Saturday 10 January 2009

CALM THE BEANS! - You won't die of starvation in Poland!

As one of the purposes of our exchange is to get to know each other's cultures, we'd like to present the most traditional and unique dishes you'll meet only in our country. Although not all of them are extremely delicious for us, we strongly believe that they can can be considered a true sign of Polish culture, which we undoubtedly identify ourselves with.

LARD - pl. smalec

It's actually a starter served before a main course, uaually with bread and pickled cucumber. It's made of pork fat or bacon with onion and spices. In fact we can't reach an agreement concerning its flavour as one of us believes it's delicious whereas the other one states that it's disgusting.

ŻUREK

'Żurek' is an Easter sour barley soup cooked on the basis of bread acid with potatoes, sausages and eggs. As a tittle-tattle we can add that you can meet it served in a loaf of bread, as you can see in the picture.

BORSCHT - pl. barszcz

The next dish which may be considered originally Polish is called borscht. It's a soup made of beetroots, which we, Poles usually associate with Christmas Eve as the borscht with noodles (a kind of pierogi, which we're going to describe later) is the most popular Christmas dish.

BIGOS

Another Polish dish is commonly known as 'bigos' and can be described as chopped meat stewed in the saurkraut. Nevertheless, it's possible to add some other ingredients, like mushrooms, to it, thus enriching its flavour and appearance.

PIEROGI

We are of the same opinion that 'pierogi' is the best traditional Polish dish. It's a cake with filling which may consist of different ingredients - it's only the matter of taste. Nonetheless, the most popular are 'pierogi' with meat, cabbage with mushrooms, cottage cheese with potatoes or fruits.

Although the dishes described above are traditionally Polish, we don't eat them very often since not only does their preparation take a lot of time but also, there are people, especially children, who don't fancy them. Anyway, you can meet them in every restaurant in our country.

Made by: Kamila Żmijewska and Agnieszka Paszkowska

6 comments:

Mònica Villanueva Benet said...

In fact, I didn't starve when I was in Poland. On the contrary, I put on a few kilos and I've got very nice memories of food there.I really like pierogi. It is a type of food you find in many different cultures though each culture prepares it its own way.
Nice post! Congratulations!

Marcin Szmyt said...

Great job!!! Thank you.

Karolina Zając said...

If it's about lard I share my feelings with Agnieszka - it's awful ;} but I easily find other Polish dishes mentioned by you delicious ;}

Karolina Zając said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Agnieszka Paszkowska said...

Oh Caroline, that's completely true. There are more people who find lard rather disgusting and they are right!!!

Laaw said...

I really love pieroggis!
and pancakes! hahahaha
good job!