Lucyna Ćwierczakiewiczowa
Lucyna Ćwierczakiewiczowa (commonly known as Lucyna Ćwierciakiewiczowa) (1829-1901) was a Polish writer, journalist and author of the first Polish cuisine cook book.
Biography
Lucyna Ćwierczakiewiczowa was born in 1829 in Warsaw, in a notable aristocratic 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 house stocks and pastry). Her work, based both on her own culinary experience and on 17th century and 18th century memoirs by Polish szlachta, was the first Polish cook book. In 1860 she published another cook book 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 fasion. She also collaborated with Kurier Warszawski, the most notable Warsaw-based newspaper of the time. In 1870's she published several other guides to cooking, cleaning and bouquet-preparing. Since 1870 she also started to invite many prominent figures to her saloon at Królewska 3 street. Among her guests were the most influential writers and journalists of her times, including Bolesław Prus.
Her books gained very high popularity and made her the most popular author in Poland. Until 1924 her first cook book was issued 23 times, with more than 130 000 copies sold worldwide, more than all books by Henryk Sienkiewicz and Bolesław Prus combined. Because of that, she became famous but also mocked by many "serious" authors of the time. Her incredible weight (more than 130 kilograms) and haughtiness gained her a nick name of Ćwierciakiewiczowa, an allusion to the Polish word ćwierć meaning a quarter. This nick-name 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 propaganda and short novels and poems.
She died February 26, 1901 in Warsaw. She is buried in the Powązki cemetery.