It took us a while, but we made it. Nearly a year after launching gastroart.ro, we’ve started another project – a natural one, we like to think: GastroArt Publishing. With great excitement, we’re announcing the release (by the end of this month) of our first book, “Christ Ionnin – Romanian Cuisine,” edited and annotated by Simona Lazăr.
The volume is the first republishing of the texts of an author we know very little about. “Romanian Cuisine: A Book Comprising Several Recipes for Food and Buffet,” owned by Christ Ionnin, Bucharest, Stephan Rassidescu Typography, was published for the first and only time in 1865 and was the first to use the term “Romanian Cuisine.” We were in the period after the 1859 Union and before 1878, when independence was recognized – a time when “Romanian” & “Romania” were only just beginning to take hold. We’ve made this very brief digression to explain why the title might seem misleading, given that the recipes in the book aren’t necessarily authentic.
“It’s the only new cookbook printed in the Romanian Principalities during Cuza’s era, and even though not all the recipes within are authentically Romanian, we at least owe the author, Christ Ionnin, this fortunate pairing of words. «Romanian Cuisine: A Book Comprising Several Recipes for Food and Buffet» (Owner: Christ Ionnin, Bucharest, Stephan Rassidescu Typography, 1865) has the merit of placing a handful of Romanian recipes – some of the zahana type, specific to 19th-century Bucharest neighborhoods – alongside foreign recipes gathered from other books. Although the preface promised further editions, the author stopped at just the one. 153 years later, in 2018, GastroArt Publishing takes on the task of bringing back into the light the book that planted the seed of national gastronomic awareness”, says Simona Lazăr, who edited the new edition, wrote the preface, and contributed more than 200 footnotes.
Simona Lazăr is a poet, prose writer, editor, and journalist, a member of the Romanian Union of Professional Journalists and the Romanian Association of Tourism Journalists and Writers. She has published two cookbooks: “Easter Recipes,” co-written with Simona Chiriac (2007), and “Selected Recipes for Lent and Christmas” (2010), both published by Editura “Jurnalul” (Bucharest). At Editura Cartex (Bucharest), she published “The Gastronomic Dictatorship: 1501 Dishes” by Constantin Bacalbașa – an edited and prefaced edition with several hundred notes and anecdotes. She has written prefaces for: “Turda Culinary Recipes,” Dana Deac, reDescoperă publishing house, Cluj-Napoca, 2005; “The Useful Little Book” (a reissue of the first domestic-economy book published in Bucharest, in 1806), Editura Jurnalul, Bucharest, 2005; “Cookbook: 190 Recipes Selected and Tested by a Friend of All Housewives,” by Maria Maurer (a reissue of the first cookbook printed in Wallachia, in 1847, in Bucharest), Editura Jurnalul, Bucharest, 2006; “Our Food: A Book of More or Less Romanian Dishes,” Horia Vîrlan, Editura NOI – Mediaprint, Bucharest, 2009; “77 Stories and Recipes from the Golden Age,” Veronica Bectaș, Editura Cartex, Bucharest, 2010. She edited the newest edition of Radu Anton Roman’s cookbook, released in a new, illustrated, and revised format under the title “The Stories of Romanian Cuisine” (7 volumes, Editura Jurnalul and Editura Paideia, 2010). In this new series, she writes the preface for Volume II.
GastroArt Publishing
It’s no coincidence that GastroArt Publishing announces its existence and ambitious projects with this first title, which, among other things, has the merit of being the first to use the term «Romanian cuisine». Many more books will follow, all meant to help us rediscover Romania’s gastronomic heritage and, why not, help us shake off the culinary snobbery that has crept into the collective mindset.
GastroArt Publishing specializes in gastronomy and related fields. We will publish exclusively titles from this niche – both important reissues for Romania’s culinary history, as well as translations and original works. We’re open to collaborations, and we look forward to your emails at cosmin.dragomir@gastroart.ro. In principle, we’re looking for good people who can host delivery points for us (especially in major cities), media partners, partner stores, and potential sponsors 🙂
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