What Polish foods do foreigners generally not take to?

Yes, red borsch can be also a hot/cold beverage, served in a glass or cup. see below


yes, that is why when I cook red borsch for myself, it contains sausage, beans, kasha. You don`t need white one.

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I can think of a few restaurants that do that, with our without paszteciki.

I once travelled a lot to do countryside courses. Occassionally I dined at a certain forest restaurant where I had gypsy`s potato pancakes and a glass of hot red borsch which was doubly hot - temp and seasoning.. That combination of tastes was so unique that I remember it even now though it was in 1991 - 93. Wow.

There's a place in the starówka in Toruń that sells pizza (only two kinds, with mushroons or without), has everybody sitting at long tables (rare for Poland) and to drink only sells clear borscht in cups.

The queues are round the block sometimes.

A Polish vein to an Italian dish.

My latest hit is Polish bigos with French Bordeaux. Unfortunately, neither the French can make bigos nor the Poles can make Bordeaux. This is how a unique Polish-French combination is created.

I always think that Choucroute is a nicer version of bigos.

@jon357
I don't know this dish, but it doesn't look like bigos in the photos.

From Alsace. Whether it's the forerunner of bigos taken to PL by French troops in the era of the genocidal tyrant Napoleon or was brought back from Poland by them and adjusted to Alsatian tastes is debatable. The similarity may just be a coincidence of topography.

The nicest bigos I've tasted (not a high bar since I hate the stuff) was made by a Polish lady who's lived in France for many years. It contained a lot of red wine and was closer to choucroute.. I was able to eat it all and had second helpings too. Normally if offered bigos I pretend I'm allergic to cabbage.

Yes, I am also careful when offering bigos or żurek to foreigners. For many people, these dishes are simply repulsive and are associated with spoiled (bigos) or even vomited (żurek) food.

That usually goes down well. Bigos isn't for everyone though.

I don't see a connection..... is there any evidence of a relation?

Choucroute looks like sauerkraut with some other ingredients that are clearly separate whereas bigos is a blend, a single thing.

According to wikipedia it might be related to Alsation Baeckeoffe (or something like cholent or a southern European layered casserole with local ingredients).

I've had wonderful bigos and awful bigos. It's interesting as a dish that it often looks like something you'd be embarassed to feed a starving dog but which can actually be really good.

IME most foreigners in Poland take to bigos and żurek very easily. The problem dishes are things like fish in aspic, rolmops, flaki, kaszanka or makowiec (I like poppy seeds in cake but makowiec is.... too much).

Some say there is. They're certainly in the same family of dishes. It always surprises me that there's no chou farci in PL. Perhaps the prevalence of golabki means that it never came here.

About wikipedia, it's interesting that on the Polish language page they describe choucroute garni as "bigos alzacki".


The same. More bad than good, however I remember 3 good ones in 3 decades.


Agreed. A lot depends on where you're from and what you're used to. I grew up eating rollmops and black pudding (a nicer IMO version of kaszanka). Tripe too, though I always hated that.

Unfried/ungrilled slices of boczek are a step too far.

Nice point.


Correct.

I love Bigos and as someone who was brought up on Polish Cuisine and also someone who has family and friends in Alsace and have visited both Alsace and Poland many times I feel qualified to comment on this.

Both Poland and Alsace have historically been very influenced by German culture and cuisine.
If Poles go to Germany or Alsace they will enjoy the similar cuisine and vice versa.
Another thing that Germany, Poland and Alsace share is a historicaly large Jewish population.
It is possible that Jews cooked this dish,or something similar on a Friday,so that they only had to heat it up at the weekend, to avoid cooking on Saturdays.

My family always added cabbage to the sauerkraut to make Bigos.They don't do that in in Alsatian Choucroute but the meat added to it is very similar to Bigos.Mainly pork, ham like Boczek and sausages similar to German and Polish ones.There is another Alsatian dish called Baekeoffe which is similar too.

My mum and aunts never added tomatoes to Bigos and the first time I tasted a tomato infused Bigos was when I was about 30 years old, at a Polish festival, and I loved it!Whenever I cook a Bigos I always add tomatoes now.

And plums?

No.... I am not mad on the sweet taste of Bigos.

Dried plums.

@Alien
Prunes to be precise. I've also had a sort of paste made from raisins in it.

Raisins for bigos don't suit me. Although apart from that I like them very much. E.g. English Eccles cookies

You're being naughty now ;-)

I like Eccles Cakes too, though not Chorley Cakes. Or Goosnargh Cakes.

Lardy Cakes are nice, and I suspect Fat Rascals and Garibaldis would go down well in Poland. After all, Poland likes Jaffa Cakes so much that they stole the product in the PRL years and called them Delicje.

I sometimes make Wuzetka at home. A sweet treat and underrated.

I recently bought some Jaffa Cakes in Dealz. I'd forgotten how much 'fruitier' they are than Delicje. Delicje are a lot sweeter. Dealz have a good selection of English biscuits for Christmas this year. If only they had some decent marmalade - a nice chunky Seville for your tea and toast.

Seville oranges. There isn't the tradition of bitter oranges in January for cooking here. A hame; they'd probably make nice nalewka.


I used to get it there but haven't seen it for a while, sadly.

The Delije imitation Jaffa cakes are delightful though...the different flavours....

In 1974, however, Polish Delicje (preferably cherry) taste different.

Yes. The real thing is made with Jaffa oranges. This is part of its appeal. They also do occasional flavours like lime and lemon. They're not hard to make copies at home either though they'll never be identical since the original ones (like Garibaldi or Walnut Whip) were invented as an industrial process.

I've eaten enough of the fake Polish ones over the years and don't mind the cherry ones. Then again, I like anything cherry flavoured. The orange ones are too sweet.