Polish cuisine

Polish Cuisine

It is difficult to talk about pure Polish cuisine. Over centuries it has been influenced by neighbors, royal alliances, conquerors, visitors, or vassals. This way you can easily find undertones of German, Russian, Ukrainian Hungarian, Italian, French and, of course, Jewish cooking traditions in many Polish dishes. Polish cuisine is often thought to be relatively rich in fat which comes from Polish tradition of hunting game and scarcity of fresh produce in winter in the past. This is nicely balanced out by abundance of forest fruits and wild mushrooms in many Polish dishes (to these days 28% of Polish territory is covered with forest)

The Polish cuisine is famous all around the world for its sausage. The excellent taste and scent is a result of special, traditional ways of making it. Smoked on the juniper with garlic rubbed in, it is a delicacy no-one can resist. While being in Poland you will probably have the opportunity to taste Polish ham, delicate gammon, bacon etc. You cannot forget about the wide range of meat pies (pasztet) made of various kinds of meat, including venison.

Poles abroad miss also the Polish bread (wheat, brown and many more), which is exceptional while comparing to the one in other countries. "I would write a poem about Polish bread, if I could" said one of my English friends once. In fact, I would say, the only cuisine with good bread, apart from the Polish is the Arabic one. As a result of the popularity of bread in Poland, you can taste the traditional rye-bread for less than 0.5 USD per loaf (usually 0.5 kg - about 1 pound).

When it comes to dinner, a soup is an obligatory first dish. There is a lot to choose from: starting from barszcz (beetroot soup) served with uszka (little ravioli), kapuśniak (sauerkraut soup), tomato soup and ending with krupnik or mushroom soup. The soup worth separate mentioning is rosół, a clear chicken or beef soup served with noodles and greens.

The meat in Polish cuisine is prepared in various ways. It can be served hot with potatoes, rice or buckwheat, or cold with mustard, pickles and bread. The most popular meat dish is a pork chop (schabowy) and a kind of hamburger made of minced meat (mielony). The knuckle of pork (necessarily served with cold beer!) belongs to the favorite dishes of Poles. Attention! It is rather not a dish for ladies… on the other hand who knows? Two dishes that were seen as reserved for poor farmers, namely black blood sausage and lard served with little pieces of ham, garlic, onion and salt, are now offered in the best restaurants in Poland. Both the dishes taste as good as bad they sound. I

A very popular dish called "flaki" (tripe) is served in whole Poland, but it is regarded as the specialty of the capital city - Warsaw. By very special occasions a whole piglet stuffed with filling made of hot buckwheat is served.

When it comes to beef dishes, the most delicious one is called "zrazy" - beef rashers, stuffed with pickles and served with buckwheat.

The Polish cuisine is famous for its "pierogi" - smoothing sometimes compared to Italian ravioli. There are different kinds of them, or rather different stuffing - fruit (the most delicious are with berries), cottage cheese, meat, sauerkraut and mushrooms or with potatoes, cottage cheese and onion (Russian way). They are the best when fried on the oil (except from those with fruit). The pancakes (with various fillings as well), "pyzy" and "knedle" (different kinds of dumplings) are also very popular among Poles.

If I had to choose the national dish of Poland, it would be "bigos". Bigos is made of cabbage, sauerkraut, different kinds of meat, cooked and smoked, ham, mushrooms and if made the champion way often with wine. It is the most popular dish, present on Christmas, during the special events, family meetings and on every-day table. Some have made it a masterpiece of Polish cuisine, by adding secret ingredients (like plums) and making it in special ways (exact number of minutes for every activity). Anyway, bigos has become a must for those being in Poland. An alternative for bigos would be gołąbki - a filling made of buckwheat or minced meat or rice covered with pieces of cabbage. It is most often served in tomato sauce and with bread.

The most popular appetizer in Poland is herring made in various ways, in oil, in vinegar, in cream, with onion or with apples.

The meat plays an important role in Poland. But Polish cuisine is not a theatre of one actor. There are at least two who are as significant as meat. First of all: fruit and vegetables. The most important feature of Polish fruit and vegetables is that they are grown the traditional way. The usage of artificial fertilizers, herbicides, fungicides and the like is reduced to minimum. In fact, in every city there are farmer markets organized (in Warsaw quite a few), where you can buy fruit and vegetables directly from the farmers everyday. Just ask anyone on the street for the nearest bazaar.

As the competition on those markets and the supply is high, you can always choose the best from the best. Those markets are always full of apples, plums, pears, cherries, currants, gooseberries, strawberries, raspberries and vegetables like carrots, radishes, onions, parsleys and so on, and so on. All of them are free of preservatives and other chemicals. The Polish farming pride would be hurt if they offered something from a mass production. Apart from that, the quality of the products strongly influences the image of the person selling their good on such markets and would result in drop of demand for their products. That is why they care so much about the taste and freshness of fruit and vegetable.
Let's have a look at the example prices: a basket of strawberries (traditionally about 2.5 kg - about 4.5 pounds) costs about 5 zlotys (?1.5USD), the price of raspberries will attract anyone who likes this fruit, gooseberries are sold for less the nothing (?0.5USD). During the season (June) you can buy strawberries everywhere, on every corner of every street. There is no other correct decision than buying and enjoying this symbol of Polish Summer.
It is not only the farmers that sell their goods on the "bazars". There also gatherers, those who bring the gifts of the forests to those who do not have time to look for them. You can enjoy wild raspberries, blueberries, wild strawberries, cranberries etc. For example, the blueberries are sold for about 3 USD/liter. Along with the gatherers there comes the third main character of the scene of the Polish cuisine, mainly mushrooms. If the weather is fine, i.e. warm enough and there is enough rain, the Polish forests are full of wild mushrooms. The Poles like to spend their weekends gathering wild mushrooms, chanterelle mushrooms, boletuses, orange-agarics, champignons and many, many more. If you are not a fan of mushroom gathering, you can always buy them from the gatherers. You can meet them on the farmers markets, but the best way to purchase fresh mushrooms is to look for them on the sides of the highways that lead the way through the forests. If you wonder who are those people sitting on the roadside, it is them. You will be more than positively surprised with the prices they offer.

Thanks to the conditions that fruit, vegetables and mushrooms have in Poland, there is so many of them and you can enjoy them in every restaurant in Poland. It is needless to say that the mixture of fresh, juicy soft fruits and the knowledge and talent of the Polish chef results in the dishes you cannot taste anywhere in the world, but Poland. That is why you can enjoy "pierogi" with fruit filling, fruit jams (the best in the world!), fruit cakes. Mushrooms make excellent soups, main dishes, sauces and so on.

The excellent ending of a Polish dinner is a Polish dessert. One would have to choose from a wide range of traditional Polish cakes: tea bread, cheese cake, poppy-seed cake, excellent apple-pie, Easter cake etc. The Poles like doughnuts very much, especially those filled traditional way - with rose jam. There is even one day (the last Thursday of carnival) when Polish confectioneries barely manage to meet the demand and the whole Poland is in a state of doughnut craze.

Clear vodkas are a Polish specialty, but those with herbal or fruit flavor are also popular. The most original one is Żubrówka, vodka with a blade of grass from Puszcza Bialowieska (a forest region of Poland), which is meant to add a special, unique taste and flavor. Another original one is Goldwasser, enriched with 22-carate gold. The beer fans will not be disappointed in Poland. Polish breweries, like those in Germany or Czech Republic, have a very long tradition. Warka, Lech, Żywiec, Tyskie are just a few of Polish beer brands. On colder days, Poles enjoy hot beer or wine enriched with herbal spices and honey. It is also worth trying honey especially prepared for drinking.
As far as stronger alcohol is concerned, different kind of alcoholic tinctures - liqueurs are worth recommending. They have various properties, starting from medical and warming up, ending with purely taste ones.

I would like to end up with something absolutely exceptional. There is a tradition in Polish cuisine, which is non-existent in any other. It is a tradition of pickling. Pickled cucumbers, sauerkraut, beetroot are every-day elements of the meals on the Polish table. The idea of pickling is not limited to vegetables. Herring from the Baltic Sea is made with the use of vinegar and spices. It is a traditional food for Polish holy and fasting days. However, not only. It makes an excellent appetizer during any feast or party.
Furthermore there is one more thing exceptional for the Polish cuisine. Nowhere in the world can you taste milk products after the process of fermenting. That is how the sour cream, curd cheese and soured milk have become the delicacies of a Polish cuisine. And believe me, there is nothing better than young potatoes, "schabowy" (a pork chop) and a cup of soured milk served on an early summer day.

REGIONAL POLISH CUISINE

Silesia - Śląsk

Potatoes are an important ingredient of a Silesian cuisine. Dark, potato dumplings are the most famous ones. The dishes made of white and red cabbage also play an important role (often served with bacon). As far as the desserts are concerned, there is a Silesian specialty made of poppy seeds with honey, nuts, raisins, figs and almonds served on thin slices of sweet bread and covered with hot milk.

Beskid Cuisine

The most popular dish of this cuisine is a knuckle of pork, covered in beer, served with a huge amount of vegetables. The most famous soup is żur or kwaśnica - a special kind of sauerkraut soup served with a lot of smoked pork meat.

Mountain Cuisine

It is difficult to imagine the cuisine of the southern Poland without its famous cheese - oscypek and bundzu - very salty, smoked cheese made of sheep milk or without mutton with its unique taste being a result of a traditional way of corning the meat. The same concerns the ham coming from the southern Poland.

Galician Cuisine

The Galician Cuisine is strongly influenced by the Austrian and especially Vienna cuisine. A good example of that is a snack: cold pork meat, served without fat, with mustard and charlock sauce. The most popular dessert in Galicia is a cheese cake made of yolk, covered with vanilla cream or chocolate, known as the Vienna Cheesecake.

Masurian Cuisine

The cuisine from the area of the thousand lakes has a lot of German, Russian and traditional Polish influences. The most famous specialty is a soup made of various kinds of fish and crawfish, cooked with forest herbs, advisable in a cast iron pot on slow fire. At the end of boiling they put some burning birch logs to improve the aroma.
The most popular (and by the way my favorite one!) cake comes from Masurian area. It is called sękacz - it is a pyramid cake that consists of many layers. Absolutely delightful!

Eastern Cuisine

The cuisine from Eastern Poland has strong influence coming from Lvov (Ukraine). The traditional dish from that area is kulebiak made of yeast with the cabbage filling, boiled rice, eggs and fish. This dish is served along with Ukrainian barszcz (beetroot soup) made with a huge amount of vegetable and enriched with sour cream.