„A Peasant Eats Meat When the Hen Is Sick or He Is Sick”: On Folk Vegetarian Cuisine in the Context of the Krajna Lexicon

Abstract

Culinary terms belong to one of the broadest and most heterogeneous thematic fields in the Polish folk language (and not only). It is not surprising considering the immeasurable abundance of the food culture of rural Poland. Due to its indisputable taste and nutritional values, meat was an extremely highly valued product in the Polish folk diet. However, given consumption minimalism and food restrictions, folk cuisine was based in particular on cereals, vegetables, fruit and dairy products. Meat products and meat dishes – as a rarity – were present on the peasant table only on special occasions. The situation was similar in Krajna. The aim of this paper is a three-dimensional – genetic, geographical and semantic – analysis of the Krajna culinary terms related to vegetarian cuisine, which is further divided into five fields: 1) cereal products and dishes, 2) vegetables, vegetable products and vegetable dishes, 3) fruit and fruit products, 4) mushrooms, 5) dairy products and dairy foods. The subject of the studies undertaken are mainly culinary terms collected from lexicographic research (Słownictwo krajniackie. Słownik gwary wsi Podróżna w Złotowskiem by Władysław Brzeziński [1982–2009] and Mały słownik gwary krajeńskiej by Jowita Kęcińska-Kaczmarek [2017]) as well as dialect atlases (Atlas językowy kaszubszczyzny i dialektów sąsiednich [1964–1978] and Atlas języka i kultury ludowej Wielkopolski [1979–2005]) which evidence the linguistic heritage of Krajna. This material is supplemented with data from regional cookbooks as well as amateur dialect dictionaries.