In this study the attention of the scientific discussion is directed towards food viewed as intangible cultural heritage. In accordance with the UNESCO World Heritage List and UNESCO's propositions for protection of intangible cultural heritage there are three traditional dishes registered on the List of Elements of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Republic of Serbia. Furthermore, National Commission for Intangible Cultural Heritage of Romania introduces food as intangible cultural heritage and envisions a registry of intangible cultural heritage of minority communities in Romania. Anthropological and linguistic research of Serbian communities in the field in Arad County shows that traditional culture of Serbs in this county is under the impact of a strong process of transformation and modernization. Having in mind the small population of Serbs registered in a census in Arad, who are considered to be the bearers of Serbian traditional culture, the leveling of Serbian traditional culture with Romanian majority on the one hand, as well as with the global culture on the other, apparently leads to the extinction of minority culture, or at least to the loss of those elements that are considered to be important in the existing rituals of traditional culture. In this study, a. er an analysis of fieldwork data, there have been distinguished practices and elements of Christmas rituals that represent the living tradition of Serbs in Arad County in Romania In this study, a. er the analysis of the fieldwork data, some elements and practices within Christmas rituals were selected that represent the living tradition of Serbs in Arad County in Romania, while at the same time drawing attention to the processes of transformation and modernization of the rituals Special focus has been put on česnica—an important Christmas cake. Emphasis has been put to the possibility of its protection as an element of intangible cultural heritage of Serbs in Romania.
The study focuses on the tract Largum sero written by the Benedictine monk Jan of Holešov. Four fifteenth-century manuscripts of this text exist; two are preserved in the Jagiellonian library in Cracow, one in the Library of the National museum in Prague and one in the Herzog August library in Wolfenbüttel. There is also an old print from Olomouc from the mid-eighteenth century. The author of the article describes how the tract reached Czech and foreign scholars, presents available biographical data about Jan of Holešov and analyses the content of the text based on the description of folk customs. Simultaneously, he offers references and quotations of late medieval primary sources of mostly Czech origin, whose authors comment on the ideas further developed by Jan of Holešov. Finally, comparing the manuscript material and the old print, he underlines their more significant differences and briefly evaluates the importance of this medieval source.