Culinaria Banatica Lectures 7: The Cookbook from Szeged, Bestseller for 150 Years

The order of Piarist monks settles in Szeged in 1720 and establishes an educational institution here where, until 1909, when the Piarist high school in Timișoara opens, hundreds of boys from the entire Banat, Hungarians, Romanians, Germans, Serbs, will be educated , Christians and Jews.

The Piarist high school also had a canteen, where meals were prepared for teachers and students alike. "Tanti Rézi" (Tereza Doletsko, 1818 – 1883) was a cook at this canteen for decades. Following her vast experience, "tanti Rézi" publishes, in 1876, a collection of culinary recipes under the title Cookbook from Szeged.

To date, the book has appeared in dozens of editions, being present in most homes in Szeged and its surroundings. The Hungarian writer, Tömörkény István, himself a pupil of the Piarists in the 1870s, wrote about the recipes of the famous "Tanti Rézi": "They were not just simple dishes, but real poetic creations. Some complicated, refined Alexandrian verses, others funny, playful love poems…”

The guests of this event will be Mihaela Bucin, ethnologist and lecturer at the University of Szeged with extensive experience in the study of the Romanian language and literature, Anca Beca, editor of the radio show "O Voce Românească", with a passion for local culture and traditions, and Camelia Burghele, ethnologist and cultural anthropologist specialized in traditional therapeutic magic and the dynamics of cultural processes in traditional Romanian villages.

The project is part of the national cultural programme "Timișoara – European Capital of Culture in 2023" and is funded through the Grow Timișoara 2023 programme, implemented by the Center for Projects Timișoara, with funds allocated from the state budget, through the budget of the Ministry of Culture.

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Culinaria Banatica

Culinaria Banatica