50 Fun Facts About Polish Food

Prince Polo, the Polish wafer bar made in Cieszyn since 1955, is the best-selling chocolate bar of which country?

Iceland has bought more Prince Polo than any other chocolate bar for decades, Nielsen data shows, and for years it was one of the few bars sold there at all. Icelanders call it Prins Póló.

Which MLB team stages a race of mascots in giant pierogi costumes between innings, copying Milwaukee's racing sausages?

The Pittsburgh Pirates run the Great Pierogi Race at every home game, with Potato Pete, Sauerkraut Saul and Cheese Chester sprinting between the fifth and sixth innings. The pierogi even travel to Milwaukee once a year to race the sausages.

Włoszczyzna, the Polish name for the soup-vegetable bundle of carrot, parsley and leek, literally credits which country?

Włoszczyzna comes from Włochy, the Polish name for Italy, a nod to the Italian-born Queen Bona Sforza whose court cooks popularised the vegetables in the 1500s. Court records show she imported oranges, olives, figs and even tomatoes.

Ptasie Mleczko, the chocolate-coated marshmallow bars E. Wedel has sold since 1936, translates from Polish as what?

Bird's milk is an ancient figure of speech for an impossible luxury: Aristophanes used 'the milk of the birds' in The Birds and The Wasps as a proverbial rarity. Wedel still holds exclusive rights to the name in Poland.

The Maxwell Street Polish, a grilled sausage under fried onions and yellow mustard, is a street food of which US city?

Chicago counts the Maxwell Street Polish among its classic foods alongside the Italian beef and the Chicago hot dog, yet it was invented by Jimmy Stefanovic, a Macedonian immigrant who took over a Maxwell Street market stand in 1939.

Mizeria, the cucumber and sour cream salad beside a Polish breaded cutlet, takes its name from a word for what?

Poverty, misère in French or miseria in Latin, is the root given for mizeria, most likely a sneer from the Polish aristocracy at a dish of the peasant table. It is now the standard side for a Sunday kotlet schabowy.

Grochówka wojskowa, the 'military' pea soup of Polish field kitchens, is said to be thick enough to hold what upright?

A spoon should stand straight up in a proper grochówka wojskowa, according to a common Polish saying. The soup is cooked in army messes but is associated with the kuchnia polowa, the mobile field kitchen wheeled out at public events.

After a day of fasting, what sight in the sky tells a Polish family that Wigilia supper may begin?

The first star signals the start of Wigilia, which is why Christmas itself is sometimes called Gwiazdka, 'little star', in Poland. Children keep watch at the window so the family can sit down the moment it appears.

Spirytus Rektyfikowany from Polmos, often called the world's strongest liquor, is bottled at what strength?

96% ABV is about the ceiling of ordinary distillation, since column stills top out at 96 to 96.5 per cent before water and alcohol refuse to separate. Poles mostly use Spirytus for home-made fruit infusions, not for drinking neat.

Kopytka, the Polish potato dumplings cut on the diagonal and served under goulash, are named for resembling what?

Little hooves is the literal meaning of kopytka, from kopyto, because the dumplings are shaped like hooves. The same dumplings are eaten in Belarus and Lithuania, sweet with butter and sugar as often as savoury.

Zapiekanka, the toasted half-baguette of 1970s Polish street food, is classically topped with cheese and what?

Sautéed mushrooms under melted cheese, finished with a stripe of ketchup, define the classic zapiekanka, and the stands on Plac Nowy in Kraków's Kazimierz district have a cult following. The name comes from zapiekać, to bake.

Alongside stewed plum powidła, which flower's petal jam is the traditional filling of a Polish pączek doughnut?

Rose petal jam made from wild roses is the classic pączek filling, though bakeries now pipe in custard, strawberry, blueberry and Bavarian cream. The name is easily confused with paczki, which simply means parcels.

Faworki, the brittle fried ribbons dusted with icing sugar that Poles eat before Lent, go by which name in English?

Angel wings, or chruściki, are strips of dough twisted, deep-fried and showered with powdered sugar, and Polish-American bakeries in Buffalo, Philadelphia and Milwaukee make them too. A twist through a slit gives the wing shape.

Why do Polish families lay one extra place at the Wigilia table, however many diners are expected on Christmas Eve?

For an unexpected guest, whoever may knock, the spare setting celebrates hospitality, one of several Wigilia customs that begin only after a full day of abstinence. Nobody should be alone on Wigilia night.

Święconka, observed across Poland on the Saturday before Easter, is the church blessing of what?

Baskets of food are carried to church to be blessed, each item symbolic: eggs for resurrection, bread for Jesus, horseradish for Christ's bitter sacrifice and a lamb figure for Christ himself. The custom is said to date to the 7th century.

Kotlet schabowy, the breadcrumbed cutlet at the heart of a Polish Sunday dinner, is pounded from which cut of meat?

Pork loin, with or without the bone, is sliced, hammered flat, dipped in egg and breadcrumbs and fried for a kotlet schabowy, a cousin of the Viennese schnitzel and Japanese tonkatsu. Schab is simply the Polish word for loin.

Rosół, the clear noodle broth of Polish weddings and sickbeds, is most often made from which meat?

Chicken makes rosół z kury, the most popular version, though a rosół królewski layers beef, hen and duck in one pot. The name comes from Old Polish rozsół, the soaking of preserved meat.

What gives chłodnik litewski, the chilled soup that cools Polish summers, its shocking pink colour?

Beetroot and its young leaves, whisked into kefir or soured milk, turn chłodnik pink, and 'litewski' recalls the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, where cold sour soups fed nobles and peasants alike. Lithuanians call the same bowl šaltibarščiai.

Krówki, the soft Polish milk toffees in white-and-yellow wrappers, are named as the diminutive of which farm animal?

Cows, or rather 'little cows', is what krówki means, and most wrappers carry a picture of a Holstein to prove it. The Pomorski family claims to have made the first ones before the German occupation forced a move to Milanówek.

Grójec, a medieval castellany seat, now sits in a district called Europe's biggest orchard for which fruit?

Apples from the Grójec district make up every third apple sold in Poland, and the local microclimate is credited with their deep red colour. Poland's orchards make it one of the world's leading apple producers after China.

Sernik, the baked Polish cheesecake known since the 17th century, uses which fresh curd cheese instead of cream cheese?

Twaróg, the traditional Polish quark, gives sernik its body together with eggs and butter but no cream or sour cream. The krakowski version wears a lattice crust, the królewski a cocoa crust top and bottom, and the wiedeński none at all.

Hamtramck, the Polish enclave inside Detroit, throws its annual Pączki Day parade on which day of the church calendar?

Shrove Tuesday, Fat Tuesday to the locals, is Pączki Day in Hamtramck, where the Polish pre-Lent tradition merged with the Mardi Gras timing of other immigrants. Bakeries across Metro Detroit draw queues for pączki that morning.

How do Poland's surviving milk bars, now privately owned, keep serving a full dinner for a few złoty?

State subsidies still flow to the privately owned milk bars, which is why activist groups fight for them when gentrification threatens a good location. The Communist state had planned them as public canteens beside the workplace bufet.

Oscypek, the spindle-shaped smoked cheese of the Tatras, may legally be made only in which part of the year?

Late April to early October is the only window, because the highland flocks must be grazing fresh mountain grass. The protected recipe also fixes every cheese at 600 to 800 grams and 17 to 23 centimetres long.

Obwarzanek krakowski, the braided bread ring sold from Kraków street carts, holds which EU food label?

Protected Geographical Indication status, registered in 2010, ties the obwarzanek to Kraków and its district, the same tier of label as the Cornish pasty. The rings are boiled, then sprinkled with sesame or poppy seed before baking.

The earliest record of Kraków obwarzanki, a 1394 court account for 'rings', was written for which Polish queen?

Jadwiga, Poland's reigning queen and wife of Władysław Jagiełło, was billed 1 grosz for obwarzanki on 2 March 1394, in an entry that also gives the medieval Latin name circuli. Her court's accounts are the oldest proof the bread existed.

Rogal świętomarciński, the white-poppy crescent baked for St Martin's Day, is the protected pride of which city?

Poznań bakers were already advertising St Martin's croissants in the Dziennik Poznański in 1860, and the EU registered the name and recipe in 2008. The filling is white poppy seed, not the usual blue-grey kind.

Kiełbasa wiejska, the 'country' sausage of pork and veal, is seasoned with garlic and which herb?

Marjoram and garlic, sometimes with a pinch of coriander, flavour kiełbasa wiejska, whose name means rural or village. Kabanosy, the thin dry sticks, get caraway instead.

Kaszanka, the Polish blood sausage grilled with onions and eaten with potatoes, is bulked out with which groats?

Buckwheat groats, kasza, give kaszanka its name and crumbly bite, bound with pig's blood and liver inside a natural casing; barley is the other traditional filler. In Yiddish-influenced districts the same sausage is kiszka.

Flaki, eaten in Poland since the 14th century and a favourite of King Władysław Jagiełło, is a peppery stew of what?

Beef tripe cut into thin strips is flaki, a word that literally means 'guts' and was borrowed from the German Fleck. The diminutive flaczki names the same soup, and German cousins go by Kuttelsuppe.

Żurek, the sour soup of the Polish Easter table, is served with halved hard-boiled eggs and which sausage?

Biała kiełbasa, the pale uncooked 'white' sausage, is poached in the soup alongside bacon and eggs for Easter breakfast, though Poles eat żurek all year round. Horseradish and allspice often round out the pot.

Goldwasser, the herbal liqueur with flakes of 23-karat gold in every bottle, was made from 1598 in which Polish port?

Gdańsk, then Danzig, made Goldwasser from 1598 until 2009; production now takes place only in Germany. Artists of the period used alcohol solutions for gilding, which is thought to have inspired the floating gold.

Żywiec brewery, opened in 1856 in Austrian Poland, belonged until post-war nationalisation to which imperial family?

The Habsburgs kept Żywiec until the Communist government confiscated it, and in the 1990s their descendants sued for $77 million over the nationalisation and the use of the family name and crest on labels. Its pale lager is 5.5 per cent.

Kabanosy, the thin dry sausage sticks soldiers once ate on the march, take their name from kaban, an old word for what?

A fattened young pig, raised on potatoes specially for the sausage, was a kaban, a word Polish took from Turkic languages where it means a boar. Australians and New Zealanders know the same stick as cabanossi.

Which Dominican friar, hailed in the Polish cry 'Święty Jacku z pierogami!', fed pierogi to famine victims in legend?

Saint Hyacinth, Jacek in Polish, is said to have fed people pierogi during the famine that followed the Mongol invasion of 1241, and one theory has him bringing the dumplings from the East via Kievan Rus'. His tomb is in Kraków.

The word pierogi descends from a Proto-Slavic root, pirъ, that means what?

Feast is the meaning of pirъ, and pierogi still headline the feast at Wigilia, where they stand for prosperity and well-being. In Britain they have become a symbol of the Polish community and a reasonably well-known dish.

Pierogi Fest, held on 119th Street in Whiting on the last weekend of every July, takes place in which US state?

Indiana's Whiting, just over the state line from Illinois, has its Whiting–Robertsdale Chamber of Commerce run the festival in the downtown streets. Pierogi are a symbol of Polish-American identity in the industrial Midwest.

Silesian kluski, the round potato dumplings stiffened with potato starch, have a thumb-pressed dent made to hold what?

Gravy pools in the dimple of a kluska śląska, pressed with a thumb before the dumplings are boiled. Poland's agriculture ministry lists versions from both the Silesian and Opole voivodeships as traditional foods.

Cebularz, the onion-topped flatbread first baked by Jewish bakers, is the signature bread of which eastern Polish city?

Lublin's Jewish bakers sold the first cebularze in its Old Town, and the 15-to-20-centimetre rounds of wheat dough with diced onion and poppy seed were popular across the region before World War II. It remains a local favourite.

Which sweet, flat shortcrust cake, decorated with eggs, hares and pussy willows, is baked in Poland only for Easter?

Mazurek ends Lent on a sugar rush, its shortcrust base often crowned with a lattice of macaroon pastry, and the nutty mazurek orzechowy joined the agriculture ministry's traditional products list in 2011. It is eaten once Lent is over.

Which Polish cream slice turned 'papal' after John Paul II recalled in 1999 eating it after his school-leaving exams?

Kremówka became the papal cream cake after the Pope's remark of 16 June 1999 that he had celebrated his matura with cream cakes in his home town, at a bakery run by Austrian confectioner Karol Hagenhuber. Elsewhere it is called napoleonka.

In the old-Polish hospitality the szlachta prided itself on, guests were welcomed at the door with bread and what?

Salt with bread, chlebem i solą, greeted guests at noble houses, and the poet Wespazjan Kochowski praised 'good bread, when it is given to guests with salt and good will' in 1674. The custom spans the Slavic world.

Which grade of Polish mead, the richest of the four protected by EU law, uses two parts honey to one of water?

Półtorak takes two parts honey to one of water, the richest of the four Polish grades the EU lists as Traditional Specialities Guaranteed; dwójniak is equal parts, trójniak one honey to two water, and czwórniak, the lightest, one to three.

Who wrote Compendium ferculorum, the earliest cookbook printed in Polish, as head chef to the Lubomirski princes?

Stanisław Czerniecki, an ennobled burgher who served three generations of Lubomirskis, dedicated the book to Princess Helena Tekla Lubomirska, and Mickiewicz drew on it for the banquet in Pan Tadeusz. Its cooking still looked medieval.

Which Polish cookery writer's first book had run to 23 editions and sold over 130,000 copies by 1924?

Lucyna Ćwierczakiewiczowa followed it in 1860 with 365 obiadów za pięć złotych, '365 dinners for five złoty', while writing for the Kurier Warszawski; her first cookbook alone ran to 23 editions. She was born Lucyna von Bachman in 1826.

Pierekaczewnik, a rolled meat pie with EU Traditional Speciality status, belongs to which minority settled in Podlasie?

Lipka Tatars, descended from soldiers settled in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, bake pierekaczewnik, a name from a Russian verb meaning 'to roll up'. The same pie is sarburma in Crimea and etli kol böreği in Turkey.

Which Kraków merchant hosted the 1364 banquet for Emperor Charles IV that a Main Square restaurant is still named after?

Mikołaj Wierzynek's house hosted a banquet that the chronicler Jan Długosz said ran for 21 days, celebrating the emperor's wedding to Casimir the Great's granddaughter Elizabeth of Pomerania. Guillaume de Machaut described it in verse.

Wuzetka, the chocolate cream cake sold in the Polish capital since the late 1940s, probably takes its name from what?

A city road route, the W-Z or East-West Route across the capital, ran past the confectionery that first sold the cake, though some trace the name to WZC, the city's confectionery plants. It soon became a home bake across Poland.

Polish milk bars stuck to dairy and vegetarian menus in the early 1980s because martial law brought rationing of what?

Meat was rationed under martial law, so the bary mleczne fell back on omelettes, egg cutlets and pierogi, the cheap dairy, egg and flour dishes they had been built around. Communist planners had meant them as public canteens.

Makowiec, the rolled yeast cake of Polish Christmas and Easter tables, is filled with a dense paste of which seeds?

Poppy seeds ground with raisins, butter, honey and a splash of rum make the filling, and the same roll is makovník in Slovakia and Mohnstrudel in Austria. The Polish name comes from mak, the poppy.