Moving abroad 6 years ago taught me numerous things. One of them was realising just how different people’s dietary habits are between different countries, even when those countries are located in the same area of the world. History also plays a part in it – poorer nations tend to have very different diets than the richer ones. I grew up in Poland, in the 1990s. Now, Poland has caught up with the Western world and young people are well familiar with oat milk matcha lattes and similar staples of 21st century foods. But back in the 90s, things were much different. I recently thought back to my childhood and all of the meals that were part of my usual diet, and realised that a lot of my peers in the UK would be perplexed hearing about my childhood menu. So, I decided to share with you some of the meals that I used to eat regularly. I hope you find this list interesting!
A few disclaimers
Before I start listing the meals, let me start with a few disclaimers.
First of all, I used the word ‘weird’ in the title of this post. I don’t mean it in a derogatory way! All of the meals are delicious and perfectly normal to me, my family, and many people from my region. I just assume they will sound strange to foreign readers.
It’s probably worth noting that back in the 90s, Poland wasn’t as wealthy as it is now. Going through a political transformation at a rapid pace, we still didn’t have the same resources as Western countries. Imported foods were expensive, and not easily accessible.
A lot of the meals on this list use simple, cheap, easily accessible ingredients. You’ll see that some of the basic items are used in several recipes. We had to be creative with the ingredients we did have access to!
Each Polish family had their own staple meals, and I don’t write on behalf of the whole nation. This post focuses on my own upbringing and meals I enjoyed growing up – though I’m sure at least some of these meals were fairly common across the country.
Pasta or rice with strawberries
Let’s start with a dish that recently went viral across social media. A great Polish tennis player, Iga Swiatek, mentioned during Wimbledon that she loves pasta with strawberries. Many sports journalists attempted to create this meal – in most cases, they did it completely wrong, and, understandably, weren’t amused with the outcome. I even saw some videos on social media of people making pasta with meat, tomatoes, and strawberries. No, no, no! That’s not the way.
I don’t think I ever had pasta with strawberries, but I often had rice with strawberries at a school canteen, and it follows the same recipe.
Strawberries are mashed with a fork and mixed with sugar and yoghurt or cream to create a sweet strawberry sauce, which is added to cooked pasta or rice. Simple! I made it a couple of months ago and loved every bite. Yum! This recipe only works when strawberries are in season – you need fresh, sweet strawberries for it.
Milk soup – pasta, rice or brioche bun in milk
A milk soup was a staple breakfast in Polish cuisine. It was essentially an equivalent of a bowl of cereal, when processed breakfast cereal like Rice Krispies or Coco Pops were either extremely expensive, or just not available in the shops at all. We didn’t make milk soup at home too often, probably mainly due to the fact that my Mum doesn’t like milk, but I always loved a bit of milk soup when I had a canteen breakfast, for example during school trips or summer camps.
A milk soup consists of basic ingredients: warm milk, a little bit of sugar, and either pasta or white rice. Most often, small varieties of pasta were used, so the pieces were basically the same size as traditional breakfast cereal. Now, supermarket shelves in Poland are filled with all kinds of cereal, and milk soups became less popular. But they’re not entirely forgotten! You can find them in old-style canteens, and they’re often served in hospitals for breakfast too. A milk soup isn’t particularly nutritionally dense, but it’s cheap and simple to make, and it’s easy to digest too, using just basic, minimally processed ingredients.
Sometimes, we made a milk soup with stale brioche buns too. It was a great way to use them up and not let them go to waste.
Using dairy milk for this recipe is key. As much as I like plant based alternatives and use them in hot drinks or cereal on a daily basis, the Polish milk soup needs real milk!
I made my milk soup with pasta, as it was always my preferred variety, and it was a delicious, nostalgic meal!
Pasta with sugar
This simple meal has recently made its way back to my menu – it’s actually great before an intense cardio workout, like a long run! It’s essentially what it says on the tin – cooked pasta sprinkled with sugar. If you’re feeling fancy, you can also add melted butter or crumbled quark/curd cheese for protein. I don’t normally eat butter, but I’ve had pasta with sugar and quark cheese before a few runs and hiking trips this year, and it certainly kept me well fuelled. It’s also incredibly easy to make, and only requires 2-4 easily accessible ingredients. The type of dry/crumbly quark/curd cheese that we use for this recipe isn’t super popular in the UK, but I have no trouble finding it in major supermarkets – usually in the Eastern European fridge section.
Szyszki – ‘pine cones’ – caramel expanded rice
The next item on this list is a sweet snack: expanded rice mixed with caramel, shaped into balls, and left to set. I imagine the spiky shape of expanded rice gave this dessert the name of a pine cone. We made szyszki at home a few times, but I usually bought them from food stands in touristy towns. I haven’t had any for years until my recent holiday in Zakopane, when I enjoyed one of these. It was a truly nostalgic moment!
Kogel mogel – eggs with sugar
This dessert will probably raise many eyebrows in other countries, as it includes raw eggs. In fact, in a basic version, it uses only two ingredients: eggs and sugar. I never understood why a lot of people seem to have a problem with consuming raw eggs. Soft-boiled eggs are popular around the world, and they’re essentially half-raw too, right?
I’m sure all Polish kids love to try a bit of cookie dough or cake batter that their Mum is making, and from my experience, no one worries about raw eggs in the mixture. The traditional way of making Polish scrambled eggs is slightly undercooked too. In my family, we always thoroughly wash our eggs before we use them and we’ve never, ever got sick. And I don’t know anyone who has.
Kogel mogel is a very old Polish dessert which uses the most basic of ingredients. Even when times were hard, eggs and sugar were amongst the food staples.
Traditionally, you’d mix an egg yolk with 2-3 teaspoons of sugar. I have a friend who always ate it that way.
In my family, we used whole eggs – both the white and the yolk. We’d use an electric mixer to whisk the eggs into a smooth, airy mixture, slowly adding sugar. It took a good 10 minutes to reach a texture light like a cloud. We’d usually eyeball the amount of sugar and adjust it to taste. It was always very, very sweet, but also delicious.
Occasionally, we’d make a flavoured version of kogel mogel by adding lemon juice or cocoa powder. Personally, I always preferred the plain, basic version. Yum!
Beef tartare – with raw yolk, onion, pickle
Speaking of eating raw eggs, there was another dish that used them. It’s actually a fairly popular one in Central Europe to this day, eaten also in Germany and Austria. Beef tartare – minced, raw beef, mixed with an egg yolk and finely chopped onion and picked cucumber, seasoned with salt and pepper. I imagine the combination of raw meat and raw egg would be a big no-no to a lot of people. Personally, I absolutely love it and wish it was easier to find in London. We made some beef tartare last time I visited my family home and it was delicious!
Mash potatoes with kefir and chives
In recent years, I’ve seen a rise of various dairy products in the Western world. It’s like cottage cheese and kefir were suddenly discovered here! To me, they’re nothing new.
Kefir, a type of fermented milk, has never been my favourite thing to drink on its own, but we sometimes had it with mash potatoes and sautéed chives. Most often, we had it as a light meal during Lent – Poland in the 1990s was a fairly religious, catholic country, and we observed days of fast on a few occasions throughout the year.
To be quite honest, I didn’t like this dish back then. But recently, I remembered it and made it again – and I enjoyed it! I’d probably have it as a side with some kind of protein, but overall, it’s just a twist on mash potatoes, giving them an extra zing.
Bread dipped in milk, fried in butter
Last but not least, I remembered one of my favourite – albeit not too healthy – budget meals. I still remember my grandma making it for me and my cousin when we spent most of the summer holiday at her house. The recipe is simple: you need to heat up a large pan and melt a generous amount of butter. Then, take a slice of bread, quickly dip it in dairy milk, and then place it on the pan. Make sure to flip the bread to fry it on both sides until golden.
If you make more than one serving, make sure to add more butter to the pan as you go. This is not a diet meal! The bread needs to be fried properly to turn golden and crispy on the outside but remain moist on the inside, thanks to the milk.
By the way – traditional Polish bread is quite heavy, so if you’re in the West, use sourdough bread for this recipe. We would never use toasting bread for it! I mean, I’m sure you could, but you’d end up with something closer to French toast than my childhood meal. 🙂
Final thoughts
So there you have it, a long list of dishes I ate growing up in Poland in the 90s! Life has changed significantly since those times, but I still enjoy some of those meals. Was there anything on this list that raised your eyebrows? Or maybe there’s something you’d like to try to make? Let me know, I’m curious to hear your thoughts!
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