Poland’s Most Original Soup: Żur
There is an old proverb here in Poland, that with two Poles you will get three opinions. Nothing can be truer in case of the dispute on the very core of the difference between two popular soups: żur and barszcz biały (white borscht, as opposed to red borscht). Nowadays you may find some attempts to get a neat definition: according to some, żur should be a rye sourdough soup while barszcz is rather wheat based.
The żur/barszcz biały controversy would be quite hard to solve with reference to contemporary culinary traditions as they were mixed due to the migrations after the end of World War II. For instance, if you take a recipe for barszcz białoruski (Belarusian borscht) reported in Hanna Szymanderska’s cookbook on Polish regional cooking, then you will find a creamy white soup based on rye sourdough with sour cream that is served with potatoes and cottage cheese. Then, there is the lovely pink barszcz ukraiński (Ukrainian borscht) with no sourdough but a lot of meats and veggies including beets with the addition of fermented beetroots. The barszcz wołyński, Volhynian version with no sourdough again, but with veggies including beets and cabbage. Last but not least, you may have heard or tasted a clear barszcz with no adjectives in its name: ruby red clear soup of fermented beets.
Following different kinds of barszcz, we drifted rather far East and you may wonder what Ukrainian or Belorussian cuisine has to do with Poland. Once all three countries used to form one large kingdom called the Commonwealth of Two Nations. What is more, in contemporary Lithuanian, Ukrainian or Belorussian cuisine, you are going to find references to the Renaissance or Baroque culinary traditions described by Mikołaj Rej or Stanisław Czerniecki as frequently as in Poland.
Then, after World War II, the state borders in our part of Europe changed quite dramatically. The Polish citizens from the Eastern territories that formed Poland in the 1920s and the 1930s (but not in the 1950s) were relocated to more central and Western regions and they brought their food cultures and customs with them.
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Easter table, photo: Iwona Burdzanowska / Agencja Wyborcza
However, the 20th century people’s migrations offer only a partial explanation for the żur/barszcz biały conundrum. There is yet another angle to explore – the history of the names held by the dishes in question. Żur’s name came from the German word sauer for sour while originally barszcz was a sour soup made of fermented barszcz. Sounds complicated? Let us explain.
Now, barszcz is a kind of plant, called hogweed or cow parsnip. It used to be popular in old Polish cuisine up until the 16th century when it was still known but rather as a regional delicacy growing in Lithuania and Ruthenia. The sour soup made of it was called barszcz for convenience. Gradually, in a popular sour soup, fermented hogweed has been replaced by fermented beets but the name stayed, creating the original confusion. Looking for a perfect sour soup, the old Polish court cooks did not hesitate to merge recipes and did not care for the names.
It is an explanation given by professor Jarosław Dumanowski from the Mikołaj Kopernik University of Toruń who, after a thorough examination of old Polish recipes, found one such example of a żur-barszcz in a 17th century manuscript. Among the main ingredients were both hogweed and flour, and the whole mix was called ‘barszcz for a fasting day’. The history of old Polish cuisine is full of similarly twisted surprises and you can find more of the deliciously curious tales from the past in Jarosław Dumanowski and Magdalena Kasprzyk-Chevriaux’s book with a self-explanatory title Kapłony i szczeżuje. Opowieść o zapomnianej kuchni polskiej (‘Capons and duck shells. A story of a forgotten Polish cuisine’, available only in Polish).
But let us follow the scent of żur and barszcz to contemporary kitchens, since it’s impossible to get to the bottom of the question by studying cookbooks only. The best approach seems to be a direct one: a proper tasting. Today in Poland you can find two major variations of żur: a vegetarian, ‘fasting’ dish traditionally eaten during Lent, before Easter, and a rich festive version served on holidays and at family functions (especially at weddings!). The fancy żur is more of a one pot dish than just a soup (there are some who even call it the ‘Polish ramen’), and you will find that it may be accompanied by boiled eggs (hence the ramen association) and steamed pork sausages (called biała kiełbasa – white sausage). Every so often it is served in a bowl made of an emptied bread crust, so that it looks more ‘rustic’. Then, you can sample all sorts of barszcz dishes – white, red, maybe even green (that’s how sorrel soup is sometimes called in accordance with the old practical view that barszcz was supposed to be first and foremost sour soup) – and eventually, you can form your own opinion on żur and barszcz and join our Polish national culinary discussion club.
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