Polish Cuisine

Polish cuisine is the cooking tradition of Poland, an eclectic style shaped by roughly ten centuries of regional agricultural practice, historical trade routes, religious observance and cultural exchange with neighboring Central and Eastern European peoples. It is rich in meat, especially pork, chicken and game, alongside a wide range of vegetables, legumes, grains and mushrooms, and makes extensive use of butter, cream, eggs and herbs. Soups hold particular importance in the tradition, including barszcz, a beet soup, zurek, a fermented rye soup, and rosol, a clear meat broth, and a traditional dinner typically opens with soup before a meat course with vegetables and salads and closes with a dessert such as a poppy seed pastry or cheesecake. Nationally recognized dishes include bigos, a hunter's stew of sauerkraut and mixed meats, pierogi, half moon dumplings with sweet or savory fillings, kielbasa sausage, and kotlet schabowy, a breaded pork cutlet.