Nostalgia for Polish Flavours: Looking for a Taste of Home Abroad

10_przetlumaczyc_polski_smak_mburdzynska_male.jpg, default, Illustration: Magda Burdzyńska

In larger Polish expatriate communities, it’s possible to feel as if you’re at the Mirów Market Halls; you can eat exactly the same things as in Poland. Polish expats marvel at the exotic dishes they discover in their new homelands, but then yearn for a typical Polish kaiser roll with cheese or attempt to recreate a Polish-style Christmas dinner at home. Where there’s demand, there’s supply.

Longing for Szczecin paprikash

Krzysztof Poluchowicz, who co-owns the Polish restaurant Pierogi Boys and has lived in the United States for many years, says:

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I don’t miss any flavours from Poland! In New York, there are plenty of Polish stores where you can buy everything from marinated Polish chanterelles and wheat leaven for white borscht to ketchup for pizza and processed cheese with mushrooms. Recently I was craving Szczecin paprikash, and it turned out that Polish delicatessens offer paprikash from 5 different companies, some even with a decent list of ingredients. In Polish bakeries I buy rye bread with grains and sometimes even yeast cakes with crumble topping. Every year I visit a bakery where, for a short while, St. Martin’s croissants are available, which for me, born in Poznań on 11 November (St. Martin’s Day), are a special memory.

Andrzej Kińczyk, his business partner, adds:

I miss real Polish cream! Unfortunately, American cream very often contains a lot of additives, and its flavour is completely different. Polish stores in New York usually don’t sell Polish cream, most likely due to its short shelf life.

Weronika Kwiatkowska has lived in New York for over a decade. She first came to the United States in the late 1990s to celebrate the wedding of a friend of hers, an American. She stayed in Manhattan, on West 72nd Street, right next to Central Park. She didn’t visit the Polish neighbourhood at that time and only shopped in local New York stores. After a few days, she found to her surprise that she was missing real, good-quality bread for breakfast. The woman hosting her cooked porridge every morning or offered cereal with milk. And the bread she had at home, wrapped in plastic, was completely unfit to eat. When she asked her friend where to buy good bread, she suggested going to a French pub, where they had a delicious breakfast. It wasn’t until she visited her aunt in Chicago that Weronika came into contact with the Polish community and shopped in a Polish store. ‘I bought bread, cold cuts and cheese. I was hungry for homemade Polish flavour despite the fact that my American friend was taking us to the best restaurants'.

She moved to the United States in 2004. Greenpoint didn’t have the best reputation at the time. (‘America isn’t as paradisiacal as a Pole in Poland imagines it to be,’ as Edward Redliński wrote in his book Szczurojorczycy [Ratyorkers].) Only after some time did she venture to the Polish neighbourhood.

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I remember that when I got off the subway on Greenpoint Avenue and walked up the steps to the top, the first thing I saw was a kiosk with Polish magazines lined up on the counter. I was very moved by this; I felt some kind of pure joy in the fact that ‘our people are here’. When, after a few months of living in Manhattan and then Astoria, we entered the Polish stores – my joy increased to euphoria. The sight of Inka coffee, pickles, dried mushrooms and pretzel sticks with the Lajkonik logo thrilled me. I also remember that a friend praised Polish cold cuts (the famous U Mazura hot dogs), claiming that they’re made according to old recipes and are very high quality. I’m not particularly fond of hot dogs, but these actually turned out to be delicious. My partner even stated that he’d never eaten better ones in his life. To this day we have favourite spots in the Polish neighbourhood where we buy delicious sourdough bread, pierogi made by ladies from Podlasie, the world’s best plum cake and… blood sausage.

At first, Krzysztof preferred international cuisine. He recalls:

I didn’t really buy anything in Polish stores for the first few years I lived in New York. I wanted to try classic American dishes and food from other parts of the world. I ate a lot of Chinese takeout because it was (and still is) very cheap and tasty, and eating tofu with broccoli from a paper box on a pier over the Hudson River in the West Village made me feel as if I were in an American movie. Polish food gradually came back into my life. I think the first thing I craved was Polish pickles.

Thumbnail — Pierogi, photo: Getty Images

A few years ago, he and Andrzej opened Pierogi Boys, a modern bar in Brooklyn that serves classic Polish pierogi stuffed with meat, potatoes and quark, or with cabbage and mushrooms.

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Our American friends asked us where to eat the best pierogi in New York, and we couldn’t honestly recommend any restaurant where pierogi wouldn’t be an unpleasant necessity for the owners, a required accompaniment to the usual Polish dishes such as pork chops or potato pancakes. A large number of Americans have positive associations with pierogi and Polish home cooking. Particularly New Yorkers raised here often have childhood friends they used to visit after school for their grandmother’s pierogi, friends from work who’d bring pierogi prepared by their mother to Christmas potlucks, and so on. We wanted to evoke these warm, friendly, family-oriented associations, and it seems to have worked. Americans react to what we offer very enthusiastically and sometimes with emotion. We’ve heard stories about searching for flavours remembered from childhood and finally finding them at our restaurant, and people tell us that our pierogi taste just like the ones made by their grandma who passed away decades ago. Many times, we’ve been moved emotionally together with our guests, who told us stories about themselves and their families. From the very beginning, we’ve wanted to serve only Polish classics. You won’t find pierogi stuffed with jalapeño peppers or buffalo chicken at our restaurant.

Due to the size of the kitchen, they’re unable to pickle cabbage or make quark. This would require many permits, and the process itself is quite strictly supervised and inspected. In the planned new location, they’ll have more space, and there they certainly plan to make their own pickles.

Diet in our DNA

Weronika Kwiatkowska always prepares a minimal menu for Christmas in New York – she makes pierogi stuffed with cabbage and the mushrooms that are sent to her by a friend who picks mushrooms in the forests of Wielkopolska. She makes barszcz [a clear beetroot broth] with little tortellini-type dumplings, cabbage with peas, and noodles with poppy seeds. She bakes a ginger nut banana bread that is an American version of the Polish piernik [a spicy honey cake, trans.] but always with Polish porter beer. Among her friends, bigos [hunter’s stew made with sauerkraut and various meats, trans.] caused a sensation. She says:

Some of my friends dropped by: David, who has Mexican roots; Tom, whose parents are from Hong Kong; and friends from Switzerland and Jamaica. Except for Tom, who loves kimchi and isn’t afraid of sauerkraut, everyone approached this strange dish with extreme caution. They were afraid of gastric problems. But as soon as they tasted it, they asked for more. They even learned the word ‘bigos’ and to this day still ask me when I’ll invite them over for it again.

Weronika notes that she seeks a feeling of security through flavour when she’s going through difficult times. She says:

At the beginning of the pandemic, when it was really dramatic, you could hear ambulance sirens all the time, and there were coolers for bodies in front of hospitals, it was really bad. Even though I hadn’t eaten meat for a long time, at one point I felt that I had to eat real chicken broth with noodles, and that this – in some magical way – would protect me from the virus. It was completely irrational, but I clearly felt that in moments of crisis we return to the food our mother fed us – almost like it’s inscribed in our DNA.

Hanna Zielińska lives with her family in a remote Norwegian village in the far North, three hours from Bergen. She’s lucky because it’s Norway’s most agricultural area; a lot of local fruit is grown here – such as apples, strawberries and cherries – and sheep, cows and goats are raised for meat and dairy products. At first, Hanna explored the local flavours, and for the first few weeks she found it interesting. However, she doesn’t eat bird or mammal meat; her diet is based on plants and fish, and Norway isn’t a country conducive to vegetarianism. In stores, she is shocked by the sight of pieces of red flesh on bones weighing 2–3 kilograms each. Game such as reindeer and moose are also commonly eaten. Norway’s climate makes it necessary to have a diet based on meat and fish as a source of protein and vitamins, and culinary choices are generally limited. Norway is largely composed of ice and rock, so most vegetables and fruits are imported. Furthermore, social democracy protects the domestic market and its products. For example, there’s only one brand of chocolate on the market – Freya. Foreign treats, including Polish and Swiss chocolate, can only be purchased at a Normal drugstore (a chain similar to Rossman in Poland). Hanna Zielińska says:

In Poland, we’re used to having a lot of choice. Norway protects its market. It’s also difficult to take Polish products there; customs officers make sure you don’t enter with agricultural products. You can bring up to 10 kilograms of food such as meat, cheese and dairy products. On the list of forbidden products are potatoes – they’re Norway’s pride, and foreign potatoes are potentially competitive.

Poles use freight companies and couriers, who at the same time also run mobile stores and offer dry smoked pork sausage and quark when you pick up your packages from them. There are exotic food stores in Norway – they’re called Arabian stores, but they also carry Eastern European products such as pickles, sauerkraut, buckwheat groats, sour rye soup, beetroot soup (liquid and powdered), mushrooms other than white button mushrooms, fresh and dry sausages (in Norway, the closest things you can get to sausages are hot dogs and salami), spices such as caraway and marjoram, and at Christmas time – poppy-seed paste. Hanna sighs:

There are still products that are impossible to get, such as beet greens, fresh pickling cucumbers, nigella seeds, linden, cistus, millet groats and borage-seed oil. There are Polish stores in big cities such as Oslo and Bergen. Before Easter, friends in Oslo sent a package containing Polish caramel cream fudge, Polish white sausage and, as a surprise, a homemade Polish mazurek tart. And when a grandmother sends her children gingerbread spices or instant pudding, it’s like sending them a little bit of herself.

In New York, on the other hand, it’s hard to find black or red currants, sour cherries, gooseberries… they just aren’t available in stores. Weronika Kwiatkowska explains:

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I once bought a box of red currants at the Union Square Greenmarket. The price was astronomical! Over ten dollars for just a few small sprigs. It was so exciting that I did a whole photo shoot. And then some of my Polish friends, after seeing the photos on social media, asked where I’d found this treasure. Some were ready to drive to get the fruit from another state! It was a real event because I hadn’t eaten red currants for over a decade. The flavour opens the floodgates of memory; you’re reminded of how you used to pick the fruit straight from the bush at your grandmother’s house in the country. The farther you are from the source, the more you crave that remembered flavour associated with childhood and with home.

Polish Flavour: The Glory of Pickling

Pickled & smoked

Promoters of Polish culture, on the other hand, try to present the uniqueness of our cuisine while adjusting it to local culinary preferences. Polish flavours are sometimes formatted for export.

Anna Tryc-Bromley was the director of the Polish Cultural Institute in New Delhi from 2012 to 2015. She founded the institution; previously, there had been no representation of Polish culture in India extending beyond the Polish embassy. She was also responsible for promoting the country in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal. One of the promotional activities was the invitation to Delhi in 2012 of chef Robert Trzópek, who prepared a special menu and a series of presentations at the opening of a two-week culinary campaign for the V4 (Visegrad Group) countries at the Hilton Hotel in New Delhi. Anna recalls:

The restaurant menu proposed by Robert consisted of roast chicken with raisins and nuts, braised celery and apple in brown butter, duck in juniper, and red beetroot broth. At a dinner focused on Polish table culture organized for lifestyle journalists and popular food bloggers, Trzópek served poached egg with radish in brown butter with chives, caramelized leeks with marinated Polish mushrooms, beetroot broth with soup dumplings, pikeperch stewed in fish broth, pierogi with cabbage and mushrooms, and for dessert, pear stewed in wine with blue cheese and walnuts. Curiosity was aroused by the Polish wine Adoria, as none of the attendees knew that Poland produces wines – and good ones at that. The next step was a study visit to Poland because local flavours can be experienced best in the place they come from. Temperature, humidity and environment all have an impact on how a dish or local product tastes. I look back very fondly to this successful attempt at translating our culinary arts in India, but we had to think hard how to convey certain flavours, and it was so successful during a dinner in a smaller group that Robert received applause from the guests. It’s difficult to explain Polish food to Indians. Most people in India are vegetarians or vegans. They don’t usually eat game there. They liked our pickles and preserves, such as pickles and plums in vinegar. We had to show some cultural sensitivity.

Robert Trzópek brought various spices with him and sought ways to translate flavours. Anna Tryc-Bomley says:

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It’s just like in literature. A good book needs a decent translation to succeed overseas. In India, temperatures are high for most of the year, food spoils quickly, but it also tastes different. From October to March, Polish cuisine can be attractive; after all, beet greens can’t be transported. Polish pastries, such as fruit cakes, apple charlotte, cheesecake and doughnuts, were very popular. They enjoyed honey, including mead, and fruit liqueurs in places where alcohol is drunk. In India, a lot of spices are added to food; the flavours are very intense. And so our palette could be considered bland or ‘expressionless’. That’s why in explaining the flavours we focused on food that is smoked or pickled and very intense in order to appeal to Indians and impress them.

Anna privately longed for strawberries and other fresh fruit – in India, fruit is usually eaten with the skin on, and you have to wash it in a special liquid. She longed for fresh mushrooms – chanterelles, parasol mushrooms and porcinis – and fresh quark. She says:

I didn’t expect to miss these things. At that time, I wasn’t yet a vegetarian. I missed cured meats such as smoked pork sausage. I discovered a Polish butcher (from Australia) who prepared cold meats in northern India. They had German names but tasted Polish. I also met a Polish-Indian baker couple from whom I bought great rye bread.

Dr Annie Hauck-Lawson, president of the Association for the Study of Food and Society and professor of food and nutrition at Brooklyn College, who has Polish ancestry and still, even after living in the United States for over fifty years, remembers Christmas in Poland, suggested a term that perfectly captures the aspect of food while traveling, after a move, in translation: ‘food voice’. She writes:

The social, symbolic dimension of food – food voice – is a significant consideration in people’s eating behaviour. Food is a link, a connector in social interactions. The place, manner of presentation and appearance of food serve to identify and reveal the status, values and specific actions of individuals and whole groups of people.

‘Food voice’ also resonates clearly on the road, in a foreign land and far from the home of which it is a powerful reminder.

Translated from Polish by Scotia Gilroy

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