Achilles
2 Nov 2006 / #1
Food and language have at least one thing in common; they come much easier to those with an inquisitive open mind. However translation can be difficult, in that there is definitely a different way of butchering meat before the customer buys it. I speak of the difference between Polish and British cuts of meat. Polish food is different and for a foreigner to enjoy it the first essential is to accept that it is different. Having said that, I personally still lament the lack of good beefsteak in Poland. Yet it is possible – in 1992 I ate one of the finest steaks that I have ever eaten in the Petropol Hotel in Płock. The chef deserved a medal.
Whilst there are deficiencies there are enormous gains. Polish mushrooms open a vista of indulgence that does not exist, certainly in Britain. Virtually all meat cooking is done on the hot plates of the cooker and not, as in Britain, in the oven. The pride of Polish meat cuisine is found in the smoked sausages, the concept does not really exist in Britain, while Germans and Italians can only envy Poles for the variety and quality of their sausages. The traditional cuisines of Britain and Poland complement each other; being different they do not compete.
Becoming familiar with Polish food is more attractive to the carnivore than the vegetarian; indeed the vegetarians must fend for themselves in Poland. There are real regional differences in Polish cuisine, which derive from different soils and cropping. Potatoes grow better in the west than on the poorer soils of the east, where cereal flour based noodles and dumplings are more popular. Polish cooking was more subject to the seasonal availability of various vegetables and fruits. Due to the now ubiquitous supermarkets, this seasonal factor in waning.
The answer to the question of course is that it is as difficult or easy as one wishes to make it for oneself. Personally, I believe that everything should be tried at least once. Of course one will not like everything, yet rejection should be based on personal experience rather than xenophobic prejudice. If through such an attitude one only remained in ignorance of Polish soups the deprivation would still be calamitous.
The Polish attitude to food is more akin to the French attitude than the Anglo-American approach. Poles regard eating as one of the pleasures of life and not just as a tiresome biological necessity. A Pole expects to enjoy food, which is a very promising sign for the visitor. Now more and more restaurants are providing multilingual menus so eating out is more predictable to the non-Polish speaker. Perhaps I might best conclude with something that I know from experience, my maternal grandmother, an American, had always refused asparagus on sight, at the age of fifty she ate some by mistake. She spent the next twenty years of her life eating asparagus whenever she could! She was fortunate in having those twenty years.
Achilles Węgorz
Whilst there are deficiencies there are enormous gains. Polish mushrooms open a vista of indulgence that does not exist, certainly in Britain. Virtually all meat cooking is done on the hot plates of the cooker and not, as in Britain, in the oven. The pride of Polish meat cuisine is found in the smoked sausages, the concept does not really exist in Britain, while Germans and Italians can only envy Poles for the variety and quality of their sausages. The traditional cuisines of Britain and Poland complement each other; being different they do not compete.
Becoming familiar with Polish food is more attractive to the carnivore than the vegetarian; indeed the vegetarians must fend for themselves in Poland. There are real regional differences in Polish cuisine, which derive from different soils and cropping. Potatoes grow better in the west than on the poorer soils of the east, where cereal flour based noodles and dumplings are more popular. Polish cooking was more subject to the seasonal availability of various vegetables and fruits. Due to the now ubiquitous supermarkets, this seasonal factor in waning.
The answer to the question of course is that it is as difficult or easy as one wishes to make it for oneself. Personally, I believe that everything should be tried at least once. Of course one will not like everything, yet rejection should be based on personal experience rather than xenophobic prejudice. If through such an attitude one only remained in ignorance of Polish soups the deprivation would still be calamitous.
The Polish attitude to food is more akin to the French attitude than the Anglo-American approach. Poles regard eating as one of the pleasures of life and not just as a tiresome biological necessity. A Pole expects to enjoy food, which is a very promising sign for the visitor. Now more and more restaurants are providing multilingual menus so eating out is more predictable to the non-Polish speaker. Perhaps I might best conclude with something that I know from experience, my maternal grandmother, an American, had always refused asparagus on sight, at the age of fifty she ate some by mistake. She spent the next twenty years of her life eating asparagus whenever she could! She was fortunate in having those twenty years.
Achilles Węgorz