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Poland – it's the new Provence of food Poland – it's the new Provence of food
(7 months later)
When I heard that Polish is now England's second most widely spoken language, I had a Proustian moment. To be specific, I thought: mmm, sausages. I'm pretty sure that a long, skinny kabanos – they come folded in two, like whips, or meaty liquorice – was the first foreign food I ever ate. I have my father to thank for this. He would not watch the FA Cup, or any other Important Sporting Event, without a few slices at his side. It was a ritual: he had a certain knife he liked to use (an Opinel), and a particular receptacle in which the rounds had to be placed (a small, brown bowl that he referred to bafflingly as a "pottle"). In those days, Sheffield seriously wanted for posh shops selling foreign foods, but there was, thanks to the war, quite a sizeable Polish community, and there were a few places where you could buy Polish jam, sausages and dill pickles. I was an adult before I liked dill pickles, but I loved smoked sausages right from the start.When I heard that Polish is now England's second most widely spoken language, I had a Proustian moment. To be specific, I thought: mmm, sausages. I'm pretty sure that a long, skinny kabanos – they come folded in two, like whips, or meaty liquorice – was the first foreign food I ever ate. I have my father to thank for this. He would not watch the FA Cup, or any other Important Sporting Event, without a few slices at his side. It was a ritual: he had a certain knife he liked to use (an Opinel), and a particular receptacle in which the rounds had to be placed (a small, brown bowl that he referred to bafflingly as a "pottle"). In those days, Sheffield seriously wanted for posh shops selling foreign foods, but there was, thanks to the war, quite a sizeable Polish community, and there were a few places where you could buy Polish jam, sausages and dill pickles. I was an adult before I liked dill pickles, but I loved smoked sausages right from the start.
Once the thought – mmm, sausages – was in my head, I had to have one. So, off I went, to the Polish deli nearby. Polish delis don't exactly make the heart soar. Expat proprietors cater for Poland Past rather than Poland Future. Their customers aren't in search of novelty; they're homesick. This one is like stepping into Fine Fare, circa 1979: it's full of brightly coloured packets to whose contents you need add only boiling water. The fresh goods are mostly brown, and those that aren't, are white, and you've only to look at any of them to feel your thighs double in size. The karpatka – the Polish equivalent of a vanilla slice – is a vast, undulating mattress of custard and puff pastry; the paczki – jam-filled doughnuts – are the size of Jupiter. But they do have lots of kielbasa (sausages): the good old kabanosy (best with a hint of caraway), smokey krakowska (with pepper and garlic) and hearty podwawelska (garlic and marjoram) for adding to stew (bigos).Once the thought – mmm, sausages – was in my head, I had to have one. So, off I went, to the Polish deli nearby. Polish delis don't exactly make the heart soar. Expat proprietors cater for Poland Past rather than Poland Future. Their customers aren't in search of novelty; they're homesick. This one is like stepping into Fine Fare, circa 1979: it's full of brightly coloured packets to whose contents you need add only boiling water. The fresh goods are mostly brown, and those that aren't, are white, and you've only to look at any of them to feel your thighs double in size. The karpatka – the Polish equivalent of a vanilla slice – is a vast, undulating mattress of custard and puff pastry; the paczki – jam-filled doughnuts – are the size of Jupiter. But they do have lots of kielbasa (sausages): the good old kabanosy (best with a hint of caraway), smokey krakowska (with pepper and garlic) and hearty podwawelska (garlic and marjoram) for adding to stew (bigos).
I bought a kabanos, which cost me 38p; I scoffed it on the way home. Also, a packet of pierogi, with which I'm mildly obsessed. Pierogi are little semi-circular dumplings; you fry them, the same way you do Japanese gyoza, which they resemble. There are three varieties: chicken and pork, sauerkraut and wild mushrooms, and – my favourite – cottage cheese and potato. Serve them with soft, fried onions, and sour cream on the side. They're completely delicious, even the crummy supermarket kind (these ones came wrapped in plastic, and doubtless began their lives on a Warsaw industrial estate).I bought a kabanos, which cost me 38p; I scoffed it on the way home. Also, a packet of pierogi, with which I'm mildly obsessed. Pierogi are little semi-circular dumplings; you fry them, the same way you do Japanese gyoza, which they resemble. There are three varieties: chicken and pork, sauerkraut and wild mushrooms, and – my favourite – cottage cheese and potato. Serve them with soft, fried onions, and sour cream on the side. They're completely delicious, even the crummy supermarket kind (these ones came wrapped in plastic, and doubtless began their lives on a Warsaw industrial estate).
The best pierogi I know are made by Rafael and Iwona at the Pierogi Company, which started out as a stall for homesick Poles on Camden Market, and now wins awards for its dumplings, wobbly and translucent. They also make bigos, and golabki (cabbage parcels stuffed with pork). Order on the internet; they do home delivery. However, the dream is that one day quite soon I will journey east to eat homemade pierogi in some remote medieval village straight from an ancestral oven. This surprisingly vivid fantasy has been fuelled by my favourite new book: In a Polish Country House Kitchen by Anne Applebaum, whom I knew as a Pulitzer-winning writer about all things communist but who is also, I now discover, a cook. Not only that, she is a cook who just happens to be married to Radek Sikorski, the Polish foreign minister.The best pierogi I know are made by Rafael and Iwona at the Pierogi Company, which started out as a stall for homesick Poles on Camden Market, and now wins awards for its dumplings, wobbly and translucent. They also make bigos, and golabki (cabbage parcels stuffed with pork). Order on the internet; they do home delivery. However, the dream is that one day quite soon I will journey east to eat homemade pierogi in some remote medieval village straight from an ancestral oven. This surprisingly vivid fantasy has been fuelled by my favourite new book: In a Polish Country House Kitchen by Anne Applebaum, whom I knew as a Pulitzer-winning writer about all things communist but who is also, I now discover, a cook. Not only that, she is a cook who just happens to be married to Radek Sikorski, the Polish foreign minister.
The book's inspiration is the renovated manor that she and Sikorski own in western Pomerania. Bought for a song after the fall of communism, it has its own orchard, greenhouses and kitchen garden; it's basically where Martha Stewart would live if her ancestors hadn't left Poland for New Jersey. I stare enviously at photographs of it, and I think: oh, to be bicycling through the lanes of Poland's slow food revolution and the promise of Anne's sour bread soup warming in her capacious oven. Given her hawkish politics, this is just a little alarming; it seems I'm even more easily bought than I thought. But there's no denying that the recipes are great (there is a whole chapter on pierogi, with suggestions for more modish fillings such as brown butter and truffle), or that Applebaum has done a beautiful job capturing a Poland, bountiful and lush, that is wholly unknown to most of us. No processed cheese, no tinned fish, no just-add-water packets. Here, at last, is Poland Future: think Provence, with added beetroot.The book's inspiration is the renovated manor that she and Sikorski own in western Pomerania. Bought for a song after the fall of communism, it has its own orchard, greenhouses and kitchen garden; it's basically where Martha Stewart would live if her ancestors hadn't left Poland for New Jersey. I stare enviously at photographs of it, and I think: oh, to be bicycling through the lanes of Poland's slow food revolution and the promise of Anne's sour bread soup warming in her capacious oven. Given her hawkish politics, this is just a little alarming; it seems I'm even more easily bought than I thought. But there's no denying that the recipes are great (there is a whole chapter on pierogi, with suggestions for more modish fillings such as brown butter and truffle), or that Applebaum has done a beautiful job capturing a Poland, bountiful and lush, that is wholly unknown to most of us. No processed cheese, no tinned fish, no just-add-water packets. Here, at last, is Poland Future: think Provence, with added beetroot.
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