All Saints' Day Soup? The Sunday Soup?: A Soup for Every Occasion

rosol_fot_istock_gettyimages-1407093020-s.jpg, default, 'Rosół', photo: iStock / Getty Images

While most people who come to Poland will be immediately offered the two most famous Polish soups, the dark-red, clear beetroot borsht and the rich sour rye soup with sausage and hardboiled egg, not everyone knows that in Poland these two concoctions are in fact associated with very specific occasion – Christmas and Easter respectively. However, the two major Catholic festivals are not the only special occasions that have their own soups to celebrate them with.

The Sunday Soup (aka the wedding soup)

Chicken soup, or rosół, is what would traditionally be slowly cooking from early on a Sunday morning until the whole family could sit together to enjoy a relaxed family meal in the early afternoon. Apart from a free-range hen, there should be some carrots, leeks, a celeriac, parsnips and a blackened onion in the pot, together with a few allspice berries, some bay leaves, black pepper, salt and lovage. A good chicken soup needs to cook slowly (mrugać, or wink, as Polish cooks call it; and the eye association continues as the fatty spots on the soup’s surface are called oka, or eyes). The soup should be clear and golden-yellow and is usually served with homemade egg pasta and with a sprinkle of chopped parsley leaves. Since it is the food equivalent of the 'Sunday best', no wonder that people also usually serve it at the beginning of wedding feasts, the ultimate family occasions.

The Tuesday Soup (Tomato soup)

No one cooks chicken soup for just one dinner. Rather, people in Poland cook huge pots of it. What is left from the big Sunday dinner usually also makes an appearance on Monday, and the leftovers are often used as rich chicken stock to make the best tomato soup. Cooked with home-made tomato puree (fresh in the summer and frozen or preserved in winter) and a dash of crème it is often served with rice or pasta. Or drunk from a mug. These days it is not necessarily only cooked on Tuesdays, but it is still a quick and beloved Polish classic, and while many people know how to cook it, no two tomato soups taste the same, and every family has its own take on it.

All Saints Day Soup

While Halloween is a relatively new tradition in Poland, mostly observed in bigger cities and among younger people, All Saints Day is an important day in Poles’ calendar. It is the day to visit cemeteries, light candles on one’s relatives’ graves and meet with family members from all over the country. Such gatherings in Poland almost automatically translate into family meals and the traditional way to start such an All Saints Day meeting is… a tripe soup. The tradition dates back to the times before refrigeration, when the first of November was the last big occasion to meet with family before Christmas. Since the holiday is celebrated in late fall, it used to coincide with the traditional time of slaughtering animals before winter. And since offal needs to be eaten first, it was traditionally served for this special dinner. While the idea of eating tripe might be controversial to some (though similar dishes appear in many European cuisines and it is perfectly safe and hygienic), there is now a well-established vegetarian option – mushroom 'tripes'. Whatever version one goes for, it is one of most spicy Polish soups, served with a lot of marjoram, but also powdered ginger and paprika, and as such is a throwback to the traditional, country house cuisine, which was very heavy and rich in spices. The soup should be eaten with bread rolls and is now available all year round, but usually at restaurants aimed at Polish people rather than those in the tourist areas.

The Army Soup

Split-peas soup, photo: Beata Zawrzel / East News

While the army may not be, strictly speaking, an occasion, the split-peas soup or grochówka is associated with the armed forces, but also with road-side mock-army camps where it is served from decommissioned field kitchens, and with army-themed picnics organised throughout summer all around Poland. It is usually served in big bowls, eaten in the fresh air among camo-styled decorations and thus retains its traditional image. The soup itself is in fact more like a meal in a bowl: it is prepared by soaking dried yellow split peas and then cooking them with potatoes, marjoram, allspice and lots of kiełbasa sausage (some also add lard to make it even more of an energy-booster). It tastes fantastic outside, but many Polish people also cook it in their homes, and often serve it with thick slices of dark bread to make it their whole dinner.

Summer Soups

Thumbnail — 'Chłodnik', photo: Grażyna Makara

Polish people are so used to starting their dinners with soups, that even when the weather gets warmer (or downright hot in the summer), they still cannot refrain from eating their first course in a liquid form. Enter summer soups. From the yoghurt and kefir (a very healthy fermented milk product poplar in Eastern Europe and some parts of Asia and middle East) based chłodnik soup, made with radishes, cucumbers and young beetroots, to cooked soups from seasonal vegetables (tomato or young beetroots, but also sorrel or asparagus) to the fruit soups (where fresh summer fruits, such as cherries or strawberries, are cooked with water and some sugar and then served with pasta and sweet cream).

The Economic Soup, AKA Mixed Vegetable Soup

Also known as the fridge-clearing soup, this soup is cooked whenever some vegetables are found at the bottom of the fridge drawer. If they are wrinkled, but otherwise still good, they all end up in a pot and make for an economical, if never-twice-the-same meal. Waste not, want not!

The 'Reject a Suitor' Soup

Yes, that is right, there is a special soup that a family can serve to inform their daughter’s boyfriend that they are not happy. At all. This almost black, slightly sweet duck-blood based soup is relatively rare today, but it can still be found in some households and occasional restaurants. And while young people no longer have to fear learning about their prospective in-laws’ reluctance over the dinner table, the proverb 'to be given black soup' is still widely understood as a rejection from parents.

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