Alex Drace-Francis

Spot the mirabelle(s)

Mirabelle plums windfall

Episode 3 (was windy today)

Mirabelle plum compote on this day in 2022

Making mirabelle plum compote today

2022 vs 2025 - plus ça change, plus c’est la même compote

Rhubarb, mirabelle plums, raspberries & blackberries, basket

Saturday #ilfautcultiver

Lottery ticket from 1833 i win a house in Bucharest!
(Romanian Academy Library)
aleph23.biblacad.ro:8991/F/F5CK2AQKS1...

Mirabelle plums in a bowl

Brown soup in a black bowl

Mirabelle plums vs. parsnip & mushroom soup

This article summarizes the authorship debate: www.prouniversitaria.ro/wp-content/u...

Details of the serialization here, from Bibliografia analitică a periodicelor româneşti, vol. II, pt. iii, p. 1212.
The appearance of the book edition is announced in early 1858 (ibid., pt. i, p. 23).
There is a long-standing debate over the exact authorship which I haven't gone through fully...

Yes it's curious. Ferdinand Ohm worked for Rosetti since the 1840s before setting up an independent imprint in the 1850s, not sure exactly when, so maybe that played a role. Also I believe the novel was serialized in Românul newspaper in 1857, again don't have exact details

Doamna L., Omul muntelui. Romans original [Mrs. L., The Man of the Mountain. Original Romance], the first Romanian novel published by a woman, has two title pages, one saying Bucharest 1857, the other Bucharest 1858
www.europeana.eu/en/item/954/...

Mary Shelley on Invention (Frankenstein, preface to 1831 edn.)

Word counts for history journal articles should be proportionate to what needs to be said - what is wrong with 1000 or 20000 words?

4. Every other discipline thinks they can do history but they often cannot

I guess if you had big ones you could parboil & butter the flesh, and crisp the peel

Thanks - I don't usually peel parsnips, and I think they are too fibrous to mash. So I think stock is the best option

Parsnips dry out very nicely - can I use them for making stock, like porcini? Any ideas welcome

Commit No Nuisance

C'est la contemplation silencieuse des atlas, à plat ventre sur le tapis, entre dix et treize ans, qui donne ainsi l'envie de tout planter là. Songez à des régions comme le Banat, la Caspienne, le Cachemire, aux musiques qui y résonnent, aux regards qu'on y croise, aux idées qui vous y attendent... Lorsque le désir résiste aux premières atteintes du bon sens, on lui cherche des raisons. Et on en trouve qui ne valent rien. La vérité, c'est qu'on ne sait comment nommer ce qui vous pousse. Quelque chose en vous grandit et détaché les amarres, jusqu'au jour où, pas trop sûr de soi, on s'en va pour de bon. Un voyage se passe de motifs. Il ne tarde pas à prouver qu'il se suffit à lui-même. On croit qu'on va faire un voyage, mais bientôt c'est le voyage qui vous fait, ou vous défait.

Lire, relire, lire à nouveau L’usage du monde de Nicolas Bouvier 🇨🇭
« Un voyage se passe de motifs. Il ne tarde pas à prouver qu'il se suffit à lui-même. On croit qu'on va faire un voyage, mais bientôt c'est le voyage qui vous fait, ou vous défait. »

Dimitrie Bolintineanu, Cântece şi plângeri [Songs and plaints], a volume of Romanian poetry published in 'transition alphabet', i.e. a mixture of Cyrillic and Roman letters - Iasi, 1852

Dimitrie Bolintineanu, Cântece şi plângeri (Iaşi, 1852) - transition alphabet in sans-serif!
books.google.co.uk/books?id=t2Q...

Not some kind of American mămăligă then?

Jules Jacot-Guillarmod, Maize harvest in Transylvania (1870) - Musée d'art et d'histoire de Neuchâtel

Idem, Maize harvest in Transylvania (1870)
- Musée d'art et d'histoire de Neuchâtel

Le cortège de noce en Valachie de Jules Jacot Guillarmod, 1866 Huile sur toile, 152 x 226 cm

A Swiss painter's idea of a Wallachian wedding procession (Jules Jacot-Guillarmod, 1866)

F. Milleker, Geschichte des Buchdruckes und des Zeitungswesens im Banat, 1769–1922 (Belacrkva, 1926), cover

On the history of printing in the Banat - nice book cover, published in Bela Crkva (Weißkirchen) in 1926

When you do peer review and the piece is published with NO reply or any attention to your comments
(not saying I was right, but what happened to scholarly communication?) 😒

My book Persistent Illusions: Visual Culture and Historical Memory in Interwar Hungary is now published!

Many thanks to @bethanywasik.bsky.social and @cornellupress.bsky.social for all their work on this.

www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501...

Today in literal translation #indifferenziato

Strongly relate...

Thanks so much Ilinca!

As a historian, I have been curious (and appalled) by this choice of pseudo. The interpretation below is quite common, but not in fact correct. It was an 1865 law (sénatus-consulte) that made “Muslim Algerians” (a racial category divorced from actual faith) French nationals without citizenship 1/

Exciting news - they made me an Honorary Member of the Romanian Writers' Union!