Culinary Specialties of Polish Women

Polish cuisine is a very tasty cuisine and appreciated by other nations. Polish women cook traditional meals, but also gladly invite ideas from experiences of other countries. National meals are rather filling, based on products of country origins. It’s a diet supplying energy and vitamins for physical exertion. Polish women don't like to reach for half produced mass products and ready meals. Preparing two course dinners by women is still quite often continued every day, even by those who are working professionally.

Traditionally in Poland it is common to eat three basic meals: breakfast, dinner and supper, but often the diet is enriched with a second breakfast and a late afternoon snack. The most important meal during the day is dinner, which consists of two courses: soup and a second course.

The holidays are traditionally spent next to a well set table, similar as to the Names Day. Polish people like to eat lavishly and tasty foods, and in their friendly gatherings it is a tradition to solidly feed the guests. Gathering and sitting by the table they eat consecutive warm courses, drinking alcohol and proposing cheers.

Probably the most known culinary business card is “bigos”, meaning a meal consisting of boiled cabbage for a long period of time (sauerkraut and fresh cabbage), with added dried mushrooms, prune jam, large amount of meat and cold cuts also red wine. This dish was traditionally prepared for hunting occasions for the hunters who were tired from hunting. Cabbage is generally a vegetable that is widely used in the Polish cuisine. It is used to make for example “kapusniak”, which is a sour soup with meat and sauerkraut, also, “golabki” – which are leaves from the cabbage stuffed with delicious filling made from rice and ground beef. Meat is the main base of many meals. Among the most popular and known are the pork cutlets – which are breaded pork chops dipped in egg and bread crumbs, boiled pork knuckles, different kinds of roasted meat with sauces. Polish women most often prepare meals using fowl meat, but pork and beef is also popular. Polish cold cuts cannot be compared to others, sausages, hams, blood sausage have many advocates all over the world.

Fish is prepared quite often, as well as fresh water as those that come from the sea. Carp is popular: fried or jellied. Herrings are well liked (marinated in seasonings, served with oil and onions, mixed with cream). Also cod, perch and other varieties you can see on the Polish tables. In many Polish homes, most often fish are eaten on Fridays and also during some religious holidays.

Perhaps the most popular soup served on Polish tables is the chicken soup ... meaning a clear meat broth (poultry or beef) with added vegetables. It is served most often with macaroni. It's also worth to mention red beet soup, prepared from sweet beet and white beet soup, which is based on sourdough flour. Polish pea soup is also wonderful, which is a thick and aromatic soup based on smoked beef and peas, with added seasonings. For advocates of culinary experiments, one can recommend tripe, which is a thick, deeply seasoned dish, prepared from beef guts.

Delicious and very highly valued by foreigners are also Polish “pierogi” which is a meal made from thin dough stuffed with all kinds of fillings (sweet or spicy), boiled in water. Pierogi are stuffed practically on all possible ways and everyone will find something for themselves: meat filling, cheese, fruit, cabbage or mushrooms. Polish women often use wild mushrooms in cooking. Mushrooms are a rarity highly priced and enriching the taste of more than one dish.

A specialty of polish women are also flour meals, all kinds of noodles, dumplings, “pyzy” and crepes. Potatoes (boiled and fried), often constitute a main part of dinner, but also equally often are boiled rice and grains.

One cannot also forget to mention about the delicious cakes and deserts, which Polish women prepare. Especially delicious are cheese cakes, which are cakes based on white cheese and eggs, poppy seed cake ... which are baked goods with poppy seed filling with added delicacies with raisins and a variety of nuts. Above all, different types of cakes, “babki”, which are baked goods made from eggs and baking yeast, “mazurek” cakes which are flat cakes richly decorated. Unbeatable are ginger bread cakes called “pierniki” - dark cakes baked with added honey from bees.

There really is a choice to pick from, Polish cuisine is full of variety and interesting. Polish women cook tasty and healthy, and above all they take care of the family atmosphere by the table. They feel responsible for cooking at home, and often even prepare their own preserves for the winter.