Cook
From ThreadsOfTime
Contents |
The Role of Food
Food plays a very important part in the social lives of the people of Buda-Pest. Aside from providing basic sustenance, dining is also one of the most important ways that they exchange information. The dining process might last for two hours in some upper-class households. It is not unusual for a conversation that began at a dinner table to continue well into the night. The taverns also provide the food, drink, and atmosphere the helps propel gossip. On numerous occasions, the commoners retire to one of the taverns to continue their discussions with food and drink.
Palace Serves Finest Foods
The foods and preparation techniques used vary depending upon the wealth and social standing of the citizenry. Meals at the Palace served those at the pinnacle of social standing. They employ as close to professionally trained cooks as one can. Known as 'principal cooks', these men are the highest paid servants on the property. They serve an apprenticeship and have a level of training and skill unmatched in anywhere else. The Palace is able to afford these cooks with the best-equipped kitchen in the country.
Nobility Fashion
The nobility is next in wealth and status. They demonstrate their social standing by providing a wide variety of meats and sweets at each meal prepared in a more traditional Hungarian fashion. The nobles employ cooks who are less formally experienced than the Royalty's cooks, but they are extremely skilled nonetheless. Highly skilled cooks are an expensive and prized possession.
Middling class provided less variety
Next in social standing is the middling class, who are less able to provide the variety and choices that the Nobility could. They emulate the Nobility when entertaining but eat more basic foods on a daily basis. The upper middling classes may employ cooks, while the less well-off rely on the cooking talents of the mistress of the house.
Lower class prepared one-pot meals
Most citizens fall into the bottom rung of the social ladder. The poor are very limited in cooking equipment, often having only one cast iron pot. The wife of the house prepares basic soups and grain porridges. The most common type is hominy, made from corn, often flavored with salt-cured pork and vegetables. This basic diet is supplemented with whatever meats and vegetables they can obtain.
Gallery
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
