Polish Food 101 – Zapiekanka | #polish cuisine

Polish Food 101 – Zapiekanka

If there’s one fast food item that defines Poland, without a doubt it has to be the zapiekanka. Not only is it delicious and nostalgic for so many of us, it can also be used as a lens to look at the social history of the last half-century in Poland.

The name means ‘something roasted or baked’ and it can actually refer to most dishes prepared in the oven, yet most often it’s used in reference to the wonderful warm mushroom-and-cheese sandwich. The ingredients couldn’t be simpler: a long bun resembling a baguette, roasted until crispy, button mushrooms, melted cheese and ketchup on top. Zapiekanka first appeared in Polish bars in the early 1970s when First Secretary of the Polish United Workers’ Party Edward Gierek bought a licence to produce baguettes from the French. Gierek spent most of his youth in France and in Belgium, where he and his family worked in mines, and apparently considered the baguette both tasty and practical.

The Poles quickly adapted the recipe and put some cheap, yet tasty ingredients on the buns: button mushrooms fried with onions, cheese (often Tilsit cheese, which we would usually call ‘yellow’ as opposed to ‘white’ cottage cheese) and a tomato sauce vaguely resembling American ketchup.

What needs to be noted is that the 1970s – sometimes referred to as the times of ‘social consumptionism’ or even ‘bigos socialism’ – were a time of relative prosperity, openness to some foreign goods (Coca-Cola graced the Polish shelves in 1972), big investments (many of the Plattenbau buildings we see in Polish cities were built at the time) and some freedom when it comes to opening private businesses. Historian Marcin Zaremba first coined the term ‘bigos socialism’, drawing an analogy between a dish that is satiating and satisfying despite the fact that the quality of ingredients used doesn’t have to be stellar, and a system that allows people ‘to get by’.

What we call ‘little gastronomy’ was one of the areas that flourished, and so Poles got to know the taste of fried chicken, pizza (the first pizzeria was opened in Słupsk in 1975; in most places pizza actually meant a savoury waffle with cheese and ketchup), sometimes even hot dogs. And yet meat, as we know, was scarce in socialist times, therefore it had to be substituted with more plentiful ingredients. Enter: button mushrooms.

The career of this humble ingredient was defined by, yet not limited to the zapiekanka: in Gorzów Wielkopolski, buns filled with mushrooms and onions almost became a symbol of the city, while in Warsaw’s Nowe Miasto, in the politically incorrectly named Murzynek (Negro) bar, the socialist version of spaghetti with mushrooms and cheese has been served since the early 1970s, the very first pasta dish in the capital – and it’s still available today, a nostalgic reminder of the times gone by.

Murzynek was also one of the most popular spots for the zapiekanka and other fast foods – apart from the restaurant, there was a window where buns were sold. The current owner said in an interview:

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These mushroom buns were invented in the late ‘60s by my mum and Miss Nadarzyńska, who ran Murzynek at the time. Wieners for hot dogs were hard to buy, so they decided to fill the buns with scrambled eggs or mushroom sauce. The latter became a hit.

Yet people of Warsaw remember other legendary spots: a booth on Rutkowskiego Street (now Chmielna) next to Atlantic cinema; booths on Emilii Plater Street next to where night buses stopped (considering zapiekanka is also the ultimate drunk food, the location makes total sense); Konstytucji Plaza, where Pol-Viet cuisine was also born; and further from the centre – a cart next to the Wilanów cemetery. Most of these ‘little gastronomy’ spots – where later on hot dogs and pretty questionable burgers started being sold, and where crispy fried onions and sliced pickled cucumbers reigned – have been replaced by ‘real’ American fast food. The grand opening of the first McDonald’s in 1992 is a symbol of this transition. Zapiekanki backed down, but they never disappeared, and lately they have been enjoying a comeback.

Today the place to get a zapiekanka is Kraków’s Kazimierz district, where the famous U Endziora (At Endzior’s) bar is located, now surrounded by several similar spots, where you can get classic zapiekanki as well as a whole array of different ingredients and sauces to spice them up. Yet there were legendary spots in many Polish towns – Bar Promyk in Białystok, Teatralka in Poznań, windows on Piotrowska Street in Łódź, Bar pod 4ką in Katowice, bars at train stations in Rzeszów and Bielsko-Biała – and some of them still operate today. On the other hand, there are new, hip places that give the zapiekanka a modern makeover using high-quality cheeses and homemade sauces – just as there are places with gourmet burgers.

It’s an interesting reflection of how Polish tastes evolved along with the economic changes – what started as a poor substitute for Western delicacies turned out to be delicious and universally beloved; when the ‘originals’ became available, it took a step back, only to re-emerge as a cult classic.

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