Quick stop in Poland

Poland's official name in Polish is Rzeczpospolita Polska. This Eastern European country is not only filled with a lot of interesting history, but is also home to very good food. Polish cuisine has elements taken from the cooking traditions of the many national groups that lived in the country side by side for centuries, notably the Jews, Ukrainians, Belarussians and Lithuanians. There are also some Russian, German, Czech and Austrian influences as well as dishes from more distant regions like Italy, France and the Middle East.

Throughout its history, Polish cuisine has gone through many changes. For example, during the Middle Ages, Polish food was very heavy and spicy. They used game and beef in many of their dishes and used spices, which they bought at cheap prices from the East, to add flavor to the imperfectly-preserved meat.

Nowadays, since the end of communism, traditional foods that have been used in Polish cooking include cucurbit, zucchini and all kinds of fish.

There are many traditional dishes that come from Poland that we eat in the States and probably are unaware of their Polish origin. For example, pierogis are a traditionally Polish food. Pierogis are square or crescent-shaped dumplings of unleavened (non-raised) dough, stuffed with sauerkraut, cheese, mashed potatoes, cabbage, onion, meat, or any combination thereof, or with a fruit filling. The word pirog (or its equivalent in the various Slavic languages) means "pie", which can take the form of a stuffed dumpling, pastry, or two-crusted pie. To learn more about Pierogis, check out Wikipedia and this interesting blog entry.

For those of you with a sweet tooth, who aren't looking to check out the fat content for your desserts, a traditional Polish dessert is a Sernik. A Sernik is a delicious fat cheese cake. For those of you who are not interested in something so heavy, try a Kompot. In Poland, this is a favorite stewed fruit drink that often takes the place of dessert after a heavy meal. It is simply fresh fruit briefly cooked in slightly sweetened water.

To learn more about what some Polish foods are, check out this crash course in Polish cookery