Polish Food

Checiny – Wolka Domaniowska, Poland

In the dark days of the Munger Family – those many years when Dr. Liu did not partake in dishes with meat – it came to pass that we were eating in a Chinese restaurant. 

Now, Diana has always been what you might call high maintenance when it comes to ordering food. 

“I’ll have the Greek Salad, but with the dressing on the side. Also, could I substitute spinach for the lettuce? And do you have fresh mozzarella? Could I substitute fresh mozzarella for the feta? Or, if not, could I have less feta, and, preferably, low-salt feta . . .”

You get the idea.

Well, at this particular time Diana was on a particularly robust health kick. 

“Could I order just broccoli?”

With a Chinese accent: ”Yes, we could stir fry some broccoli for you.”

”No. Not stir fried. Could I just have it steamed?”

”Yes, what kind of sauce do you want?”

”No sauce. Just steamed.”

”Just steamed? You understand, no flavor whatsoever?!?”

”Yes, I understand.”

”No flavor whatsoever. You sure you want?” The waiter is confused and sad. He likes giving people good food . . .

I tell you all this because it all came flooding back to me earlier today. 

We’re biking along through a little town, past a church. We hear the priest chanting something in Polish. We slow a little for the chanting, and then we see that there are vendors selling what looks like bagels. 

It’s lunchtime and we’re hungry, so we stop. On closer inspection there are big bundles of bagel-like things – tied together with a string, which winds its way through through all of the bagel holes. We try to ask what the bagels are – but the vendors don’t know any English. 

At this point a couple approaches. Turns out they are the Mom and Dad of a Polish family that now live in the Netherlands, but they are back in Poland visiting with their kids. They say that they saw us biking along earlier in the day – when they were out in the forest looking for mushrooms. (This is good to hear – because it clears up a mystery for us: what are all these cars doing along the side of the road – when there are no apparent trails or anything . . .? Note that Diana just did the research – the Dutch eat the most mushrooms in the world, and the Polish are second.)

They tell us that the bagel-like things are very good. A little dry, but they eat them with milk. And then they offer us one of theirs to try. 

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to eat those little styrofoam packing peanuts? Dry as a bone – with no flavor whatsoever. 

I mean, at least the broccoli tasted like broccoli. These things are literally like eating sawdust. Their only possible use would be to feed somebody who needs to lose about a hundred pounds instantly. 

They make rice cakes – another Diana favorite – seem like interesting food. 

The thing is, so far Polish food has been “interesting” – but not necessarily good . . .

Which brings me to my prior experience with Polish food. Turns out that I’ve actually eaten a fair bit more Polish food than your average non-Polish Minnesotan. 

Remember my friend Piotr? The Polish Punisher? 

Well, when we were in college Piotr and I used to eat together pretty frequently. We kind of had a system: about half the time I would cook, and the other half of the time we would have one of Piotr’s frozen Polish dishes. 

You see, Piotr’s Mom used to make him copious amounts of Polish food – and then she would box it up, freeze the whole box, and ship it off to Piotr. Next stop? My freezer. 

I still remember the labels on top of the plastic containers. They would always have those strange (to me) accent things on half the letters. 

The food itself? Well, it usually looked good. I remember lots of purple. Really, lots of colors generally. And lots of spices that I wasn’t used to. Plenty of calories – which is, after all, kind of the most important thing for a boy in college. Especially after ski practice – which is pretty much always when we ate. So that was good. 

But the flavor side was, as I said, “interesting.” You would take a bite, all would be good, and then you would come upon a big ball of strange spice. Maybe coriander. Maybe something us Americans have never heard of…

And that’s kind of how Polish food has been for us so far. Yes, it’s interesting that that bagel is made out of styrofoam. But good? Umm, no. 

I guess I never asked Piotr if he liked it. But I’m not sure it would have mattered anyway. Piotr is one of the most undiscrimating eaters I know. And I mean that in a completely positive way. You put stuff in front of Piotr and he eats it. End of story. No complaining. No picking through the food. Just eat. 

Maybe that comes from years of eating “interesting” food. After a while you just eat what they give you – because what’s the use in complaining?

The positive side? Well, it turns out that Poland has some pretty great foraging. I’ve mentioned the apples. Then there are about a million plums. And blueberries.

Today we happened upon some blueberries right by the side of the road. Given that lunch was kind of disappointing in that “interesting” Polish way – it was well worth our time to do some picking. 

I don’t get it, Munger? How does the weird Polish food relate to the foraging? Well, it’s like this . . . My wife is usually not too interested in frivolous stops – like stopping to pick berries when we could be advancing toward our destination. But in Poland, even she recognizes that we have to get our calories from someplace . . .

On a related note, we stopped to pick some apples as well. There were two trees in what looked like an empty lot. Seemed like a good place to grab a few. So I grab two off of the first tree, and start moving toward the second. But then this old guy next door, who I hadn’t even seen, starts talking to me. I have no idea what he’s saying, but after the Plum Crazy woman in Czechia, I just about jump out of my skin. 

But this guy was not plum crazy. He was downright nice. He’s gesturing and talking, and eventually we glean that he’s not mad at all. He’s telling me to skip the second tree because the apples are no good. I should go back to the first tree and pick many more because those apples are much better, and otherwise they’ll go to waste. (It’s amazing what you can learn when you really “listen.” I mean, who needs formal training? I could probably discuss world peace with this guy just by using that extra-language sense that I seem to have . . .)

Oh, yes, the riding . . . Well, it wasn’t a Nadia Comenechi day, like yesterday. It was a little bit cold, and kind of cloudy this morning. Plus, we had to bike through some big town, and that wasn’t exactly perfect either. But, in the end, it was a great day. Nice, cool temperatures, and the terrain and the forests just feel like home. 

I think in my next life I’m going to come back as a Polish person. I’ll probably be a dashing horse rider, like Polish nobles of old. Maybe I’ll even learn to love the food. Although I really don’t see myself enjoying the tasteless bagels. They are just not good – doesn’t matter where you grew up . . . 

The campground tonight is not under a castle – so that’s another mark against this day. But it is kind of cool. Big grassy field and we’re the only ones here. Not how we were envisioning European campgrounds – but we’ll take it. 

Tomorrow, it’s on to Warsaw . . .

Maybe we’ll even find some mushrooms along the way.

Oh, and we’re meeting our friend Aga, who’s Polish originally but lives in Minnesota now, for dinner tomorrow night. Maybe she can help us find some Polish food that is both interesting . . . and good . . .