An initiative group composed of gastronomy experts is requesting, through an open letter addressed to Amazon, that some books on Romanian gastronomy sold by this company have their category changed from Gastronomy to Fantasy.
This initiative was started by culinary journalist Cosmin Dragomir (cosmindragomir.ro), the publisher of vinul.ro magazine – Cezar Ioan (both initiators of the National Day of Gastronomy and Wine in Romania law), and Cătălin Mahu, the entrepreneur who runs a chain of Romanian-specific restaurants. They were joined by other personalities from the hospitality industry, and anyone can support the initiative by signing a petition launched alongside the open letter.
To the attention of Amazon management,
Firstly, we would like to congratulate you because through the breadth of your business, books that popularize Romanian gastronomy and traditional recipes can reach almost all corners of the world. We are glad that this allows us to promote our country and its specific dishes, and even though we are aware that Romania is not yet an alluring destination for enogastronomic tourism, we hope that, in the near future, we will become a target for gourmands and gourmet lovers from many more countries. A simple search on Amazon’s websites can find dozens of book titles promising readers authentic or traditional Romanian recipes. Many of them are written by foreign authors, and Amazon is a rather unique source through which we can purchase these publishing releases. Therefore, in recent months, we have purchased many books, which, at first glance (referring to the title, cover, and sometimes description), present recipes that should relate to what we could define as traditional Romanian cuisine.
We have analyzed a large part of these volumes and noted that many of them are more akin to the fantasy genre than to realism. Among these books, there are two distinctly different categories: some signed by real individuals who, for some unknown reason, have published texts following superficial research, and there are books printed on demand from collections that cover gastronomies from all over the world, misprinted and mistranslated with an ancestor of automatic translation software.
To not take up too much of your time, and hoping you will use the time saved by shortening this letter to treat our request with seriousness and urgency, we highlight some of the glaring errors encountered in these books. The end of this letter contains a list of volumes which we submit for your attention, and we announce that we are at your disposal for any further details, including sending photos of the recipes that are the subject of this request.
We pride ourselves on our Radauti soup, but it does not contain guinea pigs. Indeed, we prefer the meaty pigs we fatten for a year, and the small furry ones considered delicacies in other regions are raised by us only as pets. Tofu is an Asian ingredient that has recently entered the Romanian market, and nobody could claim that a tofu spread is traditional. Our beloved “mititei” contain garlic and, with an EU derogation, baking soda, never onions, just as our tripe soup does not have potatoes even in the pots of our least skilled cooks. We consume a lot of salmon, but our grandparents and parents did not serve it because it does not grow in our rivers, just as the Alaskan King Crab is not acclimatized here. We have dozens of types of sarmale, but those with chickpeas are unheard of here, and if someone has recently experimented with such a recipe, it’s merely an exception and not at all representative of Romania.
We are aware that the entire Amazon team strives to continually improve the service, and we are not so naive to think that employees could individually check every product out of the millions available.
We write this letter precisely to ease your work and prevent the dissatisfaction of other customers or, worse, misleading them inadvertently. And do not think we expect you to take our word for it, but only to allocate a little time to investigate the claims made in these lines.
We are at your disposal to provide dozens, perhaps even hundreds, of other compelling examples. We thank you in advance for the time devoted to our request and, hoping that together we can accurately present reality, we also present the list of titles that are the subject of this letter:
All Along The Danube, Marina Polvay
The Dracula Cookbook, Marina Polvay
The Ultimate Romanian Cookbook, Slavka Bodic (111 tasty dishes from Romania to cook right now)
The ultimate Romanian Cookbook Jeri W. Dean (delicious Romanian foods to prepare)
Romanian Cookbook, Liam Luxe
Dracula’s table, Nataliya Popova
Romanian Cookbook, Brenda G. Crouch (quick easy and simple authentic recipes from Romania to prepare at home easily)
Romanian Cookbook, Amaya Williams (120 delicious and traditional Romanian recipes to cook right now)
The complete Romanian cookbook, Thelma J. Ruiz
The food & cooking of Romania & Bulgaria, Silvena Johan Lauta
Signed, the the founders of weareromania.com
Cosmin Dragomir, Cezar Ioan, Cătălin Mahu
contact: cosmin.dragomir@gastroart.ro
