Jacket potatoes - do Polish people like them?

I've never seen anywhere here offering jacket potatoes - that's a baked potato with a topping of cheese, beans or something else.

In a country where potatoes are very cheap and plentiful, I'd have expected to see them offered all over the country.

But so far - not even one Spud U Like or anything :o)

And nowhere at all in Poland have I so far seen anyone eating one!

A staple of many works canteens and greasy spoon cafes in the UK, and an absolute must-have on British Bonfire Nights (November the 5th) it is an inexpensive and rather nice meal for a cold winter's day, served with a decent side salad of course.

Bit of satire on it
newsbiscuit.com/2012/09/29/spud-u-like-team-up-with-the-north-face-for-a-more-expensive-jacket-potato

There's a restaurant in Gdańsk that specialises in them:

barpodryba.pl

"Ziemniaki w mundurkach" or "ziemniaki w koszulkach" it is called. Not very popular, or even known, in Poland, more elagant restauratns should have it in offer though.

I'll be sure to look them up when I'm there, thanks.


Elegant ones eh?! In the UK it's a basic thing like (baked) beans on toast. I wonder why it never caught on (became popular) in Poland? Much of Poland is so cold in the winter, but perhaps Polish tastebuds have better ideas.

I think you two are talking about two different things: "ziemniaki w mundurkach" are just boiled in their skins, "pieczone ziemniaki w mundurkach" ("w łupinkach") are baked in the oven.


Do not worry about Polish tastebuds. :-) There are many, many ways to use "ziemniaki" in various recipes. :-)
kwestiasmaku.com/zielony_srodek/ziemniaki/przepisy.html

Restaurants and home cooking are two different things. I am not speaking for young generation, or any generation for that matter, but as far as I remember "ziemniaki" w mundurkach (boiled) were always a part of the diet in our family and those of my many acquaintances.

+ served with hearing in sour cream during various fasts
+ being a part of various delicious Polish salads: boiled potato + various veggies, preserved green pees, eggs, cream or mayonnaise; same with with herring but no eggs; as #1 + sausage

+ part of the German "potato salads"

I've just had a look at the photos there at that web page - they've made quite hungry - and all I've got here is a Pot Noodle because I was too tired to go shopping earlier :o)

I find that boiling the potatoes with their skin on really spoils their taste. Baked potatoes with skin are ok, I guess, whatever flavour there is is covered up with butter, sour cream, chives... etc etc

Possible, but I have never noticed that. Maybe because it all depends on kind of potatoes you eat. For example, the "Yukon Gold Potatoes", so popular in Canada, are good for many things, but not good at all for "placki ziemniaczane" (potato pancakes, potato latkes). Too watery in my experience.

Speaking of baking ... Think about traditional "wykopki" (Fall field potato digging), and baking some of them in situ, in hot ashes from burned "łęty ziemniaczane" (dry stems and leaves), for instant consumption. You are lucky if you remembered to bring some salt. :-)

OMG Boletus!! You just hit an old memory button of mine! My dziadzek used to bake them in our garden when burning your field was allowed. The sight, smell and feel of the crisp autumn air and the TASTE of the ziemniaczki in their charred skins - as is- was an experience!

Thanks for that :)

btw the skin's where all the vitamins reside

Whenever I've served them in Poland, people haven't eaten the skins. Same when they're eaten at an ognisko. Personally, the slightly charred skins are the best bit.

Yes!.........I think they're missing out.

It amazes me that when they sell potatoes in Polish stores, there is only ONE kind of potatoes. (It's the case too for most vegetables and fruit).

I don't know the names thereof, but there are a lot of different sorts of potatoes; some are more suitable to be boiled, others to be mashed, others to be fried, others to be baked.... and if not the right kind is used, the dish is a disaster. I don't know whether potatoes to be baked can be bought in Poland.

There are 1000s of types of spud good all rounders, good chippers, roasters, boiling spud and bakers. I grow about 5 varieties for the different ways you cook them.

There is a real art to cooking some spuds. Your Kerr’s Pink is a flowery potato that must cook in its own heat so you take it off the boil when still hard strain and pack a tea towel over them to keep the heat in. They fall apart if you don’t do this.

The crisp skin is the best part of the baked potato. Boiles or steamed spuds taste best with the skin where all the goodness is

The more presentable types are sold in supermarkets less attractive exhibits go to factories.

Certain varieties, for example this one known as 4715/103/5 are not for sale in supermarkets and I dont know why...........It really is a real type of potato from the Andes

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Barney: maybe YOU grow different kinds of potatoes but in stores they only have one kind. In French (for instance) vegetable stores, there are always several kinds offered and people buy according to the way they'll cook them. Believe me, if for instance you mash potatoes suitable to be fried or vice versa, your recipe won't taste what expected.

Yeah but you cant ask for fried apples in France;)

I assume most people buy spuds in supermarkets like here. The knowledge of varieties was lost when this happened. The French thing is not strictly true the reality is like Britain and Ireland.

Supermarkets have a large choice of spuds almost all the same type with a medium starch content so they don’t disintegrate. The old type local store where traditional varieties were sold have almost disappeared.

Big supermarkets often labeel them as waxy, starchy et. But if you buy on the market there's usually a bit more choice.

Statistics:
If this is the case then this must be a distribution problem, not the producers' fault. Polish National Registry has 129 varieties (source 2: as of October 2011) legally acceptable for consumption in Poland: both for the direct consumption and for the production of food (such as potato chips, French fries, mashed potatoes), animal feed, starch and ethanol. Among them the direct consumption varieties prevail (71%). Earlier source (source 1: year 2003) lists 117 varieties: 83 of Polish origin (69.9% of seeding area) and 34 Dutch and German (30.1% of seedling area). In the last several years 59 new varieties have been registered (33 national and 26 foreign). The Potato Institute - a part of Institute of Plant Breeding and Acclimatization) takes care of the research of new varieties.

Desired properties:
Poland specializes in early maturing varieties. There are many, many properties to be considered during selection of varieties: size of tubers, shape (round is better), regularity, depth of meshes (shallow is better), skin quality (smooth is visually better), resistance to light (some get green in time), type (A: salad type B: general utility, desired quality: not too loose, not crumbling during cooking), tastiness, resistance to blackening during cooking, heterogeneity of flesh, resistance to viruses.

Most popular varieties:
- Very Early:
(source 1) [Denar and Lord (national); Impala and Krasa (foreign)]
(source 2) [Krasa, Irys, Gloria, Denar, Berber, Lord, Irga]
- Early:
(source 1) [Korona (national); Vineta and Vitara (foreign)]
(source 2) [Nora, Augusta, Gracja, Vineta]
- Mid-Early:
(source 1) [Bartek, Andromeda and Zebra (national); Satina and Folva (foreign)]
(source 2) [Ibis, Pirol, Żagiel, Satina, Kuba]
- Mid-Late and Late:
(source 1) [Syrena and Wawrzyn (national)]
- Late:
(source 2) [Uran, Lenino, Bzura, Ślęza, Sonda, Medea]
[1] ppr.pl/dzial-odmiany-ziemniakow-3730.php
[2] pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ziemniak
[3] ihar.edu.pl/ziemniak.php

boletus. My Polish father-in-law refers to the Colorado beetle (Leptinotarsa decemlineata) as the American beetle, and holds to an old belief that the Americans dropped the damned pest on Poland. Personally, I don't hold with this view (why would the CIA do this in Poland?), but given that they dropped Napalm on civilians in SE Asia I don't feel able to contradict him.

That name in Polish is "stonka ziemniaczana", or "żuk z Kolorado".

Schoolchildren were making drawings in their school "wall newsletters" (A0 size, bristol, card stock) of American bombers dropping the Colorado Beetles on Poland's potato fields. Organized groups of schoolchildren, factory workers, young communist organizations, pioneers (communist scouting) were being sent into the potato fields with the bottles of "nafta" (kerosene) to pick them up manually and drawn them in the kerosene.

The real stories about the plagues of beetles in various times are here:
pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stonka_ziemniaczana
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado_potato_beetle

Nope.

The only exception is baking potatoes in a campfire, but it is really rare today.

As for the member who complains about limited choice of potatoes in Poland, I can say that Polish potatoes are universal and good for all kinds of cooking.

They're good, and they deliver, but at 20zl+ per potato, they're also expensive. I prefer to bake my own.


All my Polish friends eat them when I serve them.


I have never understood the British penchant for baked beans on toast, or for that matter, with what you call a fry up. Oh well. Suum quique


Bland, no flavor at all. Good only for filling you up with very little nutritional value.


They can. I've been baking potatoes here for five years, So far nobody's died. :)

Thanks for the tips and contributions on this thread, everyone.

I am going to do some jacket potatoes with cottage cheese tonight, may not sound that exciting but considering that cottage cheese can make you very ill if it not fresh and clean, it's more daring than you might think! The other one I'd recommend is a jacket potato with melted mature cheddar cheese and of course butter. Biedronka are currently doing 200g of cheddar (10 or 14 months) for 7zl (selected stores) which would be just the ticket. Otherwise, go for Cathedral City at some of the large Tescos.