Kürtőskalács, or chimney cake, is a Hungarian bakery specialty, made from sweet, yeast dough. The Hungarian lexeme kürtőskalács has two etymological explanations, and it has a lot of synonyms. The disputes over the paternity of this product between Romanian authorities and Hungarians have made us consider the history and origin of the term, the evolution of the recipe, and other additional information regarding linguistic, cultural, and translational implications (we have identified the first attempts to translate the recipe of the dish into Romanian). The very first written recipe known today dates back to 1784, when Gazda Aszszonyi Böltseségnek Tárháza, Dániel Istvánné Gróf Mária Mikes’s cookery book was issued, although the word had been mentioned in much older documents. The name kürtőskalács has not penetrated the Romanian language yet, although attempts to translate its recipe can be spotted in the 19th century. The words used by Romanians are either transcriptions or borrowings, or adapted or coined variants (cozonac secuiesc, colac secuiesc) or even calques (the case of tulnic, which is used to echo the phonetic similarity of kürt (trumpet) and kürtő (chimney stove) in Hungarian, as tulnic means a kind of trumpet). Our research focuses on the history of this product, the history of the words related to it, taking into account one of the most interesting parts of gastronomic literature, i.e. the history of cookery books.
