Poland’s Most Famous Dish: PIEROGI

pierogi_32_06.jpg, default, Pierogi, photo: Monika Zbojeńska/IAM

Pierogi are without a doubt Poland’s most famous dish – the ultimate, universally beloved comfort food. A book about Polish cuisine for foreigners could be entitled ‘Not Only Pierogi’, since they seem to be all everyone loves and talks about. Their worldwide popularity is not surprising, as most nations have their own version of a filled pasta. And that’s precisely what pierogi are: delicious boiled pastry parcels filled to the brim with all sorts of yummy things: cheese and potato, sauerkraut and mushrooms, meat, spinach, lentils, sweetened farmer’s cheese or berries.

I too remember my grandma’s kitchen, and how she taught me to make pierogi. Babcia Teresa was an excellent cook and she taught me so many tricks of the trade, yet it was the way she made pierogi dough that I remember best: she told me to only use flour, hot water and a bit of salt (people sometimes add egg as well, a common Polish controversy); how thinly the dough should be rolled; how the circles should be cut out with a glass; exactly how much cheese and potato filling to put in; and, finally, how to pinch the sides together so they wouldn’t come apart while boiling.

I know that this memory of babcias and pierogi is a common one – pierogi are the ultimate taste of home, an extremely nostalgic and fulfilling comfort food. The ingredients used to make them are quite simple, yet the dish is labour-intensive, so nowadays people rarely make them home. And so, for many of us pierogi-making remains a distant and delicious memory, which we come back to when quickly reheating store-bought pierogi in a pan.

A bite of history

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Pierogi, photo: Monika Zbojeńska/IAM

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For the uninitiated among us, let’s start with the name of this dish itself, since it seems to cause some confusion among English-speakers. First off, when you say pierogi, it’s actually already plural, so there’s no need to add that extra ‘s’ at the end. If you’re only talking about one dumpling, the singular form is pieróg (pronounced ‘pye-roog’). The etymology of the world is unclear, though the ethnologist and linguist Aleksander Brükner has traced its origins to the Proto-Slavic word pir, which means ‘a feast’. The first recorded evidence of the word dates back to the 17th century, but the dish likely made its way to Polish territories much earlier. According to legend, the 13th-century Saint Jacek Odrowąż introduced pierogi to the nation, when he fed dumplings to the poor in Kraków following the Tatar invasion. Since then, he is sometimes known as ‘Saint Jacek of Pierogi’.

Cover and page from Stanisław Czerniecki’s ‘Compendium Ferculorum’, 1682, ed. Jarosław Dumanowski & Magdalena Spychaj. Photo: Wilanów Palace Museum

At first, these savoury, stuffed treats were only made on special occasions and took on many forms: kurniki are extra-large dome-shaped pierogi filled with poultry, groats and mushrooms, made mostly for weddings; knysze, a type of baked pierogi filled with buckwheat groats, cheese or potatoes were once a fixture of funeral rituals and are so popular in American Jewish communities, where they are known as knishes; sanież and socznie are a sweet variety prepared for name day parties. A miniature version – known as uszka (‘little ears’) – are filled with mushrooms and served in barszcz (borscht) and feature prominently at Polish Christmas Eve dinners. Sauerkraut pierogi are also a popular dish at Christmas, though they can also enjoyed all year round (and, of course, are). The oldest Polish cookbook, Stanisław Czerniecki’s Compendium Ferculorum – published in Kraków in 1682 and recently rereleased by historian Jarosław Dumanowski – features recipes with veal kidneys and sweet pierożki, a yeast-based version, filled with rose and elderflower preserves.

Meanwhile, Samuel Olgerbrand’s 1865 Encyclopedia, defines pierogi as:

Pieróg: Pirog, general folk name for every baked yeast pastry. In old Polish cuisine, they were divided into various types. Some were made from rolled pastry stuffed with cheese or meat. The famous Tatar kołduny were made of raw pastry filled with raw mutton and a bit of lard, ingeniously prepared so that the meat is well-cooked and the pastry holds in the juices from the meat and fat. (…) Pierogi ruskie, yeast pastry filled with cheese or jam, are well-known, as are Lithuanian pierogi, which are filled with sauerkraut. All of these are now part of Polish cuisine.

The proof is in the stuffing

'Pierogi ruskie' with lardons, photo: Andrzej Zygmuntowicz/Reporter

Pierogi ruskie, which are stuffed with a mixture of potatoes and quark cheese, are one of the most popular varieties of pierogi nowadays. The name, which is commonly translated as ‘Russian dumplings’, misleads foreigners and Poles alike. The dish doesn’t have any Russian origins at all. They actually arrived from Ruthenia, a prewar region of Poland, which is now part of Ukraine. Indeed, before 1945, Ukrainians used to call this particular variety of pierogi… 'Polish pierogi'. It’s most likely that ‘pierogi ruskie’ were created by Poles living in Ukraine at the time. These pierogi therefore obtained their new moniker – ruskie – after World War II, when thousands of Poles were forced to leave their homes in western Ukraine and relocate to western Poland. Even today, this particular type of pierogi remains more popular in the Eastern Borderlands than in the West.

Pierogi with meat fillings are quite popular as well: pork, beef, chicken and veal stuffings, often served with bacon bits. More sophisticated versions of the dish come with lamb, duck or goose meat. The meat is first cooked – which often results in a flavourful broth – and then ground. In the Lublin area, buckwheat and cheese are a popular filling and they flavour their pierogi with… mint, while in Podkarpacie lentils are more common. Some local versions also call for sausage and farmers’ cheeses such as bryndza – a sheep’s cheese from the Tatra Mountains. In the autumn and winter, many Poles eat pierogi with braised sauerkraut and dried forest mushrooms. This filling uses local specialties that are easy to preserve for the colder months (these are also part of the customary Christmas Eve dinner, or wigilia). Traditionally pierogi are served with simple toppings such as fried onions, lardons, melted butter, sour cream or pork rinds.

Pierogi with fruit, photo: Mari Hem/Reporter

But not everything needs to be savoury! Poles also love sweet pierogi. In the summer, a sweet version of pierogi are popular as a main course. This culinary habit of serving sweet food as a main meal may seem unusual to some foreigners, yet Polish kids usually love to tuck into pierogi filled with sweet quark cheese, or summer fruits like strawberries, bilberries, apples or sour cherries. In some parts of the country, pierogi with sweet poppy seed filling are eaten during Christmas dinner.

Polish pride abroad

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Pierogi, photo: Monika Zbojeńska/IAM

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While Poland boasts a great variety of pierogi, some of the craziest pierogi flavours and outrageous culinary traditions were born abroad – mostly in the US and Canada, where the dish has been made famous by large Polish and Ukrainian immigrant populations in places such as Chicago, Buffalo and Detroit. There are pierogi festivals in Lawrenceville, Georgia and Whiting, Indiana where you can eat your fill of dumplings – in both traditional and ‘American’ flavours like sweet potato or cheddar and jalapeño.

Pittsburgh is a strong contender for the title of ‘America’s Capital of Pierogi’ with its Great Pierogi Race organised annually by the Pittsburgh Pirates baseball team. The race is sponsored by Mrs. T’s, America’s biggest pierogi manufacturer, and features six contenders: Potato Pete, Jalepeño Hannah, Cheese Chester, Sauerkraut Saul, Oliver Onion, Bacon Burt and Pizza Penny. Mrs. T’s was opened in 1952 by Ted Twardzik, who wanted to make his mom’s dumplings available to the masses. Pittsburgh is also home to… the chocolate-covered pierogi – the traditional cheese and potato dumpling, but dipped in chocolate!

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Pierogi: The perfect recipe for Poland’s most famous dish | Pierogi & Other Stories

Pierogi are also quite popular in Canada. So much so that in 1993, Glendon, a small village in Alberta, unveiled a roadside tribute to this Central-Eastern European favourite – a statue of a pieróg on a fork, called the Giant Perogy.

Although much of our work as culinary writers trying to narrate Polish food to foreigners consists of convincing them there’s more to Poland’s rich and varied cuisine than pierogi, no one can deny their cultural importance, constant popularity and undying belovedness. They are truly in so many ways, Poland’s national dish.

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Pierogi & Other Stories

Pierogi & Other Stories