Until a few years ago, Polish cuisine was very homogeneous. It is gaining diversity with the immigration of hundreds of thousands of people from Ukraine, Georgia and Belarus.
A branch of the Polish restaurant chain “Wesola Pani” (Merry Woman) in Poznań, which also offers Georgian and Ukrainian dishes
If you are in the city center of the Polish who knows the city of Poznan well, knows where to get the best, tastiest and cheapest lunch. It doesn't matter whether you're a student, an office worker or a civil servant, everyone likes to eat at the Piec Smakow canteen in the Provincial Administration building. No wonder, because Romualda Michalowska (59), a passionate cook, cooks here.
On this day she conjures up Georgian dishes on the restaurant's table. On a note at the entrance she announced the “Georgian Days”. She has been preparing for this for a long time and intensively.
Romualda Michalowska, a passionate cook
“I've started to read up on the culinary traditions of Georgia,” says the chef Meat. Which meat is processed? We in Poland prefer pork. Georgian cuisine and in general the cuisines of the Caucasus region prefer lamb. Minced meat is also used a lot, while poultry hardly plays a role. Only then do I go to the Eat over and see which spice is added in which order.”
Dumplings of all kinds
Less than 100 meters from the Piec Smakow bar, behind the shop window of the Wesola Pani restaurant, a small group of women are busy folding different kinds of dumplings. One can observe exactly how quickly and routinely her hands work. Almost every Polish housewife knows how much trouble is behind it. Because their mothers and grandmothers formed and form dumplings, which are called pierogi in Poland. In the past, you prepared them almost every day, but today you actually only make the effort at Christmas.
In Poland there are classic pierogi with meat filling or Ukrainian style. Then they are filled with cheese and potatoes. At Christmas, pierogi are eaten with cabbage and mushrooms. Wild berries are a popular filling in summer. Recently, the figure and health-conscious can also get pierogi with broccoli and other vegetables.
Women prepare dumplings
However, dumplings such as pierogi, which are boiled in water or fried in a frying pan, are not reserved for Polish cuisine alone. They are also found in many other national cuisines east of the Oder. The Wesola Pani restaurant offers them in all forms. The Ukrainian dumplings, the pielmieni, are also available here with salmon, for example. They are much smaller and handier than their Polish counterparts. Georgians brought to Poland their well-seasoned khinkali, which are served in broth and eaten with your hands. A special feature, however, are the large Tatar dumplings, the Chebureki. Two to three of these dumplings filled with meat are enough to fill you up.
Spicy snacks in puff pastry
Eight-year-old Jan from Poznań would actually be a typical candidate for the popular hot dogs that are commonly found in Poland at Orlen gas stations and in all Zabka grocery stores. Most Polish children his age have their first encounter with fast food here – especially since a hot dog costs less than a euro.
Eight-year-old Jan in front of a Georgian bakery
But little Jan doesn't really like these hot dogs. He has fallen for another snack trend in Poland: khachapuri, a Georgian puff pastry. “Let's go to the Georgian baker,” he says when he doesn't like the food at home. Jan especially likes the cheese mixture in the puff pastry. The square khachapuri are mainly served warm, straight from the oven. By Polish standards, baked goods such as khachapuri or Georgian bread, puri, are relatively cheap. A sumptuous khachapuri with cheese or meat in puff pastry can be had for about three euros.
Immigrants to Poland
Many Georgians, Armenians, Ukrainians and Belarusians have been living in Poland for many years and not just since the beginning of the war against Ukraine. The motives are very different. Poland offers free academic training, wages are better than in the home countries, and Polish companies desperately need workers. Cultural and linguistic proximity makes it very easy for immigrants from Eastern Europe to integrate in Poland and also build up an economic existence.
In September 2020, the government launched a new program to attract foreign workers, mainly from the information and communication sector, and eased visa requirements for immigrants from Belarus. In July 2021, the program was extended to workers from Armenia, Georgia, Moldova, Russia and Ukraine. Since November 2021, the entry requirements for foreign doctors have also been relaxed, and their degrees and qualifications are now more easily recognised. According to the Polish Social Insurance Agency (ZUS), in December 2022 the number of insured foreigners exceeded one million people. In April 2022, just over 16 million people in Poland were covered by social insurance, out of a population of around 38 million.
< p>In the fast-food restaurant Pierogi Lwowskie in Gdansk you can get Pierogi with the special seasoning of Lviv in today's Ukraine
The first Georgian restaurants opened in Poland more than twenty years ago. Ukrainian sweets have also been in Polish grocery stores for a long time. Chocolate, waffles or sweets from the Ukrainian confectionery manufacturer Roshen are just as natural as Milka chocolate or chocolate bars from Mars.
From the east to the west of Poland
When Romualda Michalowska reads about the kitchens of the East, she often thinks of her own grandmother. Like so many Poles, her grandmother was forcibly resettled from what was then East Poland during the Second World War on Stalin's orders. These people came from Vilnius and Lemberg (Lwiw) or even further east to what is now western Poland. They cooked Eastern. Prunes are typical of Lemberg cuisine. No meat sauce without prunes. The people from the Vilnius area tended to season with vanilla. Many Poles still know pickled pears with this particularly intense vanilla sauce from their grandmothers. At grandma's there was Christmas Kutya. This dessert with poppy seeds, buckwheat, almonds, tons of honey and raisins is like no other dish for the touch of the Orient on the well-laid Polish table.
The next few years will certainly show the influence of immigration from Belarus and the south-eastern regions of Ukraine will have on Polish cuisine. It will be interesting to see what cooks like Romualda Michalowska will make from it.