Secrets of the Old Polish ukha by the recipes from the manuscript of the 18th ct. "Zbiуr dla kuchmistrza tak potraw jako ciast robenia" from the funds of the Institute of Manuscript of Vernadsky National Library of Ukraine

An unknown recipe text from a manuscript culinary book in Polish, deposited in the Institute of Manuscript of Vernadsky National Library of Ukraine is introduced to science for the fi rst time. The text publication “Sposуb warzenia ryb do szarej i żółtej juchy” and its translation into Ukrainian make it possible to consider it as a valuable source on the history of Old Polish cooking in the mid-18th century. Based on the textological analysis of the recipe, attention is paid to the “secrets” of the kitchen master’s art, and alongside this, the characteristic features of the author’s style and language of the 18th century are traced. On the example of the “Sposób warzenia ryb do szarej i żółtej juchy” recipe, the level of culinary knowledge and skills of cooks of the Ukrainian-Polish borderlands of the mid-18th c. is shown. The ukha proposed in the recipe, firstly, was a lean fish dish, the preparation of which was based on the humoral theory popular in that era to regulate the balance of fluids in the human body; secondly, the fish ukha was intended for the aristocratic table of the Polish elite, judging by imported expensive spices as part of the ingredients. The text contains information about the measures of weight, borrowed from pharmaceutical practice, for spices stored in a box, like jewels. Thirdly, the details relating to the organization of labor in the old Polish cuisine of the mid-eighteenth century are of interest. An anonymous author of the “Sposób warzenia ryb do szarej i ółtej juchy”recipe is characterized by its own interpretation of the dish, due to his culinary skills and intuition. Publication of the text is presented in a transliterated form, in accordance with the principles of the publication of Polish historical sources. The recipe is accompanied by the Old Polish dictionary of historical, culinary, metric, monetary, and household terms, as well as a list of Latin phrases and abbreviations.