What Polish foods do foreigners generally not take to?

Never took a survey, but I personally never experienced any being overcooked. Some added a bit of cornflower to the grated-potato mixture which give them a kind of rubbery bounciness. In general however Poles do not fancy al dente pasta and like it to be tender, but not overcooked.

To this day czernina is best known in Wielkopolska, and Poznań alone has seversal restruants specialising in duck soup (including: hacjenda.poznan.pl/
The reason for its popularity in Polonia is that the first wave of Polish immirgants to America (starting around 1850) came mainly from hte Prussian occupation zone and brought their culinary habits with them. The Kongresiarze and Galony (Galicjoki) followed, as those from Russian and Austrian-ruled Poladn were popularly referred to.

What about kaszanka, Blutwurst, boudin, black pudding, etc. Don't they all contain blood?

Not a one of which was to be found anywhere near where I grew up, which was populated by people from the Suwalszczyna and Galicja, and who had little or no contact with Poles from the Prussian partition.

My grandmother was from the Lublin region (Kongresówka) but because of cultural sharing learnt to cook czernina in America from Wielkapolska-born neighbour ladies.

@Polonius3

That wasn't the case with my grandparents, or anyone else from my area.

i was born and grow in ;Lublin area..this duck soup i never heard of ,when i was living there.certainly it is not popular in that region.

Read up on czernina on wikipedia

czernina

I had some czernina today in Płock. It was probably the worst czernina I'd had - really acidic as if they'd emptied half a bottle of vinegar in. No dried fruit either, something that good czernina usually has. I've had middling czernina before (some restaurants add ground liver to get away with using less duck's blood) but never as bad as this.

If a visitor had it for the first time at that restaurant, they'd be put off it.

Have we mentioned salceson, simialr to brawn or American headcheese? It's like galareta (zimne nogi) but contains more meat and offal and less gealtin encasement. At delis it gets machine-sliced so it's more of a cold cut than a classic aspic. Do you regard it as a delicacy or turn-off?

That exists in one way or another in many places, Po. One of those things that tastes ok providing you don't think too much about what's in it.

Calling it 'head cheese' isn't likely to attract many takers. Brawn will do.

I knew headcheese form the states (along with souse, headcheese made with vinegar, and pickeld pigs feet) so those weren't too unusual.

Does anywhere in Poland make anything like utopenec (pl utopenci) which are pickled bratwurst? Quite tasty when done well but I've never seen anything like it in Poland.... (pyzy from wielkopolska are very similar to Czech knedliky).

That's how it's generally known in Americanese. And rightly do, because it mostly contains cut-up morsels of cooked head meat: snout, cheeks, jowls, ears, lips and tongue. (The "cheese" part is similar in word-formation custom to apple butter which contains no butter.) Brawn in common US parlance refers only to a man's (maybe some feminists'?) physical robustness, beefiness, etc. Sometimes contrasted as in "all brawn and no brains". Funny thing, today's yuck generation are turned off by many of the foods discussed here but scarf down hot dogs as if they were going out of style with no thought of what goes into them.

TYPO -- should read: And rightly so.

They do, and I wouldn't touch any of them.


Vile. I had brawn as a child and it was disgusting. Never heard it referred to as head cheese though.

People say similar things in Britain.


Horrible, isn't it. Better to use that part of the pig for pet food.

I was at a buffet here a while ago where there were chicken hearts wrapped in boczek and chicken stomachs. Not very nice at all and offputting to many. No real need to eat that stuff nowadays.

That sounds horrible :-( Can't imagine why anyone would want to serve those at a buffet, not exactly appetising.


Harks back to when food was in short supply and people had to make do with what they had. Same as in the UK. I doubt anyone would buy tripe these days unless it was for a pet, but commonly eaten at one time. Still very popular in Poland though. I don't think brawn is too popular in the UK these days either, haven't seen it for years now.

Pig's liver too. Lamb's liver is great, as is cow's liver when it's cooked nicely. Chicken liver is a classic (as long as it isn't over cooked and crispy as it often is here) Pig's liver is more a pet food thing, however I've seen it served here a few times.

I've never tried it as a dish, only in pate when Polish friends have made it. Can't say I'm overfond of internal organs at all tbh! I would eat lamb's liver if it was offered and cooked properly, not half cremated, but I wouldn't order it in a restaurant. Far nicer dishes than offal based ones!

Not only in America, it is called fromage de tête in France


What about haggis?? And anyway eating is about pleasure not need, at least for most people in developed countries


Love it! One of my favourite treats is speading marrow from the bone on a toast with a sprinkle of salt.

And Brawn in England :-)

I too like many of these offal based dishes,Polish Salceson and Galareta and French Andouille too.

My Mum used to make Galareta from a whole pigs head, seasoned with salt, pepper and vinegar and served with some good quality bread it was a meal on it's own.

You will change your mind if you know that king Jagiełło, the one who defeated Teutonic Knights at Grunwald in 1410 and who Poles are so proud of, was an enthusiastic fan of tripe dish.

It is interesting to know that those little strips in the tripe dish are cut out of large sheets of bowine stomach which consists of several parts.

So, when will you try this royal dish?

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All of it. It's rubbish. The only thing worse is British food!

You say so coz you are too cowardly to try soup designed for real macho males - black soup! With duck blood in it! Ha!

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Delicious if it's the real thing. In some places that sell it, it's mostly liver though.

Then it`s mock duck blood soup. Bloody forgers.

That's what I felt when I last had one like that. The place advertised it as a speciality too.

It's fine to use a bit of liver, however this was just liver soup; it hadn't sen even a corpuscle of duck's blood.

No dried fruit in it either...

Now you know that I loathe flaki, so trying to sell it to me from a royalty angle isn't going to work I'm afraid!


Czernina I think. Looks nice, I would like to try it. Might be hard to find the real thing though if it's often substituted with liver.

I don't know if Poles have that but I'd hate some kinds of aged smelly fish. Also, red barszcz is boring, mostly veggies and wated and I get hungry after a while. Gimme a thickened white version with some nice kielbasa instead! ;)

@Dave Peter.Polski
bs British food is better than Dutch and Polish is better than both and also better than German and Austrian one. Makowiec (sp?) looks lovely. I bet in the beautiful South of Poland they have some nice cheeses.

many people put kielbasa (and/or a chunk of bacon) into barszcz - my mom used to do it often