Fish in Polish Cuisine
Perch, pike, dried cod and dried skate from the Baltic Sea – what do they have in common? According to Stanisław Czerniecki, an old Polish court kitchen manager of the 17th century, you could cook them all in a similar way to get a feast fit for princes or for more modest banquets. After all, he should have known that his cookbook was an editorial success for a couple of centuries and the old Polish cuisine was renowned for its fish dishes all over Europe.
Stanisław Czerniecki’s Baroque recipe seems interesting as he suggests that the fish could be simmered in water and olive oil with onions, parsley roots, almonds and then, flavoured with mace flower (salt added if necessary). Perch and pike are still popular in Poland, but for dried cod, you should rather look in a foodie deli. How about skate from the Baltic Sea? Well, it may be extremely hard to get either fresh or dried, and perhaps it is best to limit your appetites to a visit in a sea life museum. As for nutmeg, mace flowers and almonds – they were among the most popular spices and ingredients in the old Polish cuisine.
Cover and page from Stanisław Czerniecki’s ‘Compendium Ferculorum’, 1682, ed. Jarosław Dumanowski & Magdalena Spychaj. Photo: Wilanów Palace Museum The truth be told, studying the history of Polish culinary culture feels like an angler's dream. One-third of the oldest printed cookbook – Compendium ferculorum – is dedicated to fish recipes including crayfish, oysters and occasional snails as they were the only non-vegetal ingredients allowed during long fasting periods imposed by the Roman Catholic Church in the Commonwealth of Two Nations.
Nevertheless, the strictness of both doctrine and penitentiary practice did not exclude banqueting with gusto. In 1661, Stanisław Czerniecki had to cater food for an extraordinary grand aristocratic wedding party that lasted a week, including four no-meat days. What did he need for his kitchen for the occasion? He reported: 700 pikes in 4 different sizes, 800 carps in 3 different sizes, 1500 big crucian carps, 1500 big perches, 500 tenches, approx. 39 kg of flounder, dried cod and dried skate respectively, and 10 Gdańsk salmons. Additionally, he also listed roughly 230 litres of lamprey but, sadly, he only mentioned the number of units of volume without indicating if he got them fresh or marinated – slightly baked in the oven and then kept in barrels with vinegar, as it was consumed as a popular snack in the Baroque period. Eventually, it is worth remembering that dishes such as capon, chicken and veal in anchovy sauce or pike in yellow saffron sauce were considered Polish national specialities.
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Noodles with poppyseeds on a Christmas Eve table in Skrybicze, photo: Michał Kość / Forum
What about the culinary reality of Poland in the 21st century? Probably Stanisław Czerniecki would be completely lost to encounter the long and rich tradition of cooking fish shrunk almost beyond recognition. It may seem that farmed salmon or trout dominate our restaurant menus and shopping mall freezers today. What’s more, lamprey is a protected species, crayfish is on the endangered-species list and the only Polish sturgeon you can get now is small and from a farm. People forget that – once upon a time – there were belugas swimming in the waters of the Vistula...
Fried carp, photo: East News Thankfully, you can still find some delicious and fresh pike, pike-perch, tench, bream, roach and perch being sold in small or bigger fish bars near rivers or lakes. The exquisite taste of smoked or fried whitefish and vendaces combined with greasy eel right from the smoke-house is an essential part of the lakeside holiday experience. A visit to the coastal regions of Pomerania or Kashubia offers a delightful opportunity to taste local sea fish dishes such as scrambled eggs with eel, fried cod liver and fried roe.
Written by Agnieszka Kuś
