Lucyna Cwierczakiewiczowa
Encyclopedia
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
writer, journalist and author of Polish cookery
Polish cuisine
Polish cuisine is a style of cooking and food preparation originating from Poland. It has evolved over the centuries due to historical circumstances. Polish national cuisine shares some similarities with other Central European and Eastern European traditions as well as French and Italian...
books.
Lucyna Ćwierczakiewiczowa was born in Warsaw
Warsaw
Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most...
, in the notable family of von Bachman. In 1858 she published her first book Jedyne praktyczne przepisy wszelkich zapasów spiżarnianych oraz pieczenia ciast (The only practical compendium of recipes for all household stocks and pastry). Her work based both on her own culinary experience and on 17th century and 18th century memoirs by Polish szlachta
Szlachta
The szlachta was a legally privileged noble class with origins in the Kingdom of Poland. It gained considerable institutional privileges during the 1333-1370 reign of Casimir the Great. In 1413, following a series of tentative personal unions between the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Kingdom of...
. In 1860 she published another cookbook 365 obiadów za pięć złotych (365 meals for less than 5 zlotys).
In 1865 she started her own column in the Bluszcz weekly dealing with cuisine and fashion. She also collaborated with Kurier Warszawski
Kurier Warszawski
The Kurier Warszawski was a daily newspaper printed in Warsaw, Poland from 1821 to 1939, with two editions daily from 1873. It was selling 4,000 copies in 1868, and over 20,000 copies after 1883....
, the most notable Warsaw
Warsaw
Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most...
-based newspaper
Newspaper
A newspaper is a scheduled publication containing news of current events, informative articles, diverse features and advertising. It usually is printed on relatively inexpensive, low-grade paper such as newsprint. By 2007, there were 6580 daily newspapers in the world selling 395 million copies a...
of the time. In the 1870s she published several other guides to cooking, cleaning and flower arrangement. She also began to invite many prominent figures to her salon
Salon (gathering)
A salon is a gathering of people under the roof of an inspiring host, held partly to amuse one another and partly to refine taste and increase their knowledge of the participants through conversation. These gatherings often consciously followed Horace's definition of the aims of poetry, "either to...
at 3 Królewska Street. Among her guests were the most influential writers and journalists of her time, including Bolesław Prus.
Her books made her the most popular author in Poland. Before 1924 her first cook book was issued 23 times, with more than 130 thousand copies sold worldwide, more than all the books by Henryk Sienkiewicz
Henryk Sienkiewicz
Henryk Adam Aleksander Pius Sienkiewicz was a Polish journalist and Nobel Prize-winning novelist. A Polish szlachcic of the Oszyk coat of arms, he was one of the most popular Polish writers at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, and received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1905 for his...
and Bolesław Prus combined. Because of that, she became famous but was also mocked by many "serious" authors of the time. Her incredible weight (more than 130 kilograms) and haughtiness gained her a nickname of Ćwierciakiewiczowa, an allusion to the Polish
Polish language
Polish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries...
word ćwierć meaning a quarter. This nickname became so popular that nowadays her name is frequently misspelt, even in serious publications.
Since 1875 Ćwierczakiewiczowa devoted herself to preparing a yearly publication for women named Kolęda dla Gospodyń. It was a calendar filled with cooking recipes, women's suffrage
Women's suffrage
Women's suffrage or woman suffrage is the right of women to vote and to run for office. The expression is also used for the economic and political reform movement aimed at extending these rights to women and without any restrictions or qualifications such as property ownership, payment of tax, or...
propaganda and short novels and poems.
She died in Warsaw
Warsaw
Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most...
and is buried in the Protestant Reformed Cemetery in Warsaw
Protestant Reformed Cemetery in Warsaw
, The Evangelical Reformed Cemetery in Warsaw is a historic Calvinist Protestant cemetery located in the Wola district, western part of Warsaw, Poland.-Details:The cemetery was established in 1792 and is located in the Wola district...
.