Polish food at home or out?

Lovely Polish food can be found at Gazdówka but it requires some dieting beforehand ;) It is the cuisine of mountaineers. Expect a lot of calorific stuff with lard and bread as a starter ;) I haven't been for a long time and now I know why.

Lol. Don't forget the smalec - fried bacon bits with all the grease Polish people put on their bread.
America has a wide variety of food selections. You can eat lean and low calorie foods available everywhere or not. It depends what you like. And the assumption of "American food is disgusting" is very typical of Poles who newly come here or have never been here. They already have it installed in their heads what the food is like before trying it. They hate our breads and our kielbasas, lol, but that's what makes every country unique.

undeniable fact, you can really choose what you eat here.

sorry, but rightfully so... :) it's not even close to the goodies you buy in Europe, and i'm not talking only about Poland... but if Americans like it, fine w/me...


it's understandable with so many immigrants from all over the world... :)


they sale really good stuff there... is it pricey?

pgtx wrote:


it's not even that we "like it". we eat it but don't celebrate it like people in Spain/France/Italy/Poland. America simply isn't a bread culture. Go to Italy, find great wine. Go to Poland, find great kielbasa. Poles eat more kielbasa than Italians....Italians drink more wine than Poles....you see what I mean.

tygrys wrote:


because they do the same thing anyone does when they come to a foreign country, are intimidated, aren't confident with the national language....and don't want to spend much money while they run around trying to see all the sights.....they eat fast food. It's logical.

I recently had a few beers with 2 German guys that were staying here on a short work contract. When I looked around their kitchen to see what they were buying at the supermarket, it was basically cheap white bread, cases of Coca Cola, empty Papa John's pizza boxes next to the garbage can, packaged ham and cheese (getting fresh stuff would involve interaction with the deli clerk) and basically other cheap starchy foods that can easily be taken from the shelves. When I asked them what restaurants they went to, it was always one of those corporate joints like Applebee's or TGIFriday's and they would order steaks or burgers, french fries with it all the time, BBQ ribs.....and OF COURSE, they follow all that up with, "geeze, we've put on so much weight since we've been here, all you guys eat is fast food in America!"

No. YOU eat fast food.

I don't blame them. I did the same thing when I first came to Poland. I didn't know the lingo, had no idea what I was looking at when I went to a store....it was survival. You know it's not the healthiest thing for you but you do what you gotta do to make ends meet and keep your stomach full. In time, your diet changes once you figure things out. When you visit the USA, like any other country you're not familiar with, you end up doing the same thing.

Food for thought: Think of the things Poles love to eat in Poland, what their national foods are, what foods define Poland, what they can't wait to eat when they get home to visit mommy and daddy.....and tell me that it's healthy and not loaded with calories and fat.

We have a Polish restaurant in Houston, we go there once a while. It's called Polonia, if you're ever in the neighborhood. It's a very interesting place. They serve all the "signature" Polish dishes: potato pancakes, pierogis, golonka, cabbage rolls, meatloaf, zurek, pork chops, dumplings, blood sausage, bigos, beet soup, crepes, paczki... There is not one single healthy thing on the menu. I mean, nothing. Even the salads are slathered with mayo and sugar.

It's good comfort food, though, but it looks labor-intensive to prepare, so I never ask for recipes.

And it's true, too, that here the cheap food is definitely not worth eating. You can stuff yourself like a pig for $5 but you won't get anything that's good for you. That's why it's cheap, it's a disease waiting to happen. The kind of food that people actually want to eat is a little more expensive but way more flavorful and nutritious. It's a marketplace, like with anything else, supply and demand.

I haven't really checked that, but I would venture a statement that Americans eat out more than other countries and the percentage of income we spend on food is still smaller.

So żurek and barszcz are unhealthy as well?

ItsAllAboutMe wrote:


ha, golonka. golonka is basically the triple cheeseburger of Poland.

never tried it, to be honest. did try the blood sausage, lol... it doesn't taste bad, once you get over the thought of what you're eating... some vodka helps :)

[quote=FUZZYWICKETS]and tell me that it's healthy and not loaded with calories and fat.
The American food industry in collusion with the Department Of Health has gone a long way in promoting the myth that it is fat and calories that is ruining the health of Americans. The true culprit is prossessed food industry thats puts out foods which have all the nutrients taken out of them. This causes the malnourished bodies of the consumers to crave more food because they are not getting enough of what the body needs from the overly prossessed crap the food industry is selling. It is the ruined food of the food industry that makes people fat, but they cleverly place the blame on the consumer for not exercising enough and consuming too many calories. Blaming fat is also part of this strategy. In France people eats fatty sauces, cheeses, etc. nor do they exercise much, and they are on average much thinner than Americans. It is refined sugar and high fructose corn syrup that should be avoided as they serve no dietary purpose. The sad truth is that even when Americans try to get thin they end up avoiding nutritious foods because of these myths.

so the point you're trying to make is that Polish food, even though it's fatty and starchy, is still more nutritious because it's not processed

Yes. Fat is an essential nutrient. The prossessed food industry has gotten rich off of the "lowfat" scam, wherein they remove fat from a food item and replace it with processed carbohydrates. This sadly results in the consumer getting fatter than they'd have gotten eating the regular unprossessed fatty food.

I agree with the processed foods part.

There is good fat and bad fat, though. When you fry your chicken wings, you basically replace water with oil, which doesn't make the chicken more nutritious at all (and then if you smother the whole thing in batter (=salt + carbohydrates), and then pour bbq sauce over it (=sugar), it gets even worse); or, you could just grill it - no added fat. Then there's saturated fat, like lard or butter, and non-saturated fat, like olive oil. No-fat diet is a stupid idea, but one should still choose their fat wisely :)

I'm not buying the conspiracy theory, though. I understand that the food industry is trying their best to manipulate people into buying what they sell, no argument there. How is America different from other developed countries, though, in that respect? You educate yourself on what's good for you, and then you make sure you eat in moderation.

(btw, the best food that ever came out of Poland is E. Wedel chocolate. There is a store next to the Polish restaurant where we can buy it here. The chocolate is awesome. Nothing like the disgusting Hershey crap, and so much better than anything Belgian or German I ever had)

Very true. Frying things in hydrogenated oil makes them worse despite making them fattier. Olive oil, avocados, walnuts, and other types of fatty foods coming from plants are the best in my opinion.

so why do you think it is that there are over a thousand Mexican restaurants in Houston (well, that part is not very surprising...), hundreds of Italian, Chinese, Vietnamese, or Indian, a few dozen French, Cajun, Creole, Greek, Thai, or Pakistani, at least a dozen Brazilian, Cuban, or Spanish, seven Turkish ones, four Afghan ones, three Ethiopian (!), a bunch of ones I can't even think of now, and only ONE Polish restaurant? You can't argue that there are more Ethiopians in Houston than Poles, and I wouldn't expect Ethiopian food to be spectacular.

Frozen pierogies from the grocery store freezer.

I was in Houston three times. We've been going out with local people. I've been trying food ranging from fast food places to posh restaurants. The food was never acceptable for my taste, regardless of the class of the restaurant. On my returns from the U.S., I was just taking full English in London airport and cried from happiness: "HOME, SWEET HOME!"

Now, some of you write it is possible to get healthy food down there in the States. True. Only the portions are enormous. Whatever healthy the food is, eating it in such quantities leads to obesity the straight way. We Poles may love bigos, kiełbasa, pierogi, smalec etc. Yet we eat very little compared to the Americans. Have you ever given a thought to it?

Antek wrote:


In life, the portions can be as enormous as you want them to be. If the meal is too small.....buy 2 of them. If the can of coke is too small, buy a big bottle of it. Enormous portions further exploits the fact that it's a choice. Food is cheap in the USA. If you're given lots of food, simply don't eat all of it.

Antek wrote:


What evidence do you have for this claim?

lol, you know, it's legal in this country to leave food on your plate.

so, Antek, you're quoting my question but you're not answering it.

Not cheese and dairy products. They are made from low fat milk and skim and are better for you than products made from whole milk. Low fat beef is beef with the fat trimmed away and parts of the steer that are naturally lean, like brisket. It's better for you than the cuts with fat.

In fact, monounsaturated fatty acids found in olive oil and avocados that lower heart attack risk and aid in cancer prevention are in the brisket of a corn-fed cow, too. There was a Texas A&M study not so long ago, for real, that showed that brisket has nearly as much oleic acid as olive oil. If you've ever been to Texas, you know brisket is one of our major food groups, so yee-haw!

On the other hand, also for real, the corn-feeding of cows and other industrial forms of farming is really bad for the environment and quite inhumane for the livestock.

So I've decided to eat brisket only on Good Friday, pierogis (in very small, traditional Polish portions of half a pierogi and half a liter of potato vodka with beets, lard, and sauerkraut) on weekdays, and on weekends we'll fly to London to have the full English: black pudding

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_pudding

baked beans, and fried bread. Yum!

I disagree. Whole milk is the best food for a yogi, or so they believe in India, and others agree ""Low-Fat" Milk Makes You Fat - Full Fat Raw Milk

Doesn't
It's common knowledge among farmers that pigs fed skimmed milk gain weight
easily, whereas pigs fed whole milk stay lean.

Okay. So wouldn't drinking whole raw milk have the same effect?
Not necessarily. Because the butterfat in whole raw milk, particularly
butterfat in milk from cows that graze freely on green pasture, contains unique
nutrients that support thyroid function and help your body develop muscle
rather than fat."

It's seems many Americans are not aware of that. They stuff themselves like pigs, then drink a lot of DIET Cola. ;-)
In Poland, it is bad style if you leave too much on your plate. The first question asked will be: "Didn't you like it?"


en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obesity_in_the_United_States

The article on obesity in Poland must yet be written.

Good job Des Essientes. I personally don't believe in the whole low fat marketing. It only 'makes' your body to want more and you end up with more calories. A marketing scam, that's all. Long time ago, when I was going to school and worked as a waitress, people drove me nuts when they ordered a huge steak and a diet soda. Why bother? Get the steak and regular drink. Just don't make it an everyday meal. The same with milk. Forget the blueish low fat milk. Yuck! Have the full 4 or 2%, but a glass only - not a half a gallon at once.

I agree with you, Eurola.

There are several diets based on protein and fat. The point is, you only eat as much of them as your body really requires. Fat provides the energy the human being needs anyway. The quantity is what matters.

Antek wrote:


You haven't answered the question. You answered the question, "Are Americans fatter than Poles?" but you did not answer the question, "Do Americans eat more than Poles?" Showing me that Americans are more obese than Poles is not evidence. LIFESTYLE is the #1 cause of obesity. Find a fat person and ask them how many miles a week they put on their running shoes.

I spent enough time in Poland to see more chocolate bars eaten than I could ever imagine on top of beer/vodka drinking, tons of buttered bread, dessert after dinner every night and yes, poles eat plenty of fast food. McDonald's and KFC is always packed with people in Poland. The difference is people especially young people, are forced to walk all the time, take stairs, they sweat more due to less air conditioning....and this gives you thinner people. Like I said befiore, look at Poland's national foods and you will not find too many low calorie meals.

I'd kill to have a Polish restaurant located closer to home. The only semi-Polish restaurant is located about 15 miles from my home. They're only open a few hours a week, til 3:00 pm Mon-Fri. These are the hours when I'm usually at work.

When I get a mean craving for Polish food, I usually have to settle for a Polish sandwich with sauerkrat, from Der Wienerschnitzel :(

Fyi, Carl's Jr restaurants are now serving breakfast biscuits, with a sausage link. Tastes a bit like kielbasa. Okay stuff, for when you got a Polish food itch.