In a pickle in Poland

This is a really busy period for me, with preparations for 10-10-10 and the Great British Pub awards, but I still managed to take time out last week to travel to Poland, for the wedding of my fiancée Aga’s best friend, Kasia. Her home town is Gorzov, which is about an hour north west of Berlin and famous as the home to the world speedway champions. The rest of the town is not too fast-lane, so I did manage to spend a lot of time on the internet, researching new dishes and planning our Christmas menu. 

It was great to meet Aga’s mum and dad, Kris and Kristina - and I managed not to confuse Kris and Kris! The poles are very big on home cooking and fresh produce in the supermarkets, so there is not too much call for eating out. Maybe that’s why there are so many McDonalds’ there. Kris (the mum, not the dad!) was always busy in the kitchen, drying her mushrooms or pickling her cauliflowers, cucumbers, carrots, fennel tomatoes, and gherkins. (Not a patch on the gherkins I pickle for the Pugh’s piglet dish mind!) Her speciality is bigos – braised cabbage to you and me. 

So the real introduction to the Polish love of food – and drink – was the wedding itself. It started at 2pm and the vodka started flowing at 2.01pm and didn’t stop flowing for about 12 hours. And neither did the food. There were soups, breads, sausage platters, roasted meats, braised meats, deserts, cheeses and all this was served until 1pm, probably to soak up the vodka. It should keep me going for the weeks ahead!

08/09/2010 14:31:00 Filed under: General

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