Cooked Fruit in Poland - Fruity Fillings, Flan, Pies, Tarts and JAM

Well, Scots use it when they are eating Polish jam, don't u c? LOL Compost? Don't u put that in a heap somewhere out the back of ur house?

Polish jam, yes, very good

Yes! I HATE it.

You may have thought I was just getting all horticultural again, but I do know of a local producer of 'Fruit Compost'. I think 'Compote' is the standard English name. Like the Polish word, it most probably derives from French. I bet there's that little hat on the second letter 'O', supposedly to signify that they couldn't be bothered to pronounce the 'S'.

Still, I thought the idea was it was something you cooked and ate hot rather than sold in jars.

The beauty is that it keeps for a very long time. The juice is heavenly and u can eat the fruit after. A very healthy option. A little hat, hehehe, it's a circumflex, right? The others are grave, accent and cedilla I believe.

They're both good.
Home made is obviously better, IMO. However, the jars are more convenient.


accent aigu = é
there's also tréma which is the two dots on the i, e or u

hehe, so do i! i would gag as a kid when i tried to gulp it down... just something bad about seeing the plums floating in there like that... yuk

Plum butter, on the other hand!


hmm, thats odd.. what region are you from?
anyone else heard of strawberry or blueberry soup in the summertime?

no kidding, they are proboably at it as we speak:)


sure, plum kompot, if we are speaking about kompot.


you are talking about fruit soup usually served in the summer and I think people serve it all over Poland. That reminds me of pierogi with blueberries and sour cream and sugar. Mnima, mniam.


I maybe bitter but never sour - I am pretty sweet most of the times;)
There is an apple kompot for sure.

Osiol, this thread should be extended to Fruit use in Poland. Jam is just to damn limiting:). What about fruit wines widely made in Poland???

Jabol?

I agree. I might even see what the powers that be can do to the title.

This thread is making me very hungry, at a time I should be thinking about sleeping rather than eating.
A little trip to the greengrocer tomorrow, I think.

Jabłko?


mmm. i can feel my stomach calling for me now...
yes, but finally at least one person knows what i was talking about : )
one of my favorites, defintely.. strawberry/blueberry soup with kluski..

An essential in many jams and jam-like products as a source of pectin.
I've never been so keen on cooked apple without other stuff.
But this ain't about me. This is about YOU, THE READER.
Let's have more Malus domestica on this thread please!

I know! Such a difference.


Kielce. Swietokrzyskie province


Of course they are. no time to waste


right. bleh


I'm interested...

I've already suggested that this thread should be retitled to being more about COOKED FRUIT.
Let's not bring alcohol into it too much, although it does sound like a good idea in some respects.

Update:
My suggestion for a change of title seems to have gone through with only one or two minor problems!
Before I disappear up the metaphorical staircase (I live on one floor), I will leave you with these words:

Pie, flan, tart, apple sauce, jelly.

Yup. Yummy. Cooked but best served cool.
Oh, and I am originally from Swietokrzyskie province.

Another one is pierogi will all kinds of fruit, such as blueberry pierogi.

Well I don't know why no one else isn't mentioning good old Polish Damson jam. My Mum used to make all her own jams, fruit juices etc. She worked full time too and grew her own veggies and fruit lol.

We were well looked after. We never had stuff like pies etc that didn't appear as a Polish dish when I was younger but we did have scrumptious apple cake <very yummy>.

:)

I just tried the jam that inspired me to start this thread.

It was quite nice. The big chunky bits definately helped, but if I'm going to be fussy, it wasn't quite as sweet as I would have liked. Because of this, it would probably be better at breakfast time.

Next time I'll have to go for something like blackcurrant (Ribes nigrum), preferably not with the lower sugar content that this one was made with.

I did just write a 400 word story about fruit accidentally eaten at work, but I decided it was probably just a bit too much for this time of day. I might try to edit it down to about 360 words.

We have a wonderful product available in the local deli entitled:
Powidła Sliwkowe Babuni - Granny's Prune Homemade Jam.
Product of Canada, but wonderfully yummy on bread with cream cheese.

Are we sitting comfortably? Then let us begin!

When autumn arrives (the season of mellow fruitfulness rather than when fall arrives and the leaves fall), where I work there are a lot of hedges. Amongst the inedible hawthorn, thuja, false cypress and field maple, there are some real treats.

There are various plums, including greengages and damsons. There is a pear tree that is good on some years, but not on others, loads and loads of blackberries growing on the bramble that seems to get everywhere and helps to protect some of the fruit from some but makes it more of a challenge for others. There are also things like elderberries and sloes that you wouldn't eat off the plant, but can be used in the production of certain alcoholic drinks.

As these just grow in hedges and are not the plants we actually sell, and because the boss and his family are no longer interested in gathering all the fruit, it is all left hanging on the trees and bushes. Or is it?

Anyway...

So last autumn, it was quite a sight. Working close to one particular plum tree, I had already filled my pockets with delicious fruit. A team of Polish temps passed by, stopping to grab a few handfuls and pocketfuls of owoce before moving on.

A few moments later a lady who has worked there for many years stopped her tractor with the trailer just below the branches. She looked around to check that the coast was clear - she didn't notice me, or if she had, she knew I'd have done the same thing - at least the boss wasn't about. She climbed onto the trailer, stuffed her pockets full of plums and drove off, eating!

I reached into my pocket for yet another plum. Suddenly my manager (not the big boss) appeared as if out of nowhere (like they do) to check up on what I was doing. He noticed I was eating - at least I was working at the same time - but he didn't comment. As we was talking, he edged closer and closer to the now legendary tree. "Blah blah blah... and when you've finished that, can you blah blah blah..." he was now under the tree. "Blah blah blah... and then we need to get blah blah blah... SCOFF SCOFF SCOFF! Mmmm! These plums are good!"

That afternoon at the end of work, I saw several bulging carrier bags being carried into the car park, to the cars of Polish temps and of people who are so native to this part of the world they were probably born in hedgerows.

There were also people showing a few signs of slightly dodgy stomachs from indulging in a little too much of the season's mellow fruitfulnes.

Surely, the fruit hasn't been exhausted already?

I keep hearing about Polish pastries. I hope I haven't said this in this thread already, but doesn't Polish pastries sound better than Danish pastries (that in Danish are referred to as being Viennese, not Danish).

Over the last few months, this thread remained as dormant as an apple tree in winter. Nothing could be seen happening, but below the surface was life. The roots of a tree go on growing even though all above seems lifeless.

The fruit trees at work this year were mostly unimpresive. A few śliwki here and there, some gruszki that tasted a bit funny (they seem to alternate between good and bad years), but one amazing apple tree. Only a small tree, tucked away behind a polytunnel where most people didn't even notice it. Small tree, massive apples.

We were couped up in a polytunnel for hours on end working on inedible climbing plants, but every so often, someone had to do "inna praca" - drive off on the buggy to the apple tree, stand on the back so as to be able to reach the fruits (which got progressively harder and harder to reach) and bring a few back to make the main job more bearable.

"Następna praca. Znasz to drwewo obok P11?"
"Jabłka?"

Eventually, someone not involved in my area of work got the last few apples down with the aid of a cherry-picker (hydraulic platform), and he left them on one of the tables where we have lunch. They didn't last long.

If there had been more fruit, undoubtedly some of it would have been cooked. I suspect that someone did get out there with some carrier bags and remove a large number of plums while no-one was looking. I'm only just getting towards the end of my last cooked fruit experiment-gone-wrong: medlar syrup. It was supposed to have been jelly, but it first came out like boiled sweets set into jam jars, then after another heating and some extra water, it turned into a rather runny syrup. I'm sure it's helping with my cold - adding medlar syrup to a mug of hot water and lemon.

Anyone have any good fruit experiences this season?

It is a shame that "normal" jams are very difficult to almost impossible to buy in Poland, especially in my father's hometown. The majority are the niskosłozony, which do not taste the same as jams made with sugar. If I am going to have jam, then it has to be jam, and not "concentrated fruit". I don't like the niskoslodzony products as their look is off.

Ktoś polecał mi powidła
Someone recommended powidła to me.



I suppose that dżemor is some kind of a diminutive form of dżem.

Stick to home made.

Mind you, when it's made well it's excellent. When it isn't (and it usually isn't) it's disgusting.

If you are interested in making your own, buy some fruit, sugar and a little fruit juice of some kind, but not a lot. Cook it up in a saucepan on the kitchen stove then let it cool. You could end up with something that resembles jam. If it is fresh fruit, it will be tasty regardless if it actually becomes full fledged jam.

Thanks Jon

Since you know Polish you may wish to read this detailed, interesting and instructive description of a recipe for the plum butter made for the old Polish gingerbread:

forum.gazeta.pl/forum/w,77,17832019,,Przepis_na_powidla_do_piernika_staropolskiego.html?v=2&wv.x=1

Now, imagine how they did it centuries ago: replace the word "pot" by a "cauldron", "wooden spoon" by a "shovel", "stove" by "campfire" and "you" by one or more "servant girls". :-)

Thanks very much for the link. I understand some of it and I will try to understand more, thanks again.