Polish Eating Impressions

[scatts]

Pawi,

I think Leslie was referring to the fact that my ball is on Nov 24th, not Burns' night.

Do really most English people look down on Scots?

No, but most Scots do look down on the English.

[leslie]

Pawi

You have some funny ideas in Poland of events in Britain. Burns Night is the traditional Scottish festival and is celebrated every year on January 25, the main feature being the piping in of the Haggis (piping in = with bagpipers) when everybody stands in homage to the haggis as the memory of Rabbie Burns.

But there is a minor tradition in Scotland (and for Scots exiled in England etc) and that is whenever the haggis is eaten, at any time, the timereous beastie is sure to be roaming about.

Leslie

[Pawian]

scatts said:

Pawi,

I think Leslie was referring to the fact that my ball is on Nov 24th, not Burns' night.

Well, mentioning Burns in the post concerning the haggis as well as the mention of a celebration together with its date produced such an effect on me that I thought Leslie didn`t know when Burns Night takes place.

No, but most Scots do look down on the English.

I know this syndrome, it also exists in Poland, we look down on Russians, sort of a national complex therapy.

[justjohn]

Pawian,
Those nalesniki look exactly like my mother and now my wife make.

Here it is hard to find a farmers cheese. We would blend sugar and eggs into the cheese to make a sweet cheese for the crepe roll.

A more current filling would be preserved fruit instead of cheese and here in New Hampshire we will add a little maple syrup to the completed product.

[Pawian]

justjohn said:

Pawian,
Those nalesniki look exactly like my mother and now my wife make.

I think it is the most popular way of cooking them in Poland too.

Here it is hard to find a farmers cheese. We would blend sugar and eggs into the cheese to make a sweet cheese for the crepe roll.

The same in Poland. People make their own sweet cheese stuffing instead of buying ready-made one.

A more current filling would be preserved fruit instead of cheese and here in New Hampshire we will add a little maple syrup to the completed product.

Yes, kids like pancakes with syrup. Mine too.

[Pawian]

School Christmas supper

[valpomike]

Pawian,

Please tell us what each plate has on it, and what it is called in Polish and English, and what is in it, if you can.
Great photo's.

Michael Dabrowski

[Pawian]

valpomike said:

Pawian,

Please tell us what each plate has on it, and what it is called in Polish and English, and what is in it, if you can.
Great photo's.

Michael Dabrowski

This is a traditional Christmas supper proper for fasting time. It consists of only two courses because Polish schools are not too rich! (The supper is on the school). Besides, it isn`t food that is so important but something else.

The soup is white borsch - (barszcz biały) with pasta (makaron). Dried noble mushrooms (grzyby suszone) give the flavour.

The second course is traditional fried carp (karp) with boiled cabbage (kapusta) and white bread (chleb).

To drink is dried pear drink (kompot).

[valpomike]

Pawian,

Thank you very much, and could be others wanted to know also. Did it taste as good as it looked?

Michael Dabrowski

[Pawian]

valpomike said:

Pawian,

Thank you very much, and could be others wanted to know also. Did it taste as good as it looked?

Michael Dabrowski

Yes, it was delicious. I usually dislike boiled cabbage but when it a blend of fresh and sauerkraut, then I like its taste.

[Pawian]

We usually have a modest Christmas Eve supper. A few basic, a bit scanty, but nevertheless delicious dishes are enough.

So, we had:

Żurek with potatoes and noble mushrooms


Red borsch with potatoes




Little pierogis with cabbage and mushrooms


Fried carp with bread. Kids drank some juice while I had a glass of borsch.




Of course, we shared a wafer before supper.


And a nice candle added to the atmosphere

[valpomike]

Pawian,

We had many of the same, but we had cream of fresh mushroom soup, and fresh sole fish, and shrimp, and many other sides, with two kind of peirogis. Was great.

Michael Dabrowski

[rdywenur]

Feast Like No Other
CHRISTMAS EVE | Chicago Poles pull out all stops for Wigilia celebration
BY LEAH A. ZELDES
Chicago Sun Times
December 19, 2007

Nobody celebrates Christmas like the Poles.

Of all the world's yuletide traditions, the Wigilia custom of Polish Catholics
may be the most highly wrought.

"It really is elaborate," says Ann Hetzel Gunkel, professor of humanities and
cultural studies at Columbia College Chicago, who maintains the
PolishTraditions.net Web site.

Yet the complex custom has been transplanted, almost unchanged, to Chicago, she
says.

"Even in the most highly assimilated families, that's one of the things that's
most persisted," she says.

Pronounced vee-GEE-lee-yah (with a hard g), Wigilia, which means "vigil,"
represents waiting for the birth of Christ. The celebration begins on Christmas
Eve with the sighting of the first star, in remembrance of the star of
Bethlehem.

In many families, explains Gunkel, the youngest and oldest members go out
together to look for the star, affectionately called Gwiazdka ("Little Star").

There is an extensive feast of up to 13 courses, gift giving and midnight mass.
Most families spend Christmas Day quietly.

"Christmas Eve is the whole ballgame for Poles," Gunkel says.

Before dinner, in an emotional moment, everyone shares the oplatek, a wafer like
those used in Roman Catholic communion, breaking it into small pieces and
exchanging them along with wishes for health, happiness and God's blessing.
Faraway loved ones are mailed a piece of oplatek, and even family pets get a
taste of special, colored oplatki.

The dinner table is strewn with a layer of hay to represent the manger where
Christ was born before being covered with a tablecloth. Many Polish stores
import bags of hay from Poland, Gunkel says.

The table is often set with an empty place, perhaps for an unexpected guest, an
absent loved one or, possibly, symbolizing the wait for the return of Christ.

Meatless feast

The most elaborate Wigilia feasts feature 13 courses, which some say
represent Jesus and the 12 apostles. Tradition always calls for an
odd number of courses, whether five, seven, nine, 11 or the full 13,
Gunkel says.

And traditionally, the dinner was meatless. Until midnight on
Christmas Eve, Advent -- historically, a meatless fast period --
still holds, notes Jan Lorys, director of The Polish Museum in
Chicago. Others assert a meatless meal shows respect for the animals
that were the first to see Jesus, according to Gunkel. Polish
folklore claims that animals can speak in human voices on Christmas
Eve.

But given the relaxation of Advent rules in the Catholic Church, meat
is creeping into the feast. Chicago-born chef Michael Baruch, author
of The New Polish Cuisine (LBCM Publishing Co., $27.95), says younger
Poles are apt to add a smidgen of bacon here and there for added
flavor.

"A lot of Polish Americans eat meat," agrees Polish-born baker Dobra
Bielinski, who prepares many sweet and savory Polish Christmas
specialties at Delightful Pastries, 5927 W. Lawrence, the bakery she
runs with her mother, Stasia Hawryszczuk.

Customarily, the meal would be composed of dishes from four corners
of Poland: "Something from the forests, something from the fields,
something from the orchards and something from the waters," Lorys
says.

Mushrooms are very important. "If you traveled back and forth to
Poland, you always brought [dried] Polish mushrooms with you," Lorys
says.

Freshwater fish predominate, especially herring and carp, the two
most common fish in Poland, plus trout, pike and eel.

"In Poland, everyone would have a live carp in the bathtub before
Christmas," Gunkel says.

The Polish strain of carp is different from that sold in the United
States, so whitefish often replaces it here.

Time-honored Polish dishes prevail even in Chicago, although local
families may omit some old-fashioned items not suited to younger
generations tastes, such as karp w galarecie (carp in aspic) or bony
fish, and add some American foods.

"Here, people would think the trout has too many bones," says
Bielinski, who is inclined to agree. "My mother-in-law will serve
shrimp in cocktail sauce. You wouldn't see that in Poland."

A full table
Some dishes are widespread, while others vary from family to family.

"We have to have a cheesecake. We have to have something fried on
Christmas Eve," Bielinski says. Her family tradition also includes
kutia, a sweet grain porridge from eastern Poland.

Most households serve kompot z suszu, a compote made from stewed
dried fruit, and cakes filled with poppyseeds called makowiec.

Other common Wigilia foods include czysty barszcz czerwony, a clear
beet soup, often served with uszki, tiny dumplings filled with
mushrooms, and zupa grzybowa, mushroom soup.

All kinds of fish feature: herring in oil; creamed herring; herring
salad; fried fish; baked fish; fish polonaise with hard-boiled eggs;
fish in horseradish sauce, and more.

Of course, there are pierogi -- savory dumplings filled with
sauerkraut and mushrooms and Russian potato and cheese.

Noodles come with cabbage or with poppyseeds. Vegetable dishes
include sauerkraut; stuffed cabbage rolls, typically filled with
mushrooms for this meatless occasion; breaded, pan-fried crepes with
fillings such as mushrooms and sauerkraut; potato-vegetable salad;
carrot salad, studded with pineapple, and cwikla, a salad of shredded
beets and horseradish.

Desserts might be babka z rumem, yeasted cake flavored with rum;
cwibak, fruitcake; zupa migdalowa, sweet almond soup with rice and
raisins, and pierniczki, gingerbread cake.

After dinner, families gather around ornately decorated Christmas
trees to sing traditional carols before heading out to midnight Mass.

Wesolych Swiat Bozego Narodzenia! Merry Christmas!

[rdywenur]

Pierogis, poppy seeds and a perfect Polish Christmas: Methuen woman
remains loyal to customs of her people
By Rosemary Ford , Staff writer
Daily News of Newburyport
12/19/07

Friends and family members often refer to Marie Woodhead as "the
Martha Stewart of Methuen."

The 57-year-old doesn't particularly like the moniker, nor does she
understand why people use it.

Sure, like the domestic goddess turned media mogul, Woodhead is
Polish - her maiden name is Abucewicz. And, like Stewart, Woodhead
is expert in crafts, for instance making her own Christmas
decorations from common household items like yogurt cup tops,
aluminum foil box razors and shards of broken ornaments. She's also
a great cook.

But Woodhead has no criminal record for perjury like her celebrity
counterpart. Nor does she have her own TV show.

Yet.

This time of year, Woodhead is particularly busy getting ready for
her traditional Polish Christmas Eve celebration - known as Wigilia.
Typically, she prepares a feast for between 12 and 17 people, many
non-Poles among them. Still, the customs that come with her heritage
go over well with everyone, Woodhead said.

"They love them because they are sweet traditions," she said.

It starts with always having an extra place setting available in
case an unexpected guest arrives for dinner. It's a custom that
dates back to the days when Poles took in the homeless for Christmas.

"Any stranger is welcome," Woodhead said. "It's about doing
something with generosity."

During the meal, she might play koledy, or Polish Christmas carols,
like "In the Stillness of the Night" and "Hush, Little Jesus."

"To this day I can't speak Polish, but I could sing these Christmas
carols," Woodhead said.

The meal itself begins with oplatek, rectangular wafers that come in
small packages made from something similar to the Eucharistic host.

Oplatek packages contain white wafers and pink wafers. People eat
the white wafers and the pink are given to the animals - because
they were the first to greet and care for the baby Jesus in the
stable manger.

"I chuck (the pink oplatek) out to the birds," Woodhead said.

The people's oplatek is served in a white, napkin-covered dish, with
the wafer-like bread broken and served amongst the guests. People
wish each other good luck, health, happiness and other blessings for
the year.

Next, the rest of the meal, which for Woodhead is the result of
about 40 hours of cooking throughout the month. It's meatless, built
around a special fish and Polish mushroom soup, smoked salmon,
pickled herring, and five different kinds of pierogi - ravioli like
dumplings, stuffed with cheese, Polish mushrooms, squash, cabbage
and a sundried tomato, spinach and feta mixture.


Woodhead also makes a pilaf-like dish with kasha, toasted buckwheat,
mixed with vegetables. Then there is a salad made with fresh beets
roasted in garlic and placed on a bed of endive, radicchio and bibb
lettuce with blue cheese dressing. The meal ends with 12 different
kinds of cookies and sometimes a homemade torte.

For Woodhead, the preparation isn't really work. It's just the way
the season leading up to Christmas Eve should be.

"I remember being a little girl and being mesmerized by my mom and
dad, preparing the meal, laughing, joking, fooling around," she
said. "I love the fact that there is a tradition so deep rooted. I
don't want to give it up."

Woodhead's kitchen essentials:

Ingredients:

* All forms of ginger

* Butter

* Cream

* Sundried tomatoes

* Anchovies (and anchovy paste)

Tools:

* Hands

* Parchment paper

* Sharp knives (she uses Henckels)

* Offset spatula

* Sharp scissors

Recipes

Pierogi

Cheese filling:

2 pounds farmer's cheese.

1/2 cup grated Romano cheese

4 to 5 tablespoons of butter

1 small onion, minced

1 tablespoon of parsley fresh

1/4 to 1/2 cup milk

2 eggs, slightly beaten

Directions:

Preheat oven.

Place cheeses in mixing bowl.

In a pan, saute onions in butter until tender, then add parsley.

Add onion-parsley mixture to cheeses and stir in milk, then blend in
eggs, salt and pepper to taste.

Chill to make filling dough easier.

Cabbage filling:

1 small head of cabbage, finely shredded


1 large onion, minced

5 tablespoons of butter

1 can sauerkraut

Salt, pepper and marjoram to taste

Directions:

Saute cabbage, onions and butter until tender.

Add sauerkraut, mix well.

Season with salt and pepper, with a pinch of marjoram.

Chill to make filling dough easier.

Dough

2 cups flour

2 eggs, slightly beaten

1 teaspoon salt

1/3 to 1/2 cup water, milk or sour cream

Directions

Mound flour on a nonstick surface. Make a well in the center. Drop
in eggs, salt and liquid. Mix well, kneading.

Cover with a warm bowl for 10 minutes. Divide dough into workable
amounts and roll out to about 1/8-inch thick. Cut out circles, about
3-inches in diameter. Fill with one of the fillings. Fold and press
edges firmly. Bring a pot of salted water to a boil. Drop dough into
boiling water, cook for 3 to 5 minutes. Melt a stick of butter. Lift
out of water and dredge in melted butter and finely minced onion.
Place in oven-safe dish. Heat at 350 degrees for about half an hour.
Makes about 40, depending on the size.

Poppy Seed Bread

1 stick of butter

2 packages of yeast dissolved in 1/2 cup warm water

1/2 cup sour cream or milk

41/2 cups of flour

3/4 cup sugar

1/2 teaspoon of salt

2 eggs

2 egg yolks

1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

Let yeast dissolve while butter is melting. Sift flour, salt, and
sugar in a large bowl. Slightly beat eggs. Mound flour on a nonstick
surface. Make a well in the center. Add all ingredients. Mix and
knead until smooth. Place in a greased bowl and store in a warm area
for about 1 hour.


For filling:

21/2 pounds of poppy seed butter (ground poppy seeds) warmed

1 teaspoon of lemon or orange zest

1/4 to 1/2 cup honey

1/4 to 1/2 cup cream

5 tablespoons butter

4 egg whites

1 dash vanilla

Preheat oven and mix all ingredients.

Knead dough and divide according to the size of the loaf you desire.
You can make three small loaves or one big one with this recipe.

Roll out dough to about 1/2-inch thickness. Spread poppy seed
mixture on bread. Roll to create a cigar-shaped loaf.

Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes, until it turns a golden color.

[livia]

rdywenur said:

(carp in aspic)

Thank you! You've said that elsewhere too.