The 12 dishes of Poland on Christmas Eve.

Ive got the best of both worlds, Polish and English Christmases.

We celebrate Polish Christmas on the 24th with the 12 dishes and English Christmas on the 25th with Roast Turkey. Double carnage, double alcohol, double presents!! Ahh what the hell just double everything its Christmas.

Merry Christmas all....

Lovely jubbly! Will the missus insist on some stuffing with the turkey? ;) Do you have Bisto up there in Wrocław? Buttery mash and crisp green peas, brilliant! What's your pick of the bunch for the 12 Polish dishes?

Is the stuffing of the Turkey a British thing that was brought to America, or later borrowed from Americans?

as it happens just had some bought out from the UK, lovely jubbly indeed.

That's a good question, PennBoy. I don't really know, tbh.

WB, gravy really makes the dish as you know. That should go down a treat. No offence to the Poles but carp and turkey with Bisto/stuffing just don't compare. I like the little pierogi, though.

Merry Christmas for all. I'm sitting to my Christmas dinner with almost 12 dishes. Lovely! :)

I am having twelve dishes too....all of them have got beans in...!

I had a fantastic 'greek fish' made with śledż.

Well, that went down well :) £azanki with expensive mushrooms mixed in :) :) The stuff of legends! I opted for trout instead of carp. Trout isn't my favourite but it's streets ahead of carp.

Merry Christmas everyone


We do the same thing: Polish Christmas Eve and German Christmas day with some hearty German food.

I love being polish!!!!

Merged: 12 or odd number of dishes?

Does your family observe the 12 dishes or an odd numenr (5, 7, 9, 11) for Wigilia?

So here we are yet another year gone by, just getting ready for the first wave of English guests for Wigilia.

Merry Christmas all.

More of the same again!! Only, I thought the carp was chicken and got a nasty surprise. Xmas 2012 will likely be spent in Scotland. I fancy a change.

Still, it's decent here!

So do I, however it wasn't always such.

I was going to save this for another time but I have been moved by some of the posts AND the midnight Mass po góralsku I'm currently watching on TVP. So here goes and please forgive me if I tend to get a tad maudlin.

It's almost a year since I accidentally found you guys on an errant Google search. Trust me, I wasn't looking for you but am I glad I found you!

Thanks to you guys, I have learned a lot about the current-day Poland: its politics, its shiny and its ugly sides. In the beginning it was a little rough not knowing all the players. Some of you come at us hard while others prefer a little finesse. It's all good (as the brothers here say). I have been away for a while. There was a long period where I had secretly renounced my Polishness for selfish reasons. I had completely detached myself from all thing Polish. I had deprived my wife and daughter of all that's great about being connected to Poland: Wigilia, kolędy, the food, its people, it's crazy mixed-up people that I have grown to love and respect, etc. I'm glad I'm over it. I have newly-connected and re-connected with family and that's a great thing.

I'm also glad, that on this Wigilia night, I feel such a strong connection to this quixotic yet at times reassuringly pragmatic country.

I also want to thank all of you, (you know who you are), who helped me in my various quests. Whether it was quick translations, ideas on how to find relatives, or simply allaying my fears just before my return to the motherland, the PF community delivered with rapid, accurate and when needed compassionate responses.

I am an American of Polish ancestry and a member of Polish Forums both of which suit me just fine.
Thanks again. I'm looking forward to another interesting year on this site.

Wesołych Świąt i Śczęśliwego Nowego Roku to my PF family!

[mods please forgive my being off-topic. I was moved by the events surrounding me]

santa love you,,,,,,,,,

Great post, rybnik :)

Dining in amongst lovely Poles is an excellent experience indeed! I landed on my feet on that one :) Their hospitality is virtually unsurpassed!

AMEN to that!

I think my mother-in-law still has the haggis I gave her so all I need is a turnip and voila!

thats what i ate yesterday if you are talking about mushroom and onion stuffed pierogi in barszcz soup. lovely! we had only 4 dishes though and not the 12. plus i think it may be unusual. but dominika made golabki,and bigos. i didnt say anything, but i thought meat wasnt supposed to be eaten, or is that in run up to wigilia? they have lots of problems at moment so didnt want to ask too many questions. ( apologising in advance for ignorance)

No bigos yesterday due to the meat aspect. Quite a surprise to hear that, pam, but she probably isn't a Catholic Pole.

she doesnt go to church, and neither does her partner lukasz. however i have had lots of conversations with her and she does have strong beliefs. was just totally surprised about eating meat. no alcohol though, but thats fairly standard. was just pleased to be invited because wigilia is normally for family.

or she is an avant-garde Catholic :)

In my grandparents' times, it was no meat, no dairy and no alcohol all day long. Then the dairy got skipped from the list. Then some people started to include wine in the supper. Meat is the next logical step, it seems.

Although I still stick to the no-meat, no-dairy rule. It gives the day a special feeling and the supper tastes better. I don't mind being slightly hungry, so it's no problem to wait through the day on a couple of coffees, or a piece of herring with onions.

So had some family around for Wigilia, one beer drinker in fact, he turned up with a 12 pack of Strongbow (cider). I offered him a can of Lech, he Polished that off rather quick so i kept feeding him a mixture of Lech and Tyskie soon to discover that i only had three cans of Polish beer left. It was at this point that i started giving him the cider that he had actually brought round.

Im still p1ssed that i have no Polish beer left but only about 8 cans of friggen cider. I guess he liked the Polish piwo.

Why no meat, no dairy and no alcohol all day long? What's all that about?

WB, whip out the sick bowls or keep the toilet free.

The no-meat part I get. It's like the traditional Catholic custom of no meat on Fridays. But no dairy? I really haven't heard of that and I think some wigilia dishes use some dairy products. The no-alcohol has been addressed on another thread (summary: it's kind of a tradition but spottily observed).

The 'no meat' part you get, mafketis? But pam's friend did eat meat. AG Catholic, LOL :) Any Biblical authority for those customs developing?

It's simply to make the fasting stricter, purely vegetarian dishes, no animal products of any kind. Fasting was the traditional way of preparing for the most important religious events, like Christmas or Easter. In the old days people used to fast all through the Advent - from the end of November. I suppose they ate dairy products though, otherwise the milk would go to waste and many couldn't afford it. The fasting was also quite pragmatic, all the goodies were to be saved for Christmas time.

Anyway, this was the peasants' tradition - herring all the way.
I suppose some older people, especially in the countryside, still stick to the 'no dairy on Christmas Eve' rule. My grandmothers did, my mother and aunts do too. I seem to remember that the Church has allowed dairy products quite recently, some 15-20 years ago. I'm not sure, as for me its rather a matter of tradition, not so much of religion. Before it was strict fasting, meaning no animal products at all.

And no, I think there's no dairy in the traditional Wigilia menu. If you find eggs or milk in the recipes, it's just recent modifications, originally they weren't there.


You're forgetting that Catholicism is more about tradition than about the contents of the Bible ;) You're clearly stained with the Protestant way of thinking ;)


well, the contraceptives are forbidden too...

2. Read the Scripture within the living Tradition of the whole Church

'It is number 2 that is the main concern here. What does it mean to read Scripture "within the living Tradition of the whole Church?" If Scripture is "within the living Tradition," then Tradition encompasses Scripture. In other words, it is the tradition of the Church that interprets Scripture. This is in contradiction to the Word of God spoken by Jesus in Matt. 15:1-6.'

It is this that I was getting at. If the rules were formulated according to Christian tradition then they cannot simply be reversed with no authority whatsoever. If no meat was written in The Bible, then tradition is anti-Biblical.

"Neglecting the commandment of God, you hold to the tradition of men. He was also saying to them, You nicely set aside the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition.", Mark 7:8-9

It's no longer Christianity, it's merely tradition and subsequent amendment!

Herring and carp are animals too!

I can easily believe that originally wigilia dishes avoided dairy and egg but they certainly do appear now.

But meat for wigilia though seems like a line too far. I've known atheists who do the whole wigilia thing and avoid meat on the 24th as do I. I'm incapable of religious faith or faith-based practices but I can respect and follow traditions.