A Delicious PhenomOnion: The Cebularz of Lublin

cebularz-fot-jakub-orzechowski-jo100817_210.jpg, default, Cebularz, photo: Jakub Orzechowski / Agencja Gazeta

Sometimes reaching global success doesn’t require all that much. In this case, all that was necessary was some flour, oil and onions. The famous and beloved Lublin cebularz has not only gained considerable renown and an official European Union certification, but also has its own museum and... patronage over a rugby tournament. Where does the phenomenon of this unique, yet simple pastry come from?

EU Approved

Anyone visiting the Lublin region cannot leave without trying its famous flatbread with onion and poppy seeds, which is the culinary emblem of the region. Its culinary and cultural significance has been officially recognised by state and EU institutions. In 2007, the Lublin onion roll was added to the list of traditional products maintained by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, and seven years later, this Lublin speciality was granted Protected Geographical Indication status, a certificate emphasising the link between the quality of the product and its place of origin (you’ll notice the PGI mark on things like fancy olive oil or Parmigiano Reggiano).

Thumbnail — Cebularz lubelski, photo: Regionalne Muzeum Cebularza / muzeumcebularza.com.pl

The 2014 European Commission regulation states that Lublin cebularz is a ‘round flatbread with a diameter of 5–25 cm and a thickness of approx. 1.5 cm’. The document emphasises that the filling should have ‘a golden colour and the aroma and taste characteristic of baked onions’; the crumb should be light, soft and slightly moist. The ring of dough surrounding the onion filling cannot be wider than one and a half centimetres, and its crust should be light golden or slightly browned and crispy. It is also notes that the pastry is suitable for consumption for about 48 hours after removal from the oven. Official certificates set high standards for bakeries that wish to sell a product called cebularz lubelski – they must use local products and apply the correct proportions of ingredients, otherwise they will face a task requiring creativity, i.e. they will have to come up with a different name for their baked goods.

Estera’s pioneering pastries

These precise definitions undoubtedly protect and nurture the culinary tradition of the Lublin region, but the question remains – what is the genealogy of the onion flatbread? Answers to many questions can be found in myths, which, as we well know, being the fruit of imagination, also convey a grain of truth about reality.

The cebularz’s origin story centres on the figure of Estera Małach, the legendary beloved of King Casimir the Great (Kazimierz Wielki). Apparently, the young Jewish woman, in accordance with the saying ‘the way to a man's heart is through his stomach’, won the ruler's favour by whipping up some bread from dough mixed with onions and poppy seeds. The hastily prepared pastries became King Casimir’s favourite.

Of course, we do not know whether the first cebularz was actually baked in the 14th century, nor do we know whether Estera, whom we know about from the chronicles of Jan Długosz, ever existed. However, cebularz is certainly a testament to the close ties between Jewish and Polish cuisine. Culinary historian Jarosław Dumanowski writes about this significant marriage, emphasising that ‘cebularz became famous thanks to Jewish bakers in Lublin’. The birth of this famous pastry can therefore be dated to the 19th century, when Jews constituted almost half of the population of Lublin, which in the mid-19th century was second only to Warsaw in terms of the size of its Jewish community in the Kingdom of Poland. It’s likely that the name ‘cebularz’ only came into common use after World War II, and before that, the onion pastry was known as tsibel pletzel (pletzel in Yiddish means a board,and tsibel is an onion, close to the Polish cebula). Tomasz Pietrasiewicz, cultural activist and founder of Lublin's ‘Brama Grodzka – Teatr NN’ centre, researched the genealogy of cebularz and its Jewish roots:

The rolled-out dough formed a thin, flat base for the sliced and fried onions with poppy seeds placed on top. This flat bread was widely popular among Jewish bakers before the war, especially in eastern Poland. [...] Tsibele pletzel (onion cake) was baked in two sizes – the larger version was called a pletzel, and the smaller one a pletzelach. [...] Pletzel was available in 18 varieties in Poland.

Over time, the popularity of this Lublin delicacy spread to other towns in the region, including Zamość and Kazimierz Dolny.

Where have all those onion sellers gone?

The unique taste of pre-war cebularze has been preserved in the memories of Lublin's oldest residents, whose testimonies have been collected by the centre founded by Pietrasiewicz. Their memories share a similar tone: nostalgia for the old taste of baked goods, so different from today's. Hanna Wyszkowska, a cultural animator and regionalist who was nine years old when World War II broke out, recalled the cebularze of yesteryear:

I remember how a Jewish woman used to come to us every day, before the war of course, bringing a huge basket of cebularze. They don't bake cebularze like that anywhere anymore. The onion cakes were large, with a ring of dough around the edge, and the centre was like a sticky, crispy, delicious, wonderful cake. Because I couldn't eat onions, I didn't like them, she baked one large cake without onions for me and put it between the onion cakes so that it would take on the smell.

Helena Grynszpan reminices: They make it here, but it's not the same. [...] They crunched in your teeth. How do you say it? They crunched, yes'; Józef Honig: 'Jewish bakeries were very good. The Jewish cakes were amazing! There were cebularze – what a flavour they had!!!'; and Waldemar Greszta recalled that pre-war cebularze were baked using a special technique – by piercing the dough in the right way:

I always say that the onion breads we have today are not real onion breads. Before the war, I used to eat onion rolls that were large and had holes in the middle. [...] But in the place where it was perforated, it didn't rise at all and was thin and crispy, and only the edges were risen. [...] And today it's just a ‘mush’. These aren't cebularze. I don't know why they don't poke a hole in them so that the cebularz is like it was before the war, because that's how they used to be.

Cebularz, a truly nourishing dish

Dumanowski cites two original 19th-century recipes – Jewish and Polish. They are the oldest surviving recipes for the cebularz. The Jewish recipe comes from Rebecca Wolff's book with a complex title (Polish Kosher Cuisine, containing a variety of dishes and breads, jams and juices, and a detailed guide to running a kosher household), the first Polish translation of which was published in 1877. The laconic recipe would hardly satisfy today's culinary enthusiasts who want to recreate the original taste of the flatbread, and Wolff's suggestion could be considered a shortcut:

Buy a piece of bread dough from the baker, roll it out, place it on a floured baking tray and sprinkle it with thinly sliced raw onions (it is better to blanch the onions first, then pour cold water over them and drain them in a colander so that they are dry and clean). Then pour good, hot olive oil or melted butter over everything and send it to the baker’s.

The author of the Polish recipe is Jan Szyttler, a chef of the court of King Stanisław August Poniatowski, who worked with the ‘master chef of Europe’, Paul Tremo and was the author of the first popular cookbooks published in Poland. In his publication Kuchnia postna (Lenten Cuisine), published in Vilnius in 1848, Szyttler gives the following recipe for Lenten cake with onions:

Knead yeast dough with water and a little salt, add a cup of olive oil to a quart of flour; when it rises, after kneading, rework it; roll it out on a pastry board, place it on a round baking tray or a wide glass, fold the edges around; when it rises, brush it with olive oil, place onions in the middle with a little cumin for aroma and bake.

Prepare the onions in this way. Chop the required amount of onions as finely as possible, place in a saucepan, fry in olive oil until soft and place in each pastry case when the onions have turned golden brown. You can also make the same dough with butter, in which case the dough is kneaded with milk and a few egg yolks and a little clarified butter are added to it, fry in butter until golden brown, and the dough prepared in this way will be tasty and crispy.

This recipe for onion flatbread was among many other recipes collected by Szyttler, who declared his love for simple, modest and inexpensive cuisine, because, as he wrote in the introduction to Kuchnia postna, ‘contemporary cookbook authors, chasing fashion or splendour, have mostly forgotten about the old healthy, truly nourishing and less expensive dishes’.

Kneading dough at a museum

‘There are many kinds of treasure in the world: pirate treasure, treasures buried deep in the ground, historical treasures and local treasures – such as the cebularz’, reads the website of the Regional Cebularz Museum, established in 2017. The museum, whose mission is to ‘spread knowledge about cebularz in an accessible and memorable way’, was founded by Robert Drapała, who, during his numerous travels around Poland, observed that regional delicacies can serve as a valuable showcase and tourist attraction for a city. So he decided to create a living museum that would not only interactively present the history of cebularz, but also invite visitors to make them and eat them together.

The onion flatbread also sponsors rugby competitions – in May 2021, the first Lublin Cebularz Tournament was held as part of the Regional Children and Youth Tournament. The participants of the competition – not only from Lublin, but also from Sochaczew, Łódź and Warsaw – were, of course, treated to this traditional regional delicacy.

_{Sources: J. Dumanowski, M. Nowicki, 'Kuchnia polska. Tradycja, teraźniejszość, wspólnota', J. Dumanowski, W. Sulisz, 'Unia Lubelska. Przewodnik od kuchni', Lublin 2019; 'W krainie lubelskich produktów tradycyjnych', Urząd Marszałkowski Województwa Lubelskiego w Lublinie, Lublin 2014; 'Sto receptur na sto lat niepodległości'; 'Program Historia Mówiona. Wspomnienia o Lublinie i Lubelszczyźnie', teatrnn.pl; radio.lublin.pl, podroze.onet.pl, lublin.eu, muzeumcebularza.com.pl, ouichef.pl, gov.pl, lublin.wyborcza.pl, certyfikacja.co, sztetl.org, polona.pl, dziennikwschodni.pl ,eur-lex.europa.eu - Baza Aktów Prawnych Unii Europejskiej.}

Language English

polish cuisine

polish jewish cuisine

lublin