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“Calistrat Hogas� National College Piatra-Neamt
Romanian cuisine is a diverse blend of different dishes from several traditions with which it has come into contact, but it also maintains its own character. It has been greatly influenced by Ottoman cuisine, while it also includes influences from the cuisines of other neighbours, such as Germans, Serbs, Bulgarians and Hungarians.
*Ancient history *Dacian cuisine: Cheese was known since Ancient history. Brânză is the generic word for cheese in Romanian. This word is from Dacian. In addition to cheese, Dacians ate vegetables (lentil, peas, spinach, garlic) and fruits (grapes, apples, raspberries) with high nutritional value. The Dacians produced wine in massive quantities. Once Burebista, a Dacian king, angered by the wine abuse of his warriors, cut the vines; his people gave up drinking wine. Legend says that the Dacian people created their own beer.
Although they excelled at breeding cattle and were good at growing crops, the Dacians were not as adepts at preparing dairy products, preferring to consume milk (from sheep and cows) in its raw form, while the vegetables which were known to them at the time were eaten boiled (boiled millet, boiled buckwheat, as well as the celebrated boiled wheat, which, as time passed, become what we know today in Romania as ‘coliva„, a type of porridge).
*Roman influence: With Romans, came a certain taste, rooted in the centuries for the pastry made with cheese, like alivenci, pască, or brânzoaice. Introduction of porridge by the Romans, who ate millet porridge called polenta. The Roman occupation brought with it to our lands, among other things, the well-known pie called „placinta’ (placenta in Latin), a range of soups and broths, bread (flatbreads or baked breads), coldpressed olive oil kept in amphorae, as well as the cloche (an earthenware pot with a bell-shaped lid; an ancestor of today‟s pressure cooker).
*Ottoman influence For 276 years, Romania was under the rules of the Ottoman Empire. Turkish cuisine changed the Romanian table with appetizers made of eggplant, peppers or other vegetables, various meat preparations like spicy chiftele (deep-fried meat balls), and the famous mici (short sausages without casings, usually barbecued). The various ciorbe (sour soups), and vegetablesand-meat stews, such as iahnie de fasole (beans), ardei umpluti (stuffed peppers), and sarmale (stuffed cabbage) are also of Turkish (and Arab) influence. The beloved rich (Romanian) tomato salad is a version of the Lebanese dish. And a unique procession of sweets, pastries combining honey and nuts, such as baklava, sarailie (serai-gli), halva, and rahat(Turkish delight), which is nowadays used in cakes.
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GREEK influence
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in this period of history, the influence of the Greek Orthodox patriarchy on the majority of the land owners pushed the church towards a more rural environment, where the majority of the monasteries were to be found; an action that lead to the birth of the gastronomic calendar of religious vegan fasting periods (called „post’ in Romanian). * This meant that various foods were assimilated into the Romanian diet, such as; sarmale (stuffed cabbage leaves) with walnuts or raisins, baked celeriac with olives, „caviar’ for post (usually made with semolina flour), vinegary dock leaves, mashed nettles with garlic sauce and mamaliga, monastery-style mushroom stew, mashed beans, eggplant croquettes, and others.
* The
truly modern period in Romania cuisine started, however, after the Great Unification of 1918, when, in Bucharest and other major cities around the country, luxurious restaurants began to open, into whose kitchens chefs would be brought in from the west, in particular from France or Germany, as well as the numerous local eateries that opened up around city neighbourhoods providing popular music to their clients. * Of overwhelming importance to the revolution in Romania cuisine was the opening by one Grigore Capsa of a complete dining complex – cafeteria, restaurant, and hotel: The Casa Capsa.
Communism Influence With the arrival of Communism in 1947, Romanian gastronomy suffered some new modifications, starting with the censorship and eventually the elimination, as far as possible, of signs of westernization (they being maintained more or less exclusively for the social elite of that period) and eventually arriving at a more scientific and practical form of provisioning. This period, left a long-lasting impression on the „culinaryâ€&#x; attitude of Romanians, who, once they had escaped from the bonds of those times, made a beeline straight for anything imported and beautifully packaged, without taking into account how healthy it was or was not, quickly getting used to purchasing fast food and junk food to the detriment of traditional Romanian dishes, which, are quite unfairly ignored by the majority of the population.
The changes in food tendencies are directly influenced by those of eating habits. In the case of Romanians, as most other countries, those changes occured because of factors such as the everyday stress, peopleâ€&#x;s inevitably charged schedule and the industrialized processing of foods. Cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, obesity or cancer are these daysâ€&#x; most encountered diseases, which can be prevented through carefully-balanced diets. Expert medical figures say that Romanians nowadays have formed a series of bad eating habits that are causing them to lose that much-needed nutritional balance.
* THE MAIN MEAL OF THE DAY IS DINNER. Due to our loaded
schedules, we have the tendency to eat our most consistent meal in the evening, even though, according to nutritionists, breakfast should be the most important meal. 16% of Romanians prefer a quick snack for breakfast, which consists of either salty or sweet pastry products, cereal or sandwiches, all fairly unhealthy choices. In order to have a balanced alimentation, we mustnâ€&#x;t skip breakfast, because it represents 20-25% of our recommended daily nutritional requirement. Nutritionists also suggest that our evening meals are light and low in calories, as the metabolism slows down at night and we risk putting on unnecessary weight.
* Daily,
we eat the same kind of food. The great diversity of products available to us is only apparent because, actually, our food is monotonous and mainly consists of a couple kinds of cereal, potatoes cooked in many ways, a few sortiments of meat – especially the fat one, eggs obtained from birds grown in industrialized conditions, artificial fats and over-refined oils. Specialists say that the human body needs over 50 essential nutrients in order to develop and stay healthy
physically and mentally. This milleniumâ€&#x;s alimentation is,
indeed, tasty, but devitalized.
*Microwaves and Poptarts The way we eat and prepare food has changed hugely for the average family over the last few generations. When our parents and grandparents were children, food was generally prepared by the woman of a household. The family was expected to eat whatever was provided rather than being choosy about special likes and dislikes. Today, packaged foods such as crisps or string cheeses, ready meals and new kitchen technologies such as microwaves have changed things dramatically - in many homes different family members help themselves to food throughout the day, often preparing it themselves. Even young children can work microwaves, and will make a „poptartâ€&#x; for breakfast or a hot snack when they return home from school.
* The old fashioned ritual of eating as a family round
the dinner table has been replaced in many families with separate snacks eaten in front of the television, or standing in the kitchen.
* Fruits and vegetables are only eaten occasionally.
Nutritionists warn us that, for the well-functioning of the human organism, fruits and vegetables are to be eaten daily. Actually, half of the daily meal must contain fruits and vegetables, as these foods are great sources of vitamins, minerals and antioxidants, essential to the organism.
* We
use too many sauces and dressings for almost anything. Doctors say that sauces added to steaks and a portion of fried potatoes raise the number of calories per meal. If we really canâ€&#x;t let go of the sauces, specialists recommend we pick the healthy kinds, such as mustard – it cuts from the calories of stakes and potatoes, meaning it stimulates their burning.
* Sodas have replaced water. Nutritionists say that the
human organism needs to be permanently hydrated. Juices bought from stores dehydrate our bodies. Another minus of these drinks is that they donâ€&#x;t provide the body with any nutrients.