice was first edited and published in 1973 and again in 2010 and is available online and in the shops from most Romanian online bookshops. You sometimes see copies of the original 1973 version in the second-hand bookstore in Universitatea or at Obor.

Bucate, vinuri si obiceiuri romanesti

Bucate, vinuri si obiceiuri romanesti - Radu Anton Roman

The title of this books translates as 'Romanian dishes, wines and customs' and that more or less sums it up. Radu Anton Roman was (he passed away in 2005) one of the great Romanian bon vivants, famous both for his writings and his travel and food documentaries. The book must really be said to be one of the defining cookery books of traditional Romanian cuisine. Roman travelled the length and breadth of the country collecting traditional household recipes from all of the regions, listing many variations, alternatives, and tips, as well as memories from his own formative years.

This is one of those books that is a joy to read. My Romanian language skills are perhaps not yet evolved enough to really appreciate his style - I have the Romanian version of the book - but even at my linguistic level I can appreciate that he describes the recipes not only with love (and occasionally honesty - he doesn't approve of all the dishes he has included in his tome) but with a stylistic flair and casual decadence that leaves the reader in no doubt that this was a work of extreme love rather than a commercial venture. Here's a little taste, his introduction to his recipe for Cornulete Foarte Bune, or Exceedingly Good Pastry Horns:

"So good were they that when mama used to make a tray of them for us, my sister and I, so we could eat them just between the two of us, would tell the flock of children with whom we played - the offspring of a dozen streets in the centre of Fagaras - that we were heading for the countryside, to our grandmother's. Got you! Mama wasn't that kind of person, and she would call all those ravenous scruffs. And even though she didn't call them directly, she'd open the window, and once the oven has started to heat up, it amounted to the same thing. It was a sad time after dinner when we'd find ourselves wolfing down but twenty of the little horns instead of two hundred..."

If you are particularly obsessive about measurements and quantities then you'll have to take a deep breath before tackling any of the recipes in this book. As with most cookery of the countryside, quantities are often measured in terms of a 'handful' of this, or a 'lapful' of that, garnished, of course, with sprinkles, pinches, and bunches. Temperatures are rarely mentioned, so you'll have to use your common sense from time to time. I've yet to see the English version of the book but the index in the Romanian version isn't particularly helpful as in only lists recipes by name, making it hard to look up recipes that use a certain ingredient, and as the book is structured by region rather than in the traditional 'starters, poultry, fish...' way, so trying to find recipes to cook something fresh you've found in the market can be challenging.

Aside from the recipes themselves, each region has a substantial introduction and the book is littered with literary mentions of the food he describes, as well as poetry, quotations and proverbs, all which lend a certain sense of adventure and travel, both spatially and historically, to the reader's journey of discovery through its pages. As the title suggests, frequent reference is made to the local wines of each region and which would best accompany the dish in question.

If you want to order the English version of the book, you can find it at many Romanian online bookshops such as Carturesti or Paideia. The Romanian version can be found in any good bookshop or online dealer. If you love Romanian food then I strongly recommend buying this book. Anyone with an interest in the food of this country should have a copy.