Post by rdywenur on Mar 18, 2008 16:07:00 GMT -7
Poland's Favorite Polish Foods
By Robert Strybel
Not long ago, the Polish newsweekly Wprost (similar to our Time and Newsweek) published the results of a survey on Polish food attitudes which included a question on the respondents’ 10 favorite foods. Some of the responses may come as a surprise to the average Polish American reader of this newspaper.
Leading the pack were not kielbasa or golabki, which did not even make it into the top 10, but the following (with the percentage of respondents listing a given food included in brackets):
Kanapki (canapes open-face sandwiches - 96%): These are what most Poles eat for breakfast, some on an almost daily basis, only occasionally having fried, scrambled or soft-boiled eggs. The kanapki are generally made with rye and or French bread, spread with butter, margarine or mayonnaise and covered with cheese, cold-cuts, hard-cooked egg, radish, cucumber and/and chives. Sometimes they include herring or smoked sprats. They are either served pre-made by the home-maker or are do-it-yourself affairs in which family members help themselves to the fixings and assemble their own kanapki. Due to the onslaught of TV commercials with their cutesy little critters plugging the various frosted sugar-gloopies and crunchy-munchies, more and more youngsters often prefer dry cereals for breakfast. Often hot milk is poured over them to make them less brittle and more tender!
Pierogi (filled dumplings, dough pockets, Polish ravioli - 95%): In this respect Poles and Polonians see eye to eye. Since their preparation is involved and time-consuming, countless companies have sprung up to produce a wide variety of deli and frozen pierogi, some fairly good and close to home-made, others tough or gummy with non-descript fillings. Favorites include “ruskie” (cheese, potato and onion), sauerkraut & mushrooms, sweet cheese (often with raisins) and fruit-filled in summer. At the Fifth Pierogi Festival held in Krakow recently, some 60,000 pierogi were consumed, and thousands queued for an hour or more to pay from 1-3 zlotys (36¢ - $1.09) apiece depending on their size and quality. This year the roving “Swiety Jacek z Pierogami” (St. Hyacinth with Pierogi) statuette went to the Polskie Smaki (Polish Flavors) Restaurant for the event’s best pierogi. The award was named after the medieval monk Jacek Odrowaz who was said to have fed the poor with the filled dumplings. The founder of Poland’s Dominican province, he died in 1257 and was canonized in 1594
Kotlet schabowy (breaded pork cutlet, boneless pork chop pounded thin, breaded and fried to a nice golden-brown - 94%): This is Poland’s unquestioned favorite, the equivalent of the steak or roast beef many Americans would mention, if asked about their best-liked meat dish. Kotlet schabowy (schab = pork loin, hence this would translate literally as pork-loin cutlet) is traditionally served not with apple sauce (as pork chops are in America) but with braised sauerkraut or cabbage.
Salatka jarzynowa (mayonnaise-laced vegetable salad made with diced potatoes & other cooked veggies - 94%): This is a favorite go-together with the cold meats Poles often eat for supper or as part of the cold starter course preceding the soup and main course at family Sunday dinners and other festive occasions. Besides potatoes (which should be diced), other ingredients cooked white beans, peas and carrots, celeriac (cooked root celery) and other ingredients including pickled mushrooms, hard-cooked eggs, dill pickles, capers, radishes and green onions.
Jajecznica (scrambled eggs - 94%): These would be served in Poland more often for supper, a lighter meal, than for breakfast. If made with bacon, it is not fried until brittle and served in strips the side of the plate as in American restaurants, but diced and fried in a skillet with the eggs added on top. Fried pork fatback nuggets (skwarki), diced ham or smoked kielbasa sliced into thin rounds are also used to fry scrambled eggs in.
Zupa pomidorowa (tomato soup - 94%): This is best made with fresh, vine-ripened tomatoes, but most Polish homemakers take a shortcut these days by using canned tomato concentrate to flavor a meat stock base, then finish up with a fork-blended flour & sour cream thickener. In Poland, fanciers of tomato soup with egg noodles slightly outnumber those who prefer it with rice.
Rosol z makaronem (chicken noodle soup - 94%): This a standard special occasion soup, served at Sunday dinner, at weddings, christenings, nameday parties and funeral dinners. Mature hens (stewing chickens) make a better broth than the scrawny boiler-fryers, and home-made noodles are still widespread in the countryside, although store-bought ones are edging them out in urban areas.
Kotlet mielony (minced cutlet, a large flattened meatball - 93%): These are usually made with ground pork, pork & beef or pork, beef & veal. Although more expensive, ground turkey is becoming more and more popular both for health reasons (less cholesterol) and flavor. These are the favorites of Polish youngsters (for some reason kids everywhere seem to prefer less chewy ground-meat dishes!). These are not ordinarily served in gravy but with boiled or mashed potatoes and buraczki (braised beetroot) or brined cucumbers on the side.
Mizeria (sliced cucumbers with sour cream - 93%): This is Poland’s favorite salad and goes so well with roasts, fried meats, poultry and fish. Some add some sliced onion to the cucumbers, others garnish the salad with fresh chopped dills. It is usually seasoned with salt, pepper, vinegar and a pinch of sugar.
Bigos (meat, mushroom, cabbage/sauerkraut ragout - 93%): Sometimes called hunter's stew in America, this is Poland’s fabled national dish, once enjoyed at the manor houses and hunts of the Polish gentry. Today it reigns supreme during holiday home entertainment as well as at restaurants and banquet halls. It is made with just sauerkraut or with some fresh cabbage added and should contain a wide variety of meats, including some game, plus mushrooms, prunes, apples and a splash of wine. Bigos is slow-simmered for hours and its flavor improve each time it is reheated.
Golabki did not make it into the top ten perhaps because they are difficult to prepare from scratch, and the ready-to-eat deli variety are not too good. Kielbasa, which is one of the first things most Pol-Am think of, was probably not mentioned, because it is not generally thought of in Poland as a meal course. Instead, it is regarded as a cold canape ingredient or something you add to scrambled eggs, cook on long sticks over a bonfire or grill at a backyard barbecue.
Back in 1998, my first visit to Poland, my aunt made all the above except for the bacon and egg dish. I was surprised not to see once, any sign of golabki or pierogi foods I was associated wth. No, we saw signs of Tripe on the menus also which my mother loved. I remember my aunt making a fresh tomatoe soup with rice way better than my Campbells in a can tomatoe soup. Lots of pork cutlets, pototoes with each meal (they deleivered them like coal to the houses) My aunt even made a fantastic Chicken Condon Bleu which no one would associate with Poland. My other aunt served kanapki when we stopped to visit. Desert was a platcek (plum cake) and always tea. My one cousin always seemed to make the vegetable salad which is unlike any of our salads.
By Robert Strybel
Not long ago, the Polish newsweekly Wprost (similar to our Time and Newsweek) published the results of a survey on Polish food attitudes which included a question on the respondents’ 10 favorite foods. Some of the responses may come as a surprise to the average Polish American reader of this newspaper.
Leading the pack were not kielbasa or golabki, which did not even make it into the top 10, but the following (with the percentage of respondents listing a given food included in brackets):
Kanapki (canapes open-face sandwiches - 96%): These are what most Poles eat for breakfast, some on an almost daily basis, only occasionally having fried, scrambled or soft-boiled eggs. The kanapki are generally made with rye and or French bread, spread with butter, margarine or mayonnaise and covered with cheese, cold-cuts, hard-cooked egg, radish, cucumber and/and chives. Sometimes they include herring or smoked sprats. They are either served pre-made by the home-maker or are do-it-yourself affairs in which family members help themselves to the fixings and assemble their own kanapki. Due to the onslaught of TV commercials with their cutesy little critters plugging the various frosted sugar-gloopies and crunchy-munchies, more and more youngsters often prefer dry cereals for breakfast. Often hot milk is poured over them to make them less brittle and more tender!
Pierogi (filled dumplings, dough pockets, Polish ravioli - 95%): In this respect Poles and Polonians see eye to eye. Since their preparation is involved and time-consuming, countless companies have sprung up to produce a wide variety of deli and frozen pierogi, some fairly good and close to home-made, others tough or gummy with non-descript fillings. Favorites include “ruskie” (cheese, potato and onion), sauerkraut & mushrooms, sweet cheese (often with raisins) and fruit-filled in summer. At the Fifth Pierogi Festival held in Krakow recently, some 60,000 pierogi were consumed, and thousands queued for an hour or more to pay from 1-3 zlotys (36¢ - $1.09) apiece depending on their size and quality. This year the roving “Swiety Jacek z Pierogami” (St. Hyacinth with Pierogi) statuette went to the Polskie Smaki (Polish Flavors) Restaurant for the event’s best pierogi. The award was named after the medieval monk Jacek Odrowaz who was said to have fed the poor with the filled dumplings. The founder of Poland’s Dominican province, he died in 1257 and was canonized in 1594
Kotlet schabowy (breaded pork cutlet, boneless pork chop pounded thin, breaded and fried to a nice golden-brown - 94%): This is Poland’s unquestioned favorite, the equivalent of the steak or roast beef many Americans would mention, if asked about their best-liked meat dish. Kotlet schabowy (schab = pork loin, hence this would translate literally as pork-loin cutlet) is traditionally served not with apple sauce (as pork chops are in America) but with braised sauerkraut or cabbage.
Salatka jarzynowa (mayonnaise-laced vegetable salad made with diced potatoes & other cooked veggies - 94%): This is a favorite go-together with the cold meats Poles often eat for supper or as part of the cold starter course preceding the soup and main course at family Sunday dinners and other festive occasions. Besides potatoes (which should be diced), other ingredients cooked white beans, peas and carrots, celeriac (cooked root celery) and other ingredients including pickled mushrooms, hard-cooked eggs, dill pickles, capers, radishes and green onions.
Jajecznica (scrambled eggs - 94%): These would be served in Poland more often for supper, a lighter meal, than for breakfast. If made with bacon, it is not fried until brittle and served in strips the side of the plate as in American restaurants, but diced and fried in a skillet with the eggs added on top. Fried pork fatback nuggets (skwarki), diced ham or smoked kielbasa sliced into thin rounds are also used to fry scrambled eggs in.
Zupa pomidorowa (tomato soup - 94%): This is best made with fresh, vine-ripened tomatoes, but most Polish homemakers take a shortcut these days by using canned tomato concentrate to flavor a meat stock base, then finish up with a fork-blended flour & sour cream thickener. In Poland, fanciers of tomato soup with egg noodles slightly outnumber those who prefer it with rice.
Rosol z makaronem (chicken noodle soup - 94%): This a standard special occasion soup, served at Sunday dinner, at weddings, christenings, nameday parties and funeral dinners. Mature hens (stewing chickens) make a better broth than the scrawny boiler-fryers, and home-made noodles are still widespread in the countryside, although store-bought ones are edging them out in urban areas.
Kotlet mielony (minced cutlet, a large flattened meatball - 93%): These are usually made with ground pork, pork & beef or pork, beef & veal. Although more expensive, ground turkey is becoming more and more popular both for health reasons (less cholesterol) and flavor. These are the favorites of Polish youngsters (for some reason kids everywhere seem to prefer less chewy ground-meat dishes!). These are not ordinarily served in gravy but with boiled or mashed potatoes and buraczki (braised beetroot) or brined cucumbers on the side.
Mizeria (sliced cucumbers with sour cream - 93%): This is Poland’s favorite salad and goes so well with roasts, fried meats, poultry and fish. Some add some sliced onion to the cucumbers, others garnish the salad with fresh chopped dills. It is usually seasoned with salt, pepper, vinegar and a pinch of sugar.
Bigos (meat, mushroom, cabbage/sauerkraut ragout - 93%): Sometimes called hunter's stew in America, this is Poland’s fabled national dish, once enjoyed at the manor houses and hunts of the Polish gentry. Today it reigns supreme during holiday home entertainment as well as at restaurants and banquet halls. It is made with just sauerkraut or with some fresh cabbage added and should contain a wide variety of meats, including some game, plus mushrooms, prunes, apples and a splash of wine. Bigos is slow-simmered for hours and its flavor improve each time it is reheated.
Golabki did not make it into the top ten perhaps because they are difficult to prepare from scratch, and the ready-to-eat deli variety are not too good. Kielbasa, which is one of the first things most Pol-Am think of, was probably not mentioned, because it is not generally thought of in Poland as a meal course. Instead, it is regarded as a cold canape ingredient or something you add to scrambled eggs, cook on long sticks over a bonfire or grill at a backyard barbecue.
Back in 1998, my first visit to Poland, my aunt made all the above except for the bacon and egg dish. I was surprised not to see once, any sign of golabki or pierogi foods I was associated wth. No, we saw signs of Tripe on the menus also which my mother loved. I remember my aunt making a fresh tomatoe soup with rice way better than my Campbells in a can tomatoe soup. Lots of pork cutlets, pototoes with each meal (they deleivered them like coal to the houses) My aunt even made a fantastic Chicken Condon Bleu which no one would associate with Poland. My other aunt served kanapki when we stopped to visit. Desert was a platcek (plum cake) and always tea. My one cousin always seemed to make the vegetable salad which is unlike any of our salads.
, but yeah our soups and other dishes are one of the best in the world, maybe because we still eat almost only home made food ?
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