Root Vegetables
Root vegetables hold a special place in Polish cuisine: resistant to low temperatures and easy to preserve, they have been an important source of nutrients and vitamins for centuries. We use them in soups, stews and salads, we eat them braised, baked and raw – you name it. Let’s take a look at some of the most common roots.
Beetroot
Most commonly associated with red borsht and its variations, beetroot is also a common ‘veg’ in the classic ‘meat and two veg’ Polish obiad. We usually grate it and either eat warm (thickened with a roux, and maybe some sour cream) or cold, as a slaw (with grated apples and/or onions). A popular treat is ćwikła – a beetroot and horseradish condiment, which goes well with ham or hard-boiled eggs – the earliest recipe we know was written by our famous poet Mikołaj Rej in 1567. Nowadays we find so many other uses for it – we drink fermented beet juice to boost immunity and digestion, slice it thinly to make an elegant vegetarian carpaccio, or even use it to bake incredibly moist chocolate cakes.
Włoszczyzna
When you enter a Polish warzywniak – one of innumerable stalls or booths with fruit and veggies – one of the unique things you can notice all year round, is a bundle of vegetables – carrots, parsley roots, celeriacs and leeks – sold together. Its name – włoszczyzna ('Italian stuff') – is a reference to the Italian queen Bona Sforza who, according to the legend, brought many vegetables to Poland from her homeland when she married . Even though neither celeriacs nor parsley roots are common in Italy, the name stuck. All of these vegetables are used to make the traditional Polish rosół and other broths, as well as sałatka jarzynowa – the most popular Polish salad eaten pretty much on every special occasion made with cooked roots, dill pickles, apples, peas and mayonnaise.
Carrots
Carrots are very much loved in Poland, probably as in most countries in the world. Shredded carrot and apple slaw, as well as a spicier one made with horseradish, are among the most popular surówki – cold slaws usually served for obiad’s second dish with some form of meat and potatoes. A common warm side dish is boiled peas and carrots, thickened with roux. Some regional dishes using carrots include marchew krychano from Kujawy (a carrot and potato mash with fried onions and bits of bacon), marchwiaki z makiem from Lubelszczyzna (sweet pirog filled with carrots, poppy seeds and sugar) and mętkowska marchwionka from Mętków in Lesser Poland (a soup made with carrots boiled in milk).
Parsley Roots
For some reason, while in Great Britain and other Western European countries parsnips are quite popular, in Poland they were almost completely forgotten and replaced by parsley roots, which rarely become the main event in a dish, yet are commonly used in soups or turned into a puree. They were extensively used early on – Stanisław Czerniecki packs them in many broths and sauces described in the oldest Polish cookbook, Compendium Ferculorum (1682). A common saying – ni z gruszki, ni z pietruszki ('neither out of pear, nor out of parsley') became an inspiration for cooks who invented a now popular Polish pear and parsley root soup.
Jerusalem Artichokes
The Jerusalem artichoke, or topinambur, has been renowned for years. Compendium Ferculorum recommends adding topinambur to meat and fish dishes. Paul Tremo, the court chef of the last Polish king, Stanisław August Poniatowski, served the vegetable in a sauce of broth with butter and lemon. Yet not everyone liked it: some 18th-century authors described its taste as ‘not good’ or as having a ‘scary odour, like bedbugs’. Nevertheless, it was widely available throughout the 19th-century and proponents of vegetarian cooking recommended them for health reasons, claiming they were a ‘very tasty, delicate, and cheap vegetable’. Jerusalem artichoke was prepared breaded and fried, baked with parmesan and tomato or mushroom sauce, or even served in the French style with vinaigrette. It disappeared from tables for around a century but has been having a bit of a comeback in recent years.