Robert Makłowicz
Food connoisseur, author of books on gastronomy and a TV chef
When I travel around Poland and feel like eating something when I happen to be, say, in Kaszuby, in the northern part of Poland, I don’t look for a pizzeria or a restaurant with cuisine from Podhale in the south, but for a place that offers dishes from Kaszuby. Similarly, in the mountains I avoid venues with food from Wielkopolska (the region around Poznań), because I want to eat something from Podhale.
Over the last dozen or so years – especially after Poland’s accession to the European Union – Poland has seen a revival of regional cuisine. Before we joined the EU, there were lively debates about the concerns of losing national identity, but the outcome was quite the reverse. With the possibility of registering regional products granted by EU law, local delicacies have witnessed a renaissance – we return to traditional methods of cultivation and production. If someone feels like having a taste of regional dishes, they will have such a chance in almost every place in Poland.
Polish cuisine abounds in exquisite dishes and regional delicacies. Probably the most famous Polish titbit is oscypek. But we also have kiszka ziemniaczana – which looks like a sausage but is stuffed with potatoes grated with bacon; piróg biłgorajski a dumping which in turns resembles pâté, prepared from potatoes and buckwheat groats with a bit of white sour cheese or żurawinówka, dense cranberry alcohol. In the region of Lublin, you can also have a taste of excellent plum jam. Apart from that, I would recommend all sorts of groats (kasza), very characteristic of our cuisine, and popular in a limited number of places in Europe.
We are also one of the few countries of the world where mead – the oldest alcohol our civilisation remembers – is produced on a considerable scale. Climate change has provided for the possibility of growing wine again.More and more vineyards are emerging not only in Podkarpacie (Subcarpathia), but also in the area of Jasło and Dolny Śląsk (Lower Silesia). I’ve had an opportunity to have a sip of gourmet wine from the vicinity of Wrocław.
Anne Applebaum – Sikorska
Journalist and Pulitzer Prize-winning author, married to Foreign Minister of Poland Radosław Sikorski. Published Gulag and a travelogue Between East and West, about to release a Polish cookbook.
Living for a time in the Polish countryside, I learned how to cook with what was local, fresh and available: the uniquely Polish combinations of meat and dried fruit, of wild mushrooms and kasha, of sour soups and spicy sausage, of home-made jams and pickles, all of these made sense in a place with plentiful plums, abundant game, forests full of exotic mushrooms and eggs so fresh they still had feathers stuck to the shells.
