NerO✩ Posted October 6, 2016 Posted October 6, 2016 Poland is often said to be at the crossroads of Europe to the west and, to the east, Russia and Asia. Its food has benefited from the different cultures and peoples it has come into contact with; it is a more varied and exotic cuisine than it's often given credit for. The Italian and French influences on Polish food are well known. In our dumplings you can see the Italian connection; we have a gnocchi equivalent in kopytka (or "little hooves") and uszka ( "little ears"), which are like Polish tortellini. Religion and politics have linked the two countries over centuries; adopting Latin Christianity (Catholicism as we now call it) in 966 tied Poland to Rome, while simultaneously distancing it from Lutheran Germany and Orthodox Russia. In the 16th century, the Italian Queen Bona Sforza further increased Italian influence in the Polish court and the kitchen. The Polish-French relationship is similarly deep-rooted. You only need look at a Polish cake shop to be reminded of a French patisserie and one cream cake - the Napoleonka - is even named after the po[CENSORED]r French ruler, who promised to rescue Poland from the clutches of Russia. What's more, our cuisine is infused with the influences from countries surrounding us. In the 16th and 17th centuries, Poland and Lithuania were joined in a multi-ethnic commonwealth, including most of Ukraine and reaching as far as Estonia in the north and Moldova in the south. The culinary influences went both ways. Borsht, for example, is ubiquitous. We may talk of "Lithuanian chłodnik" (cold beetroot soup) or "Ukrainian borsht" (which is full of meat, vegetables and beans as opposed to the Warsaw-style clear beetroot soup), but it's difficult to pinpoint exactly where the mother of all these similar Slavic soups originated. Many dishes that are considered to be typically Polish also have shades of eastern food about them. We can only guess at where these came from: Jewish and Armenian settlers, Arab merchants on the Amber Trail, Poland's old foe, the Ottomans, or the Tartar horsemen who so often rode through Polish lands all left their mark. Throughout history, Polish cuisine - just like its boundaries - has been rather fluid, and Polish people by nature tend to enjoy trying new things. Advertisement Which brings me to this week's recipes. Golabki ( "little pigeons") are stuffed cabbage leaves similar to the vine leaves we eat from the Middle East, but the cabbage makes them undeniably Polish. The dish varies from one household to the next: some are filled with meat, others are entirely vegetarian. They are usually made from a leafy cabbage; red cabbage ones like this are rare but striking, and pair so well with this duck and apple filling that it's worth a try - even though it is, admittedly, more difficult to roll. Keep soaking the leaves in hot water, and roll and pack them tightly, and they will soften more as they cook. The lightly spiced "gypsy-style" sauce in this week's grain salad is a nod to the Roma gypsies who travelled through Poland over the ages. Rather like the gypsies themselves, you can not pin this sauce down - it varies from one dish to the next. The only thing you can be sure of is that it consists of peppers and tomatoes. I give you my version of the sauce with toasted buckwheat groats - probably the most po[CENSORED]r of all our kaszas (grains). Their taste is unmistakable - nutty and rich. I sometimes eat them only with butter. We were meant to come to the UK for just a year in 1987, but my parents decided that life in communist Poland was too hard. For six or seven years, we could not visit Poland while we waited for British citizenship. I missed the country I grew up in, my extended family and friends from my block. Yet it's true what they say about hardship making you stronger. I have now been given a special gift for my troubles: the benefit of two cultures instead of one. I see Polish cuisine from the outside as well as the inside. While I love and appreciate it, I'm not afraid to play with people's expectations. I think it's better to preserve traditional cuisine by opening it up to a wider audience - adapting and modernising it - than keeping it in an airtight box, an untouchable tradition. It's extremely rewarding when a Polish person tells me that they love my version of a dish, because, whatever their views on tradition, and modernity everyone loves their grandma's recipes the best.
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