Every ancient Polish manor has its own cookery book, the growth of centuries; carefully bound, exquisitely-penned recipes, yellow with age. In those far-away times, when guests were awaited and some of those wonderful recipes were in course of realization, the cook was not grudged a bottle of good old honey wine to maintain him in a good humor or reproached if he used a pound or two of butter.
Among those recipes we should not fail to find one for Bigos, a most delectable dish served at every hunting party. In Pan Tadeusz, Middewicz said, "There has been a bearhunt. The bear is killed; a great fire is made and while the Bigos is warming in a mighty pot, the hungry hunters drink crystal clear, gold-flecked wodka from Gdansk."