Polenta or Mamaliga? British Perceptions of a South-east European Dish

Authors

  • Angela Jianu Independent Scholar Author

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1558/ppc.28062

Keywords:

polenta, cornmeal, pellagra, maize, iconic foods, mămăligă, Romania, Columbian exchange, preparations & techniques, 18th century, 19th-century, national dish, peasant foods, folk traditions, recipe, vitamin deficiencies, Food and Health, staple foods

Abstract

This article focuses on the historical importance of cornmeal preparations in Romania, especially among the poor during the 18th and 19th- centuries, and the consequences of over-reliance on this food which, when not properly prepared, leads to the potentially fatal  disease of Pellagra, caused by a lack of the vitamin niacin (vitamin B3). 

Author Biography

  • Angela Jianu, Independent Scholar

    Angela Jianu has a PhD from the University of York (UK) and has taught modern European history at the Universities of Warwick and Oxford. She currently works as an independent historian. Her most recent publication is Earthly Delights – Economies and Cultures of Food in Ottoman and Danubian Europe, c. 1500–1900, co-edited with Violeta Barbu (Brill, Leiden, June 2018).

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Published

2019-06-01

Issue

PPC 114 (2019)

Section

Articles

How to Cite

Jianu, Angela. 2019. “Polenta or Mamaliga? British Perceptions of a South-East European Dish”. Petits Propos Culinaires, June, 28-36. https://doi.org/10.1558/ppc.28062.