About Opentopia
Opentopia Directory Encyclopedia Tools

Polish cuisine

Encyclopedia : P : PO : POL : Polish cuisine

Polish cuisine (Polish: kuchnia polska) is a mixture of Slavic and foreign culinary traditions. Born as a mixture of various culinary traditions, both of various regions of Poland and surrounding cultures, it uses a large variety of ingredients. It is rich in meat of all kinds and with spices, as well as in different kinds of noodles and dumplings, the most notable of which are the pierogi. It is related to other Slavic cuisines in usage of kasza and other cereals, but was also under the heavy influence of Turkic, Germanic, Hungarian, Jewish, French or colonial cuisines of the past. Generally speaking, Polish cuisine is rich, substantial and relatively high in fat. Poles allow themselves a generous amount of time in order to enjoy their meals.

A typical lunch is usually composed of at least three courses, starting with a soup, such as borsch (beet) or żurek (sour rye meal mash), followed perhaps in a restaurant by an appetizer of salmon or herring (prepared in either cream, oil or vinegar). Other popular appetizers are various meats, vegetables or fish in aspic. For the main course you may want to try the national dish, bigos (sauerkraut with pieces of meat and sausage) or cutlet schabowy (breaded pork chops). Finish on a sweet note with ice cream or, more likely if you are fortunate enough to be dining at someone's home, a piece of makowiec, home-made poppy seed cake, or drożdżówka, a type of yeast cake. Other Polish specialities include chłodnik (a chilled beet soup for hot days), golonka (pork knuckles cooked with vegetables), kołduny (meat dumplings), zrazy (slices of beef) and flaki (tripe). Many dishes contain quark.

This article is part
of the Cuisine series
Preparation techniques and cooking items
Techniques - Utensils
Weights and measures
Ingredients and types of food
Spices and Herbs
Sauces - Soups - Desserts
Cheese - Pasta - Bread
Other ingredients
Regional cuisines
Asia - Europe - Caribbean
South Asian - Latin America
Mideast - North America - Africa
See also:
Famous chefs - Kitchens - Meals

Contents

History

Middle ages

During the Late Middle Ages the cuisine of Poland was very heavy and spicy. Two main ingredients were meat (both game and beef) and cereal. As the territory of Poland was densely forested, use of mushrooms, forest fruits, nuts and honey was also widespread.

Thanks to close trade relations with the East, the price of spices (such as juniper, pepper and nutmeg) was much lower than in the rest of Europe, and spicy sauces became popular. One purpose was to neutralize the odour of imperfectly-preserved meat.

The most popular beverages were beer, including the very lightly-fermented barley-water, podpiwek, and mead -- however in the 16th century the upper classes started importing Hungarian and Silesian wines. After distilled spirits became common in Europe, vodka became popular, especially among the lower classes.

Renaissance

With the ascension of queen Bona Sforza, the 2nd wife of Sigismund I of Poland, in 1518, countless cooks were brought to Poland from Italy and France. Although native vegetable foods were an ancient and intrinsic part of the cuisine, this began a period in which vegetables such as lettuce, leek, celeriac and cabbage were more widely used. Even today, such vegetables as leeks, carrots and celery are known in Polish as włoszczyzna, which refers to Włochy, the Polish name of Italy.

The Republic

Bigos
Enlarge
Bigos

Until the Partitions, Poland was one of the largest countries in the world, encompassing many regions with their own, distinctive culinary traditions. Among the most influential in that period were Lithuanian, Turkish and Hungarian cuisine. With the subsequent decline of Poland, and the grain production crisis that followed The Deluge, potatoes began to replace the traditional use of cereal. Also, because of numerous wars with the Ottoman Empire, coffee became popular.

Partitions

Under the partitions, the cuisine of Poland became heavily influenced by cuisines of the surrounding empires. This included Russian and German cuisines, but also the culinary traditions of most nations of the Austro-Hungarian empire. In the Russian-occupied part of the country, tea displaced the then-popular coffee. Under German influence the tradition of making white sausages was adopted in Greater Poland. Perhaps the most influential was the culinary tradition of multi-national empire of Austria-Hungary, which led to development of a Central European cuisine in Galicia.

Pierogi
Enlarge
Pierogi

The 19th Century also saw the creation of the first Polish cook-book, by Lucyna Ćwierczakiewiczowa, who based her work on the 18th Century diaries of the szlachta.

After World War II

Polish meat shop in the 1980s.
Enlarge
Polish meat shop in the 1980s.

After the end of World War II, Poland fell under Communist occupation. All restaurants were at first nationalized and then mostly closed down by the authorities. Instead, the communists envisioned a net of lunch rooms for the workers at various companies, and milk bars. The very few restaurants that survived the 1940's and 1950's were state-owned and were mostly unavailable to common people due to high prices. The lunch rooms promoted mostly inexpensive meals, including in soups of all kinds. A typical second course consisted of some sort of a ground meat cutlet served with potatoes. The kotlet schabowy is similar to the Austrian Wiener schnitzel.

With time, the shortage economy led to chronic shortages of meat, eggs, coffee, tea and other basic ingredients of daily use. This situation led in turn to gradual replacement of traditional Polish cuisine with food prepared of anything that was available at the moment. Among the popular dishes introduced by the public restaurants was an egg cutlet, a sort of a hamburger made of minced or instant egg and flour. The traditional recipes were mostly preserved during the Wigilia feast, for which most families tried to prepare 12 traditional meals.

Modern times

With the end of the communism in Poland in 1989, restaurants started to be opened once again and the basic foodstuffs were once again easily obtainable. This led to a gradual return of the traditional Polish cuisine, both in everyday life and in restaurants. In addition, the restaurants and the supermarkets promote the usage of ingredients typical to other cuisines of the world. Among the most notable of ingredients that started to be commonly used in Poland were cucurbit, zucchini and all kinds of fish. During the communist times, these were available mostly in the seaside regions.

Recent years saw the advent of a slow food movement, and a number of TV programmes devoted to traditional Polish cuisine gained much popularity.

Famous all-national dishes

Soup

Barszcz
Enlarge
Barszcz

main course

desserts

Oscypek
Enlarge
Oscypek

ingredients

beverages

Pączki
Enlarge
Pączki

Regional cuisine

A list of dishes popular in certain regions of Poland:

Eastern Poland

  • babka żółtkowa - yolk and yeast cake
  • bliny gryczane
  • cepeliny - big long-shaped potato dumplings stuffed with meat and marjoram
  • chłodnik - cold soup made of soured milk, young beet leaves, beets, radishes, cucumbers and chopped fresh dill
  • grzyby po żmudzku - mushrooms Samogitian style
  • kawior z bakłażana - "caviar" of egg-plant
  • kreple z lejka -
  • kugiel ze skwarkami -
  • kutia - traditional Christmas dish, made of poppy seeds, wheat, nuts and delicacies
  • melszpejz zaparzany z jabłek -
  • pieczeń wiedźmy -
  • ruskie pierogi - dumplings with quark and potato
  • szodo -
  • tort ziemniaczany - potato cake
  • zrazy wołyńskie -
  • żeberka wieprzowe po żmudzku -

  • babka ziemniaczana -
  • cebulniaczki -
  • chleb biebrzański -
  • kartacze - big long-shaped potato dumplings stuffed with meat and marjoram
  • kiszka ziemniaczana - potato sausage
  • okoń smażony, w zalewie octowej - perch fried in vinegar
  • zucielki -

North

  • kartacz
  • sekacz

  • pierniki - gingerbread

  • kluski śląskie (kluski is popular Polish name of pasta, "śląskie" means "Silesian (adjective)") - round shaped potatoe dumplings served with gravy, made of mashed potatoes, an egg and potatoe flower
  • knysza
  • krupniok - kind of sausage made of kasha and animal blood
  • makiełki or moczka or makówki - traditional Wigilia dessert, its main ingredients are: gingerbread extract, nuts and dried fruit, strawberry compote and almonds.
  • rolada z modrą kapustą - stuffed meat roll with red cabbage, traditionally eaten with kluski śląskie
  • siemieniotka - soup made of cannabis, one of main Christmas Eve meals
  • wodzionka or brołtzupa (ger. brot - bread, pol. zupa - soup) - soup with garlic and potatoes
  • żymlok - like krupniok but instead kasha there is bread roll

See also

External links

 

From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.

Search Titles
0123456789
ABCDEFGHIJ
KLMNOPQRST
UVWXYZ?

E-mail this article to:

Personal Message: