Crêpes, blini, palacsinta or pannkaka – all of these names refer to pancakes – round flat cakes cooked on a hot surface. A vital part of European culinary culture, they are known virtually everywhere, and Poland is no exception. ‘Naleśniki’ – our name for them – appeared in our first-ever cookbook ‘Compendium Ferculorum’, published in 1672, and they have been a part of our diet ever since.
The recipe in Stanisław Czerniecki’s Compendium Ferculorum is concise: he advises to mix eggs with milk and a bit of flour, butter a pan, cook a thin crêpe and serve it with more butter. To be fair, this base recipe hasn’t changed much since then, yet – as we will see, looking into some old Polish cookbooks – the ways to serve these universal pancakes are endless. Czerniecki’s preferred additions were raisins, cinnamon, sugar and saffron.
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Stanisław Czerniecki's Compendium Ferculorum, 1682, edited by J. Dumanowski and M. Spychaj, photo: WIlanów Palace Museum
In Wojciech Wielądko’s Kucharz Doskonały – a translation of Menon’s La Cuisinière Bourgeoise – published a century later, we find a whole chapter dedicated to paczki and naleśniki, although the author also gives the same name to thicker, leavened pancakes (that we would now usually call racuchy) and even battered vine leaves. And, etymologically, rightly so – one of the possible explanations of the name naleśniki says it comes from the expression na liściu – ‘on a leaf’, which suggests the batter was initially cooked on a big leaf of cabbage. On the other hand, it might also have been cooked on a wooden crate – na lěsě.
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Bacon crepes, Absynt Restaurant in Warsaw, photo: Bartosz Bobkowski /AG
In most 19th-century cookbooks sweet applications dominate, and pancakes are made both in a humble version – just using water – and a richer one, with milk and cream. Maria Ochorowicz-Monatowa’s ‘culinary Bible’ of the early 20th century – Uniwersalna Książka Kucharska (Universal Cookbook) proposes twenty different variations. Fruit marmalade and sweetened cottage cheese are still amongst the most popular variations, which you can still find in every Polish milk bar, while other, visibly French-inspired dessert options such as almond paste, crème pât and lemon and sugar are now almost forgotten.
Yet naleśniki don’t have to be sweet: for quite a long time they have been served as a side to meats such as capon or mutton or as ‘noodles’ – with soups and broths, as advised in Marya Gruszecka’s Ilustrowany Kucharz Krakowski (Kraków’s Cook, illustrated, 1892). Monatowa proposes a number of savoury fillings: meat (even calves’ brains!), mushrooms, cabbage or potatoes – all of which Poles would also put inside pierogi. Even now, naleśniki ruskie (Ruthenian pancakes), served with a cheese and potato filling usually added to pierogi, are a popular bar dish, much less labour-intensive then the original.
Standing in line to eat a pancake tonight…
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Manekin Creperie, Marszałkowska Street in Warsaw, photo: Kuba Atys/AG
Cheese-and-potato pancakes are definitely one of the most successful, and most affordable options offered at what in the past two decades has become a national phenomenon: the Manekin pancake eatery, now a national chain. What started in Toruń as a budget-friendly eatery for students from the neighbouring university has grown to become one of the most popular fast-casual restaurant chains in Poland, with people standing in queues for much longer than you would expect anyone to wait, considering the restaurant-packed city centres of Warsaw or Gdańsk.
In Manekin you can get pancakes with pretty much any filling you can imagine: from ham and cheese to spinach and feta, from kebab to prawns and ‘tikka masala’ chicken. The cooks also cut them into strips and serve in a broth or with various sauces, probably unknowingly referring to older traditions.
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Krokiety, photo: Piotr Jedzura/Reporter/East News
Before Manekin, there was another famous pancake-centred eatery in Warsaw’s city centre, which cheaply fed generations of university students and was called Krokiecik. In Poland the word krokiety – not to be confused with the French croquettes and Spanish croquetas – is used to describe a rolled naleśnik, stuffed with a savoury filling, and then usually crumbed and pan-fried. The barszcz z krokietem combo – warm beetroot borscht served with a sauerkraut & mushroom croquette – is a typically Polish, delicious fast-food option.
Krokiecik, a staple during Poland under communism, is now gone, yet you can still visit numerous milk bars, where naleśniki are a popular choice, right next to pierogi and potato latkes. It’s worth noticing that even if they have a sweet filling, they play a different role in a Polish menu than, say, in the French tradition where they are served as a dessert, like crêpes Suzette. To us, pancakes with sweetened cottage cheese, applesauce or strawberry jam are more of an entrée – since, much to the visitors’ surprise, we don’t shy away from having sweets for our main meal!
Written by Natalia Mętrak-Ruda, May 2021