1518: A Royal Arrival with Italian Taste
Bona Sforza was a Milanese-Neapolitan princess raised in the culture of Renaissance Italy, and when she became Queen of Poland in 1518, she entered a court that already had its own strong culinary traditions. What Bona added was a new sense of prestige around fresh produce, garden herbs, and Italian-style kitchen organization—the idea that a refined table could be built not only on roasts and game, but also on carefully prepared vegetables, sauces, and imported delicacies. Contemporary memory later attached “Italian” to a whole category of foods, and over time this became part of how Poles explained the culinary shift of the 16th century. Bona’s influence worked in a practical way: once the royal household buys certain ingredients regularly and trains cooks to use them well, those habits travel—through nobles visiting court, through household staff changing employers, and through the wider market that starts supplying what the elite demands.

Włoszczyzna: The Most Famous “Bona Effect”
If one culinary term is tied to Bona more than any other, it is włoszczyzna—literally “Italian stuff.” In modern Polish cooking, it usually means a set of vegetables used as an aromatic base for soups and broths, commonly including carrot, parsley root, celery root, leek, and often cabbage. The popular story says Bona introduced these vegetables to Poland, and the name itself certainly encourages that belief. Yet serious discussions often add an important correction: many vegetables were known earlier, and the “Bona introduced vegetables” claim is overstated. What appears more accurate is that Bona and her Italian cooks elevated these ingredients, expanded their use at the royal table, and helped embed a vegetable-based flavor foundation into elite cuisine—making it easier for such habits to spread and become normal over time.

Gardens at Wawel: Cuisine Begins with Cultivation
Bona’s culinary legacy was not only about recipes; it was also about supply. Renaissance courts valued controlled access to fresh produce, and Bona is associated with developing Italian-style gardens connected with the royal residence. Scholarly writing on Mediterranean influence notes that she established this kind of garden on Wawel Hill, with plants that were strongly linked to southern European tastes—such as varieties of lettuce and other garden crops mentioned in discussions of Italian garden culture. This matters because it shows how cuisine changes in real life: not through a single banquet, but through a steady pipeline of ingredients that cooks can rely on. A court that can harvest herbs, greens, and vegetables more consistently can build a different daily menu. Even if some of these products existed in Poland earlier, Bona’s approach helped normalize the idea that vegetables belong at the center of refined dining, not only as “side” food but as planned, valued components of the meal.

Imports, Kitchens, and New Court Standards
Alongside local cultivation, the Bona-era court is also linked—through records and later summaries—to a taste for imported foods and spices associated with Mediterranean and Renaissance dining. Sources discussing Polish cuisine in the Renaissance period describe the royal household employing Italian chefs and importing items such as citrus fruits, olives, figs, rice, cane sugar, olive oil, and aromatic spices that signaled status and international connections. Whether every ingredient became widespread immediately is less important than the direction of change: the royal kitchen became a place where international goods were processed into local routines. This is also where Bona’s influence becomes cultural rather than purely Italian. The moment a dish is adapted to local tastes—served alongside Polish breads, soups, meats, and preserves—it stops being a foreign novelty and becomes part of the evolving national table.

Myth vs Reality: What Bona Really “Changed”
Bona Sforza’s culinary fame is strongest where story and daily life overlap. She did not magically replace Polish cuisine, and she did not invent vegetables. Even general overviews note that vegetables were present earlier, long before her marriage, but that her court helped broaden and popularize their use in fashionable circles. That distinction is crucial for an honest view of her impact. Bona’s real change was about prestige and habit: she helped make certain ingredients desirable, helped train cooks in different approaches, and reinforced a Renaissance belief that variety, freshness, and careful preparation are markers of refinement. When a practice becomes prestigious, it becomes teachable—and once it is teachable, it spreads. The “Bona effect” is therefore best understood as a shift in what people believed a good table should look like, not only what it should taste like.

A Living Legacy in Everyday Polish Cooking
Bona’s most lasting culinary footprint is how familiar her “Italian connection” still feels to Polish home cooking. The very idea of starting soup with włoszczyzna—a deliberate base of vegetables for aroma and depth—has become routine, not exotic. In that sense, her legacy is practical and visible: it’s in the shopping basket, in the pot, and in the flavor profile that defines countless Polish soups and sauces. Just as importantly, her story shows how Polish cuisine has always been capable of absorbing outside influences without losing itself. Bona Sforza did not make Poland “Italian”—she helped Polish food become more diverse, more ingredient-aware, and more connected to the broader Renaissance world. Five centuries later, her culinary reputation remains one of the clearest examples of how a single royal household can leave a trace in everyday life.