Polish Cuisine by Region: Podhale

wesele_goralskie_e_en.jpg, full-width, Traditional highlander wedding, Traditional Szaflary, photo: Tadeusz Koniarz/Reporter/East News, Polish Cuisine by Region: Podhale

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Podhale – the Polish highlands in the very south of the country – is a popular tourist destination and the land of characteristic folk art, wooden architecture, energetic dances such as krzesane and zbójnicki, unique musical instruments such as gęśle, złóbcoki and basy, dynamic songs about the life of shepherds in the pastures and the ‘Zakopane style’ aesthetics created by Stanisław Witkiewicz.

The name of the region – which administratively is part of the Małopolskie voivodeship – literally means ‘below the mountain meadows’, and it is the mountains and the meadows, along with the harsh climate and almost barren lands, that have influenced its culinary landscape. In 1914, Walery Staszel, a museum curator from Zakopane, famously said that ‘the food of Podhale is spartan and uniform’. One of the oldest regional dishes is something as humble as bryjka, which consists of flour boiled in salted water to a porridge consistency, served with a bit of lard or oil. Yet before you close the tab, thinking there’s nothing interesting to read about, let me also tell you that Podhale is the home of Poland’s most famous cheese, some of the most delicious dumplings and a hearty one-pot wonder that would warm you up instantly after a long hike in the mountains.

The cheesiest Polish region

Thumbnail — Oscypek, photo: iStockphoto/Getty Images

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Oscypek is the true pride of Polish cheesemaking. It is a salted, smoked cheese made with unpasteurized sheep’s milk with a strictly regulated addition of cow’s milk, exclusive to the Podhale region, as its production has been registered under the European Union Protected Designation of Origin. It is then put into spindle-shaped moulds, rests in brine for a couple of days and is then hot-smoked. It is traditionally served warm as an appetizer with bilberry jam on the side, or just hot from a cart on the streets of Zakopane, yet nowadays you can find it in restaurants all over Poland used in salads or grated on bakes. In some Polish-style pizzerias you can even find a fusion version of the famous dish – pizza podhalańska with oscypek and bilberries. You need to be careful though, since – just as are other widely acclaimed cheeses such as the Greek feta or the Cyprian halloumi – it is widely imitated, and similar cheeses made mostly of cow’s milk are often served in restaurants instead of the ‘real thing’.

The first stages of making bundz are the same as with oscypek, but the cheese curd is brewed and then strained to make large lumps. At first the resulting cheese is quite sweet and mild, but when left to mature, it becomes sour – and that’s when you can make bryndza out of it. Mature bundz is ground and salted and turned into a beautiful soft cheese, which – like bryndza podhalańska – has a geographical indication under EU law, with PDO status. Although bryndza is very tasty as a pierogi or pancake filling, sprinkled on potato dumplings or just simply spread on bread, we tend to say ‘ale bryndza!’ when something doesn’t go our way.

Since resourceful highlanders don’t like to waste anything, they even made a drink with the sheep whey that is left when producing oscypek. It’s called żętyca or żentyca, and it’s a traditional Polish product according to the Polish Ministry of Agriculture. It can only be drunk in small quantities as it can act as a laxative. In the past it’s been used as a cure for tuberculosis and respiratory problems, although its health benefits have never been proven. Its flavour is strong, and its aroma distinct; it can also be used in the kitchen as a marinade for lamb or as the base for a particular type of żurek [sour rye soup].

This ‘sour soup’ won’t make you sour

And since we’re at it, we should talk about Podhale’s most famous soup: kwaśnica. True to its name (the word kwaśny means ‘sour’) it should be very sour but also thick, hearty, and fatty, since its main ingredients are soured cabbage juice and quite a lot of meat, usually smoked pork chops (although it can also be made with mutton or lamb). It is much sourer than the more common cabbage soup, kapuśniak; it is clearer and served without any vegetables but cabbage and potatoes, which are cooked separately. It’s a perfect treat after a long hike in the mountains, but it also seems to be the best possible culinary cure for any hangover you might experience when visiting Podhale – and there is some regional strong alcohol to cause it, such as przepalanka (a type of vodka made with burnt sugar which tastes like caramel liquor) and litworówka (a spirit made with garden angelica and sweetened with honey).

Since cabbage is one of the easiest vegetables to grow, sauerkraut has been and is still the main source of vitamins in the diet of highlanders. Apparently in the past it used to be fermented without salt, as the flavouring was too expensive due to the difficulty of transport from the Wieliczka salt mine. The barrels were put in cold cellars, and sauerkraut provided much-needed nourishment during the cold winter months. Nowadays kapusta po góralsku (highlander cabbage) is prepared by cooking sauerkraut until soft and then mixing it with cooked potatoes along with fried onions and lardons, spiced with bay leaf, allspice and caraway – an important addition, since it helps in digesting the heavy dish. On Fridays and during Lent it was traditionally mixed with linseed oil instead of pork fat. It can be served as a main dish or as a side to meat.

Potatoes, of course

Another important ingredient among the few mountain crops is the potato, which – as often in Poland – can be prepared in a variety of ways: boiled and mashed with milk, served with kwaśnica, żurek or boiled cabbage. Potatoes are also used to prepare typical dumplings from Podhale – tarcioki or bukty. They are made with grated potatoes, a little bit of flour, eggs, and salt, formed into an oval shape and served with fried onions and lardons. As you’ve probably figured, they don’t differ much from other regional recipes for raw-potato-based dumplings from Mazovia or Kashubia.

Creamy and delicious haluszki (or hałuski) are a typical treat from the mountains: these are small, soft noodles, which – when served with bryndza – are also the national dish of Slovakia and can be seen as the Central European equivalent of macaroni cheese. They are closely related to spätzle, beloved in German-speaking countries.

Yet an even more prominent potato dish from Podhale, which can be found in every mountain-themed establishment in the country, are moskole – pancakes made with boiled potatoes, flour, and salt, traditionally baked on the kitchen top (nowadays usually in the oven or on a hot, dry pan), served on their own, with butter, garlic sauce, bryndza or lard. Just as with some other potato dishes in Polish cuisine, such as babka ziemniaczana [potato babka] in Podlasie, potatoes have actually replaced grains: originally moskole were made with oat or rye flour; only later did potatoes become the main ingredient, making them softer and lighter in colour. According to legend, they came to the region along with Russian captives during World War I, hence the name, which means ‘people from Moscow’, but this version of the story doesn’t seem true, as the name appears in earlier ethnographic documents. Such flatbreads were baked also in neighbouring regions instead of bread; highlanders took them to work in the meadows or the woods and heated them up over a fire.

Holidays in the mountains

Since fish is quite hard to find in the south (except for river trout, which can inhabit mountain streams), traditional Christmas Eve dinner in Podhale is almost entirely vegetarian and centred around mushrooms, potatoes, cabbage and beans. Mushroom soup is quite popular as well as barszcz [a clear beetroot broth], which is often served with large white beans. Beans are also the main ingredient of a sweet and savoury dish called fizioły: they are cooked and mixed with smoked prunes, mushrooms, and local honey, often spiced with aromatic rosemary. Kołatanka podhalańska has a similar flavour palette: honey sweetens a mixture of boiled barley and pieces of swede – an otherwise almost forgotten vegetable.

On Easter, highlanders eat horseradish soups, which can be called sodra, święcelina or święconka, and are served either hot or cold, with the most typical holiday ingredients, such as sausage and hard-boiled eggs. Lamb with prunes or sour apples as well as mutton marinated in żętyca (sheep milk whey) are some of the mains – which is quite unique since lamb isn’t that popular in other parts of Poland.

When it comes to the sweet end of things, Podhale offers delicious yeast buns called bombolki – a variety of baked doughnuts, served with copious amounts of butter and honey. Sounds good? Looks like this humble cuisine has something great to offer after all!

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