The Art of Eating in Poland

From the Komisarz's (Matthew's parents) stories of growing up in Olsenica, we envisioned the city to be a stubby main street with village-like homes stemming from center. We were surprised to find a city -- of 40,000 people built around a main square (as all European cities are) and a historic, enchanting, century-old castle. Hundreds of years ago the castle walls of Olesnica were surrounded by water, a moat more or less, with one city gate entrance.

If the walls were still standing today, Matthew's grandma, also known as "Bobcha", would live just outside of the brick-bearing walls. Matthew finally met Bobcha after a long three hour car ride from Krakow from his kind, English speaking cousin, Peter. Tears streamed down Bobcha's aged cheeks as words sputtered and the constant roll of z's from her native tongue flooded her lips. It was a milestone moment for Matt, to be meeting his Polish family for the first time and Brandon, Drew and I were all there to enjoy the quick moment and encounter their warm hospitality.

Family Life in Olesnica

After coffee on the lawn, which included cookies, handmade croissant-like sweets and ice cream we had lunch with his newly introduced, but familiar family. Perhaps it would have been smart to ask Matt's family what they meant by hungry when they presented us with the question before they served us lunch. We nodded our heads politely even though we were only slightly hungry because the coffee, cookies and ice cream had just filled our "hungry" appetite.

We should have been famished, starved, ravenous at the moment we entered the dining room for what was to come. Unsuspectingly, the table was set for soup. We loaded up our bowls with homemade noodles, and a creamy, fresh tomato soup that steamed from an elegant bowl. We quickly cleaned our bowls. Before we knew it, the table was crowded with sausages, pork, pickles, cucumber salad, Polish pork chops, potatoes, and other native Polish dishes. Again our plates were heaping with delicious rich foods fresh from Bobcha's kitchen and we dined on the best food we had all trip -- or ever for some of us.

Little did we know, but were quick to learn -- eating in Poland is an art form. It takes a certain form, a strategy, to make it through a meal as a guest. The Polish often spend days preparing meals for holidays and meals are where they take time to sit down and enjoy each other. You could go as far to say that food in Poland is a form of communication -- a way and time to communicate with one another. Bobcha spent endless laboring hours in the kitchen hand-making each dish, each ingredient, for us to eat during our stay. She showed her love and affection for her grandson, Matthew, whom she had just met and could only communicate with through her actions.

Bobcha often spoke to us in Polish like we knew what she was saying -- and often we did. "Eat more" or "Try some of this" were our interpretations of her foreign spoken words as she pushed and pointed full plates of food in our direction from the center of the table. Each meal felt as though it lasted ages as we helped ourselves to serving after serving to Bobcha's satisfaction. Sometimes, it seemed as if she was never satisfied with how much we ate. One afternoon she tearfully told Peter she was worried she wasn't feeding us enough. We turned our heads and quietly chuckled so she wouldn't hear us, since the truth was, we didn't go a moment in Poland without our bellies being stuffed to their maximum.

Drew is a light eater which quickly put him at a disadvantage. He soon learned, as we all did, how to eat Poland. Literally, it felt as if we were to eat all of Poland during our short stay. Drew would load up his plate with what he would call "square footage" items such as tomatoes, thin cheese and pickles. These were the foods that were lighter on the stomach and didn't take up so much "packing room" like pork and potatoes. However, Matthew's fate at the table never allowed him such room as Bobcha kept a close eye on him and continually pushed the largest pieces of pork and potatoes on his plate.

We did do more than just eat while we were in the countryside of Poland. We visited Wroclaw, a city bigger than Krakow for beers and dinner one night. While walking through the streets we learned that the city was devastated by WWII. The damage was still present as buildings were still scarred and bared bullet hole blemishes that were in some spots the size of my clenched fist. Some areas and buildings had way more bullet wounds than others (which we could interpret to mean a lot of shooting went on at that location). In Wroclaw we dined on a fine Polish dinner which also included "goat with blood" as Peter interpreted it. The three guys called it "bloody goat" for lack of a better name and tried to get me to try it. I don't do well with blood and could not agree to trying the exotic meat. They took it as a lame excuse and continually tried to shove the dark sausage shaped meat in my direction.

Matthew was able to spent a couple of short days in the city his parents grew up in and the city where some of his family still resides. He's heard stories of the streets of Olesnica and his family's life there since he can remember. He was able to meet family he's never known and eat more food than I thought was humanly possible -- and at the end of the trip he made a promise. He made a promise to his grandma and Peter that he would return, and upon his return, he would learn Polish so that next time he would have the words and the ability to communicate with his extended family in his parents native tongue.