Bonus material: Family Dinner Traditions/Unlike Mom Used to Make, Part VIII: An Interview with my Mother about an Eastern European Delicatessen, Polish Food, and Additional Foods Eaten in Childhood.
While I was interviewing my father for Part VII of this series, I was also plying my mother with information about Polish foods that I had acquired from Wikipedia's entry on Polish cuisine, to see if I could learn a bit about the traditions that the relatives she visited while she was growing up might have followed. The printout I brought along with me inspired quite a few recollections, which I'll share here.The Bakery/Deli/General Store. My mother said that the 42nd Ward of Branford Connecticut where she lived was almost entirely Polish when she was a kid, and accordingly, there was a specialty bakery and general store that was set up to meet their cultural demands. She remembers the store as having a wooden floor, with sawdust scattered on it. The store's bakery produced fresh breads in European styles: breads like rye, sour rye, and caraway. My mother notes that these were hard breads, much firmer than common American breads today. [Did I ever write about having a German visitor last year, and how I had to break his heart by explaining that, while we do have a break here called pumpernickel, it's not REAL pumpernickel, but is instead a soft bread that sometimes has coloring added to make it look more wholesome? Poor man! I felt so bad for telling him, but I didn't want him to try it and be disappointed...] The store also made pickles, and had a butcher present who was able to sell both regular and kosher meats.
Recollections of Polish foods. While my Mom had the list in front of her, she also recalled eating some of the foods on the list, and a few other items that she may not have mentioned previously. Some of these items were likely things she ate less often, or didn't eat at dinner with her family, which is why they didn't come to mind in the previous interview. (I'm going to send her a written copy of both that interview and this one, so she'll be able to provide additional comments.) Items specifically from Wikipedia's list are marked with an asterisk.
Soups:
-beetroot soup*
-clam chowder
-egg drop-style chicken soup
-pea soup
Meat/Savory dishes:
-blood sausages
-crab, boiled or in crab salad
-eggs, poached or soft boiled
-golumpki (meat-stuffed cabbage)*
-klusky (round dumplings)*
-omelets, with cheese or mushrooms
-pot roast
-sauerkraut*
-sliced cucumbers with sour cream
-wild mushrooms, fried in butter
Sweets/Desserts:
-apple cake (like streusel)*
-cakes, with candied ("citronated"?) fruit, cinnamon, nutmeg, and raisins
-cheese made of sheep milk
-desserts of layered wafers with creamy fillings*
-Easter bread, a crescent-shaped raisin bread
-fruit compotes (boiled fruit and cinnamon)
-krowki - soft milk toffee candies*
-pie, blueberry or blueberry cream
-sernik - cheesecake (made with quark, a type of fresh cheese)*
If she recalls more, I'll report about it in another installment.
Mmmmm, apple cake...
Labels: Polish food
posted by Arlene (Beth)11:50 PM
