Is Polish food still more natural than in the West?

sausage=parówka? or sausage=kiełbasa??? Kiełbasa is very good for bbq. What kind of kiełbasa was it?

Not sure Zetigrek - supplied by friends. The outer skin is "orange-brown" and it seemed to be customary to slit it a few times across the width. Looked quite like German wurst - sound familiar?

BTW, it tasted good anyway whatever it was.

well almost every kiełbasa has orange brown skin ;)

Kiełbasa

Parówka

Parówka is made of fat and other wastes, while kiełbasa is made of meat. There are lots of kiełbasa kinds, e.g.:

-krakowska is the driest (according to wikipedia; 36% of water)
-żywiecka (36-55% of water)
-serdelowa, zwyczajna (up to 72% of water)

Didn't look particularly like either but more so the second one. Can't be sure though.

And by the way:


So is this the same natural and healthy Polish food or food from a differnt Poland in a parallel universe or something? ; )


Sounds like you are talking about what is known in English as "dripping".

Very popular with poorer people (especially in the north of England) up until the early 60s or so. Consumed the same way too. It still exists.

Have you been inspecting kiełbaski again, Zeti? ;) ;)

Is Polish food still more natural? Largely, yes. Poland prefers not to use preservatives (no, the Church has said nothing on this type) and has unpasteurised substances too.

oh I know it was kiełbasa zwyczajna:


Well parówka was always consider as a kind of junk food. Just look where you can find it:


yes, exactly this weekend ;)

Anyone tried kaszanka? Made with delicious congealed pig's blood and barley.

Planning on frying some up here in the next hour. I like it with eggs.

I hate kaszanka.

Btw who wants to unproceesed meat with unproceesed egg (in a literally way)??? ;D

Here you are!

How were they, salty? ;) Did you try any of those black ones? They have a strange bend in them ;)

How much did you try?

I love it. It's the best type of blood sausage I've had. But no eggs thanks!


I think so. Looks and sounds familiar.

zgadzam się całkowicie

The lines of people buying crap meat in the supermarkets seems to contradict that observation :)

Here in England there are weekly Farmers Markets, where they claim the food is fresh and mostly organically grown.

In Poland I have noticed there are many more, and not just 'once a week' markets where fresh produce can be bought.

One of the differences I see is the price; in Poland the freshly produced markets are priced quite cheaply compared to the supermarkets, whilst in England the prices paid at the Farmers Markets are similar in price or in many cases more expensive than at the supermarkets.

There is also a great variety at the Polish Markets, and one can usually taste the produce before buying it. The meat and other produce usually tastes much better from the market than supermarket.

When in Warsaw, I love buying the fresh produce from markets such as Plac Szembeka which is Praga Południe; it's a bit of a trek from my flat in Wilanow but having friends just round the corner makes it a good excuse to pay them a visit!

For locally grown produce, that's true. A good portion of what's for sale at markets here in Wroclaw are the same imported products that are sitting in the store shelves. Just take a look at the wooden boxes that they come in :) Spain, Morocco, and Holland seem to be common names.

Very true, I think in Poland are a lot markets you can buy very fresh vegetables, fruits, meat, fish and so on. I do not know exactly how it looks in the other countries, but in Poland these markets are very often and popular - as they was always been, since my great-great-grandmother times :-)

Poland does well in this regard. I love the markets with fresh and natural products. Plenty goodness there :)

yess, right

Yes, strangely enough I am familiar with this concept of "the market" also. ; )

My local town (approx. 5000 pop.) has two and between them they are open 7 days a week.

We are not talking about beer stalls, Teffle ;0 ;)

You see the bad foreign influences here. Most notably, panga. That Vietnamese crap is filled with toxins and is barely fit for consumption. Cod, on the other hand, exudes freshness and some would insist on nothing less than total purity.

Yeah, a disproportionate amount of them too. The permanent ones that is - not the stalls ; ) And 7 days a week? practically 24 hrs a day in some cases.

Serious question: cheese.

What is the Polish attitude or habits here?

My Polish friends seem to eat only (what I would regard as) very bland mild cheeses and when in Ireland seem to go out of their way to get stuff like e.g. Edam as opposed to a lovely mature cheese, farmhouse cheese or God forbid, a blue cheese.

I don't really remember having cheese at all when I was in Poland but I guess I probably did.

Is it a bit of a 'functional' item in Poland maybe - kind of the opposite of the UK/Ireland V Poland bread attitude?

Cheeses here cannot compete with Irish/British/French/German cheeses. That is surprising as Polish dairy is some of the best in the world. There is Irish cheddar here :) Poles tend to eat rather bland food generally and add a lot of salt.

I concur.

Very true


Not so sure about that - the Polish dairy industry is heavily industrialised.


One farm makes a range of real (i.e. not factory-made) cheeses. They have won prizes and their products are good, but mostly they export - there is little demand for good cheese in PL.

Heavily industrialised or not, it still tastes good and is popular with consumers.

That's one aspect of Polish life. They have hidden gems. There are better beers than those advertised and known.

Cheese is either sth to be fried up or as a quick snack in the form of a sandwich. In Britain, cheddar is treated as an institution and isn't simply quaffed to fill a hole. I'd go spare if my wife fried up my cheddar here but as for those 7PLN blocks of random cheese she buys, she can go right ahead. The only thing with cheddar is artificial colourings. They seem to have many but I could be wrong. The one I eat here seems natural enough.

Until you read the label.


So are oven chips, Kubuś and Jogobella.

Stop being selfish, give us a name :)

If I could remember I would. My local shop stocked it for a week or so, but didn't sell much. They were on TV not long ago - a young-ish couple run the farm, and they won a prize in France, but unfortunately I can't remember much more.

If anywhere in PL stocks their stuff, it would be Piotr i Paweł.

Read the label? Now why would I want to go and do sth like that? ;) ;) Seriously though, what's wrong with those products? They must pass certain health and also safety standards, quality notwithstanding. I'm happy to go with that.

Good for McCain, Kubuś and Jogobella I say :)

Yes I did. Why? U don't agree?

Of course there is always an alternative. ;-)