Calling Cudzomiec

[road-runner]

CNN: Best foods to try in Poland

15 Polish foods. Which, if any (or all) of these would you recommend to YACF?

[Cudzoziemiec]

It's a tough time to be a travel writer.

If Polish cuisine were to be described in just one word, "heartfelt" would perhaps be the most fitting choice.
We're talking mind-blowingly delicious, wholesome dishes served up in generous portions.

Translation: 101 varieties of stodge. The same basic ingredients of meat and root veg as traditional English cooking but with less boiling. Instead, all vegetables and a lot of meat too must be deep fried in breadcrumbs. Or made into soup.

Anyway, of the dishes they list, my personal favourites would be bigos, pierogi (the best variety are "Russian" with potato and white cheese – much better than it sounds), racuchy, placki ziemniaczane, gingerbread. Makowiec can be nice but is often a bit dry. There are hordes of other delicious cakes though. The three basic food groups in Poland are pork, potatoes and sugar.

I don't think I've even heard of czernina. Zurek I like but you can't have much of it, it gets a bit sour. Kluski slaskie are just kind of boring.

[pcolbeck]

Could be worse, when we in Bratislava about ten years ago one of the restaurants had a sign outside in English that said "Fat coming tomorrow!".

[ian]

I once went for a fabulous lunch in Serbia, six hours of it. By the time I was finished, I had my own gravity and was well on my way to being recognised as a planet. I think the lightest thing on the menu was potatoes in cream cheese. There might have been cabbage. In cheese.

Then we got back to the hotel. Don't forget, dinner at 8pm, says the host. It was 6.30pm. All I remember is my body letting out a desperate, strangled fart of despair.

[Cudzoziemiec]

I'm sure there would have been cabbage in some form.

[ian]

The Serbs are very tall* and I soon learned why. All that food has to go somewhere. In Americans, it goes sideways, in Serbs, upwards.

*I remember being out in Novi Sad with my tiny German colleague, at some festival, so the streets of the old town were packed. Honestly, we had to try not to get stepped on. Our host, who already tall, decided to go extra tall on a pair of heels – this meant that every time I turned to talk to her, I ended up conversing directly at her breasts before having to rapid do that man-thing were I quickly try to look everywhere but where I'm looking.

[Jurek]

Bigos and pierogi would also get my vote from that list, the rest of it I can take or leave. Mostly leave.