Why is it that some Polish people refuse to eat anything that is not Polish?

My favorite breakfast was bread dipped into the fat from the pan of a roasted goose, with pickled eggs on the side and washed down by several pints of dark beer. My mother would fix a goose at least once a month and save the drippings for her, and as a result, I'm not that big a fan of roast goose. You'd think it was hideously unhealthy but I was one of the slimmest people in the family. If eating really, really greasy turkey drippings is your thing, it wouldn't be too bad. Just be sure and leave the window open when you hit the bathroom.

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I remember discussing this with a poster called nott. He said that they were really adventurous. Now, I know well that I live in a conservative part of the country but I really get the impression that other Poles are like-minded. They are generally not adventurous IMHO.

I'd like to respond to the OP:

Because most food in Poland that is not Polish tastes like total shite or is so incredibly overpriced that it's not worth it.

Pasta is overpriced? Beans are overpriced? Basic freezer food is overpriced? Sardines and tuna are overpriced?

Tastes like shi*e? That's one helluva generalisation right there and a dumb one at that! Taste is a matter of preference but maybe you had sth else in mind, FUZZY? Did you mean that when Polish cooks do foreign food in restaurants? Some shops are overpriced but many aren't.

Yet again, your lack of money in Poland becomes glaringly obvious. It explains why your posts are full of hatred for this country - it must suck to be poor and foreign, especially when plenty of your compatriots are earning huge amounts of money here.

It is *perfectly* possible to make non-Polish food for next to nothing here. An example - Kuchnia Swiata is/was selling all sorts of pastes and spices for around 5zl. I bought a load about 6 months ago and there's still plenty of it left, despite using it frequently. Or - right now - you can stuff yourself with homemade Italian food for next to nothing.

Anyway, when you can pick up an absolutely massive (and very edible) plate of Vietnamese food in Warsaw for 10zl, this country certainly isn't "overpriced". Of course, if you can't cook and have to rely on restaurants to provide you with non-Polish food (because your wife can only cook what Babcia taught her) - then Poland is going to be expensive, especially when you've got to pay for her way in life too ;)

I think it also stems from tradition and homogeneity. Bigos and gołąbki are elevated into an exalted position and the dearth of other options in some places just highlights that more. Foreign restaurants have gone under here and that's a telling sign.

Poles tend not to experiment. For example, spicy food. I need to ask for extra extra chilli here as they just put in the smallest amount. I can't imagine jalapeno or habanero peppers being popular here.

Many polish women told me that while at first they refused to eat anything but polish food,after being acquainted wjth greek food they could not eat polish anymore because it stroke them as tasteless.So you may get spoiled by mediteranean food.

My wife certainly likes Greek Salad, southern. She had it in Cyprus and in Rhodes and couldn't get enough of it. She makes it here too :)

Cheap crap food seems to go over really well. I haven't seen a kebab shop or a fast food chain go out of business. If it's cheap, they will come. Lowest bidder seems to win all the time, regardless of the quality.

I couldn't agree more. That's the way it works here.

Yes,but it lacks the ingredients.Feta cheese,grrek olives,greek olive oil,our onions etc.It doesn't taste the same abroad.
And greek fish is the best in Europe.Roman Emperors ordered their fish from Greece.I had a czech gf who hated fish and found it delicious when she first tasted greek fish.(I cared it was one of first quality species).

True, it is MUCH better in Greece, she said. As for Greece having the best fish in Europe, that's a bold statement. Much of Europe has good fish. This is where Poles experiment a little. They try herring and mackerel which are quite flavoursome. The problem is that Poles see anything they eat as their own ;) ;)

I tell you man.Greek fish costs here three times more than european imported fish,doesn't it say anything to you?There is no comparison.If they try to pass turkish fish or portugese,morrocan as greek,there are heavy conflicts because it is much less tasty and clients get upset.

Seanus wrote:


yes, that's mostly what I'm referring to.

delphiandomine wrote:


"yet again", personal attacks from dear ole' delph. honestly, either try and respond to my posts without the blind assumptions, lies and idiocy, or stick to threads about taxes and residency cards.

I avoid ethnic food in poland because it is either crap, overpriced, or both, 99% of the time. if you don't realize how bad it is, you don't know what good ethnic food is. i'm tired of defending myself on this.

delphiandomine wrote:


which reminds me of your situation, pappy.....must be nice living rent free but I guess when you can't teach English, speak a completely useless dialect of English (non-natively at that) along with having a fraudulent foreign services business that doesn't generate any income, she's got no choice but to float your broke a$$.

it NEVER ceases to amaze me how many stones you are willing to throw while living in such a thin-walled glass house. you're such a joke.

delphiandomine wrote:


i'd LOVE to see just how that "Vietnamese" food tastes. any corn or kielbasa in there? does Pawel or Agnieszka run the kitchen???

convex wrote:


at least someone is in agreement with me.

It tells me that the economic situation is different and that you need the right pricing strategy to put it right.

What types of fish do you have? Poland has access to some nice fish but it doesn't have the benefit of being an island culture like Britain. My home city has some tasty stuff :)

We have Mediterranean fish.The most famous is barbouni.(mullet fish).(Germans know it they come for it),but we have small and tasty not the Moroccan big and tasteless.

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Another fist quality fish is synagrida.Extremely tasty and very expensive.

youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=7WXtN46BkRM

This is called sfyrida the greek.also very popular.
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This one skaros exists only in Greece near Kreta and Carpathos islands.It was known from ancient times,the favourite fish of roman emperors.
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Never been into mullets much myself ;) You seem to have a good selection there :)

I wonder, if Poles had a street like they have in Minnesota where you have restaurants from all over, how popular would they be? It would depend on wealth but the pierogi joint would come out tops every time.

So these 3 are not pics of some of your girlfriends southern? :-))

Greek mullets are different from ocean ones.The ocean are tasteless ours taste phantastic although they have special flavour not everyone likes them.

Poles like these acquired tastes. Look at lard with bread :)

And to be honest, it's starting to happen now. Looking in Warsaw this week, you're absolutely spoiled for choice and variety now - Japanese/Indian/Vietnamese seems to be dominant, but pricewise and tastewise, it's on a winner.

Poznan and Wroclaw are miles behind in comparison - which is why Fuzzywickets doesn't know anything about it, because he can't afford to go to Warsaw to try it for himself - and he can't afford to eat in the quality ethnic restaurants in Wroclaw. I'd invite him to an Indian place that I know, but I doubt he'd be able to afford the 50-70PLN a head that it costs to stuff yourself completely.

(and no, it's not overpriced - for the quality of the food, ingredients and skill of cooking, combined with the location, it's a very good price......for those that can afford it)

So many restaurants going out of business then? ;) ;)

The scene in Warsaw is impressive, right enough. I went to a Thai place there and it was impressive. Having been in Thailand and sampled the local cuisine, I can say that their copy was not too wide of the mark.

As far as I can tell, being friends with a few restaurant owners - the problem in Poland is that people often get the presentation right but completely fail with the service, food or location - or usually all three.

One restaurant here does small snacks (some chicken wings and bread, for instance) for 10PLN and it's very, very popular - it's cheap enough to eat for lunch for most people without fuss, yet they get the quality of a good restaurant.


It's surprising to me, to be honest - I found that Vietnamese place entirely by accident, tried it with a sort of "ah well, if it's rubbish, i'll go elsewhere" attitude - though there were a lot of locals there - and was thoroughly shocked at how decent it was. Then again, the fact that the people working there were really from Vietnam might have had something to do with it :P

It seems pretty overpriced if you consider that you can get good-quality authentic Indian food for about £6 (30 PLN) in most major UK cities, including London. But the market is obviously much bigger over here, so prices are clearly going to be lower. And the only way that Asian food is going to become as cheap in PL is if an equivalent percentage of Asians move in - and I'm not sure that most Poles would want such a deal :) Unless I was on a date, there's no way I'd ever eat at any restaurant over here which costs £14 for a meal.


bleeeuuugghhhh! That reminds me of the converation about tripe which we had in the pub last night :D

They tend to take pride in good service :) There is a Vietnamese place where my wife works in Zabrze. They have excellent spring rolls and go out of their way to get them to you quickly. My wife loves them. She does experiment a wee bittie :)

delphiandomine wrote:


what are you, 12 years old? are you seriously, AGAIN, poking fun at someone because of their income level? (albeit based on false assumptions, but that's simply your style). congratulations on offending everyone on this forum though that in fact cannot afford to eat in "quality ethnic restaurants." and for those of you that are offended, trust me, you're not missing much. stick with that good ole' home cookin'.

OH, and just in case you DO want some good stuff, and you live in say.......Szczecin, get on the train, ride for HOURS, and when you get to Warsaw, go find Delph, he's the scrawny little kid in denial......and he'll show you the one place you can get, what he thinks to be, good Vietnamese food.

then ride the train all the way back home.

good times!

That's the thing - it's expensive, but that's because there isn't much competition and that resourcing quality ingredients here is much harder. I don't grudge it - if I wanted to eat cheap Asian food, I'd live in a place which had plenty of them. Look at Manchester - cheap as anything to eat in, but yet you have to accept that the city will be ridiculously multicultural, which not everyone wants.

But at the same time, with a bit of savvy, you can knock up quite decent homemade ethnic food here for not that much money. Sure, it takes preparation, and the ability to hunt down things, and then the ability to cook - but it's worth it :)


Or you can pay the going rate to access quality food in your own city. Like I do in Wroclaw on a frequent basis - and like you don't, because you can't afford it.

One interesting development in Poland is that we're starting to see Asians opening up places that are catering very much for the takeaway crowd - there's an Indian takeaway opened up near me that does very reasonable food for not much money. It's actually owned and operated by a guy from India and he seems to be doing well at it - so prices are definitely coming down and the food is starting to lose the aura as being only for people with money.

Who knows Fuzzy, maybe you'll be able to afford good ethnic food soon too!

Please keep to the topic and not the personal insults. Otherwise you'll find your posts in the bin. Thank you.

so true, ethnic food is not cheap in Poland and as for Szczecin, besides probably the good fish Polish restaurant Chief, there is nothing really good to eat.

I have never tried Bombay food. I just returned from there 4 weeks ago and besides poor quality Chinese, some Pub food there is nothing really impressive. I had Kaczka in W-wa in Stare miasto - it was OK, but my family members are much better cooks.

Occasionally one can have a good meal in a restaurant run by some Poles who happen to be good cooks, but those places are not famous, yet there are many of them. I personally like home cooking because I like fresh food.

PS.

Fuzzy, are you in Szczecin?


oh, well, that is too bad, but I don't know anybody who likes to pay for mediocre quality. I still think that in Poland the best food one can get in Polish restaurants, unless one is in a place where there are many good ethnic places. Just because somebody is from China does not make him a good cook. I like fresh and tasty food. I eat out a lot in Canada btw and one can come across variable quality. The latest ethnic meal I have had was in a Vietnamese place, but I went there because the place was busy and the customers always know who cooks well.


well, he does not live in Toronto like me, where the choice of ethnic food is amazing. We have restaurants from every corner of the world and if one finds a good deal and eats well at the same time that means that the person is a well seasoned culinary tourist;), ha, ha...


just curious:)

aphrodisiac wrote:


i'd love to go to Toronto. never been, but i'm sure they have some great places to eat.

and for what it's worth, i know what you mean about every corner of the world. I grew up in the NY/NJ area so I was completely spoiled with absolutely amazing food. asian food is just ridiculous there, along with Italian. Mexican is also completely awesome in the tri-state area.

I had a Vietnamese place within walking distance from my apt. before I left for Poland. Literally the entire place was ran by Vietnamese people, from the host to the cooks to the wait staff. What amazing food.

I dig Poland. As much as I pi$$ and moan about stuff on here, I really do dig the place, but MAN do I miss the food back home in the states.

it is not a bad place with over 50% population whose first language is not English, so there is a huge demand for ethnic food, therefore the high quality and choice.


so you know that so called "ethnic" food experience in Poland is nothing in comparison to that:). This is one of the reason I would not pay 70 PLN for it, but I have in the past when visiting Poland and decided that I rather have pierogies next time:)


I hear yah..........:)
PS. Delphi is a Scot - they know nothing about what good food is all about;P (there is some truth to it)
PS. what I miss in Poland is good beef;(. I tried to make a roast the last time I was there, but boy oh boy, never again.