What do non-Poles think about eating the following Polish foods?

Yeah, I have noticed that. I would take the pan off the heat as soon as the eggs start to scramble as the residual heat will finish the cooking.


It almost looks like a crumble topping. Not sure. Does it contain apple?

And cucumber and tomato with spring onion ;)


Yes but no crumble

Anyone here had experience eating Polish hospital food? , I would be interested in the experiences of Poles born in Poland to compare notes with.

I'm definitely a fan of cooking them until they rather resemble an omelette that's been broken into small chunks. My go-to recipe:

- chop half an onion and throw it in a bowl with cherry tomatoes, olives, red pepper paste and whatever else you want.
- Fry it in some olive oil for 2-3 minutes until the tomatoes are cooked inside but firm on the outside

Meanwhile, mix:

- One entire egg, plus a second egg with only the whites.
- turmeric, garam masala and something to give heat (sweet paprika works well here).
- some fish sauce

Throw the egg mix into the hot pan with the onion/tomato/olive mix and scramble until the eggs are of the consistency of an omelette. They should be in big chunks.

Put onto a plate with a healthy amount of lettuce, spinach or whatever else you want. Add some sweet chili sauce for dipping the eggs into, or use a hot sauce for additional heat.

Works incredibly well - the eggs are more filling than traditional scrambled eggs, the tomatoes are heavenly, the onions provide some sweetness and the olives provide salt.

Sorry, no. But judging by the looks it wasn't great :)

Is it szarlotka? I haven't seen it look quite like that, but I'm sure everyone makes it a bit differently. Do you have that for breakfast too?


No, but hospital food everywhere isn't that appetising.

No. Rice baked with apples. It's either served as a dessert or as a main course usually in the summer.

That sounds nice, haven't come across it before.

There used to be an excellent Facebook group dedicated to Polish hospital food. Some of the stuff served up was an absolute disgrace.

This group is still active - facebook.com/groups/428926863955329 - some of the stuff posted there is just diabolical. How can people expect to recover if they're fed utter garbage on a daily basis?

It's not very nice. If you're there for any length of time, you need people to bring food in.


I will try this.

There is plenty of recipes online with different amount of sugar (I even saw one with 3 glasses of sugar!!!), whether the apples or fried or not etc.

We like the lazy option: rice cooked normally, fresh apples grated in the middle, sprinkled with some sugar and a tiny bit of butter on the top layer of rice.

I even started adding fresh veg to my ham and cheese toasti

And how many of you eat plain oatmeal? Older generation in my family call it child abuse :D

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Blimey, the food must be really bad then!


Porridge? Meant to be really good for you but I don't like it. Plus I can't stand the smell of hot milk :(

My granny used to make it; it's almost the national dish of Scotland. Brings back fond memories, however I'd rather they stay memories.

Some people like it, and I see various types of instant porridge on sale here.

Here, I only use oatmeal for crumbles or biscuits.

Porridge is only ok when covered in lashings of full cream milk and at least an ounce of brown sugar.
Healthy? Lol not here.

It can be really, really bad. There are plenty of examples where they've done nothing but serve up some pieces of bread with some nasty 'spread' to seriously ill people, for instance.

I read a report last year that said that around 1 in 3 hospital patients require specialised nutrition, yet only a handful of them actually receive it.

I found one quote detailing the menu in a large Silesian hospital:


Apparently the situation is so bad that 4 in 5 people are worse off nutritionally than they were when they entered the hospital. It seems that there's also widespread issues with catering companies simply lying about what's actually served - for instance, they claim that fresh fish was served, but in reality, they're using canned fish. Patients end up suffering serious nutritional deficiencies as a result.

There's a report by the Supreme Audit Office here on the topic - nik.gov.pl/plik/id,16458,vp,18988.pdf

I'll dig up some pictures to illustrate this tomorrow - I wouldn't feed half of this stuff to a dog.

I have no idea if this one was posted...

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If that had some gravy on it, it would be very nice!

It would actually. It looks a lot better than any I've seen in hospitals here.

You Brits and your gravy :P
Standard mielone. Taste the best with something slightly sour (kapusta kiszona, ogórki kiszone od buraczki) but sadly I don't have any so I opted for some steamed veggies.

Btw, is there a reason why it's almost impossible to get yellow wax beans in UK?

I like it with buraki smażone.


For the same reason that it's almost impossible to get swede or salsify here. People get used to their diet and don't introduce something new unless there's a reason or unless someone's marketing it.

Plus, there are a lot of runner beans there, and they're very popular when in season.

...what on earth are they, and should I try them?


Can't disagree with that choice. I'd still rather have the gravy, but it's not a bad substitute.

Fasolki szparagowej.

Everywhere here though hardly any green beans which I prefer. I suspect fasolki szparahowej grow more easily in the climate here than runner beans, hence their popularity.

I don't think I've ever tried them, but a quick look on Google and I'll throw them into tomorrow's dinner that hasn't been bought yet.

I'm holding you responsible Lenka if they're disgusting!

Out of season now, however Biedronka do frozen ones. I had some tonight. Not as nice as green beans but are ok.

I don't know about you guys but one of the things I love about mielone is that they are not strictly hot dinner food

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i thought kotlety are large that looks like pasztet to me. slices of pasztet on bread.

A weird way to cut them... I cut them horizontally (two flatter round parts) rather than slice them.

I also like meatloaf sandwiches (meatloaf is a bit like pieczeń rzymska though usually made with beef and maybe with some tomato sauce baked in on top).

Thats liverwurst right in the USA?

Isn't it too thick then?


Thay are as large as the cook makes them. In this case it was me and my hands are not large ones.

Urrgh no, Lenka, what are you doing?!

Having said that, on second thoughts... if that bread was toasted, and you used some good hot mustard, I reckon that would be quite tasty.