Polish cooking grew out of a climate in which nothing grows for half the year: hence pickling, smoking, drying and the cellar. For decades after the war it was flattened into a repertoire of a dozen or so dishes, and since the 2000s the regional versions have been returning to menus.
Pierogi
Dough of flour and water, filled and boiled. Ruskie with curd cheese and potato, with meat, with cabbage and mushroom at Christmas, with spinach, or sweet with blueberries or strawberries in summer. Served with fried onion or crackling. The regional equivalents are Silesian dumplings, kopytka and pyzy.
Soups
Żurek, soured with rye starter, with white sausage and egg, sometimes served in a bread bowl. Barszcz, soured beetroot, with tiny dumplings at Christmas and with a croquette the rest of the year. Rosół on Sundays. Chłodnik, cold beetroot and soured milk, in summer. Tripe soup and pea soup are milk-bar cooking.
Main dishes
Bigos, sauerkraut stewed with fresh cabbage, meat, sausage and dried mushrooms, reheated repeatedly and better each time. Breaded pork cutlet with potatoes and cucumber salad is the Sunday standard. Gołąbki, beef roulades, duck with apples, and carp at Christmas. Potato pancakes with goulash in the mountains.
Regions
Silesia has beef roulades with dumplings and red cabbage. Podhale has oscypek, a smoked sheep's cheese with protected designation, grilled and served with cranberry. Podlasie has kartacze and sękacz. Wielkopolska has potatoes with curd and St Martin's croissants. Kashubia has fish and strawberries.
Sweet and drink
Cheesecake, poppy seed cake, apple cake, doughnuts on Fat Thursday and faworki. Dried fruit compote at Christmas. Vodka is the national drink, but the last fifteen years belong to craft beer, with several hundred breweries operating. Polish wine is returning too, mostly from the south-east and the Lubusz region.
Where to eat
The bar mleczny, a subsidised canteen from the communist period serving cheap home cooking, still operates in the larger cities. Beyond that, the restaurant scenes of Warsaw, Kraków and Wrocław are now thoroughly European and prices remain well below western levels. Dinner is early; kitchens in smaller towns close around nine.