I first visited Poland when travel restarted after lockdown. Going somewhere unfamiliar is invigorating: fresh air for the brain. It is one reason why we travel. And after months embalmed at home, I wanted to feel the joy again of roving through city parks and dabbling in food overseas. Poland felt right – for its proximity, affordability and, most of all, for me at least, its cuisine.
During lockdown I’d become fascinated by Polish food culture. I’d travelled vicariously to Poland’s pine forests and Baltic coastline with Polska: New Polish Cooking (Quadrille, 2016), a book by Zuza Zak, a “storyteller cook”. Born in the Mazowsze region in north-eastern Poland, she is brilliant at challenging misconceptions about the food of her homeland. Yes, it is hearty, but it is also fresh and complex, with pickles, berries, cheeses, game, fish and herbs. Through wine-spattered pages, I’d learned to make rose petal jam doughnuts, sauerkraut slaws, and mackerel baked with cherries.
Curiosity had also been sparked by reading Pan Tadeusz, an epic poem by Adam Mickiewicz (1798-1855). In the book, he describes bigos, Poland’s ultimate wintertime stew, historically made in forest clearings where hunters would drop their game into a pot simmering with pickled fruit: “In the pots warmed the bigos; mere words cannot tell / Of its wondrous taste, colour and marvellous smell.”
