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When I visited my family back in Michigan I remember that I had a taste of Polish Cheese. IMHO the cheese was very good and I wish I could get more of it. What are the names of Polish Cheese? This past Christmas Season I did order some Spanish cheese and pigged out on it. We had the Manchego and a full wheel (3Kgs) of Tronchon from the mountains of Teruel. How about olives? Are olives eaten to any extent in Poland? I also had some olives from Spain (Canned) and they were good. It is surprising that Americans can take such a wonderful food as olives and turn it to trash. I only wish the American canners here would go to Europe and take a few lessons in olive preperation.

How did it look like? I know of one Polish cheese called oscypek, it's a smoked cheese made from lamb milk.

Bob,

I am not sure whether you talk about the "common" cheese or maybe oscypek. But oscypek is a different type of cheese (Ajarmoniuk, thanks for helping) The truth is that American cheeses are not really that good as Polish cheeses are. Even these "common" ones. I just thought about it yesterday. I do not remember all names but "ementalski", "Gouda" are the famous ones.

Hi Ajarmoniuk,

do you know that everybody from Poland complains here... bread, cheese, sausages are here not that good as in Poland... the same with vegetables which look perfect but do not have any taste <img src="/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" />

Jaga and Ajarmoniuk, thank you very much for the information. The cheese I had in Hamtramck was not smokey and it was almost white in color. You are right, the food here does not taste as good as that found in Poland or Europe. The food in Europe is either fresh that day or if it is packaged it does not contain a chemical factory. For example, my wife WILL NOT buy any fish that is sold in a supermarket. If she does buy fish it is from a Philippiano seller who caters to the restraunts in this area. In Spain, the seafood is sold fresh, in the morning if there is any left by the evening it is thrown out. One thing I like about Europe is almost all food is sold fresh and has more taste to it. Even the eggs are better and most dairy products have a glorious taste to them. Here in America I think we have gone overboard with chemical additives. As a boy, I remember being able to get a hamburger that tasted good (half ground beef and half ground pork with chopped onions is the way I make them). Ah for the good ole days when food tasted like food. By the way, a custom in the South from the old days, was to offer an honored guest some pineapple. Today the pineapple is a sign of welcome.

Yes, this was exactly my point! Although I do not mind American eggs. They are also much cheaper than Polish. I also do not mind American chicken, they are almost prepared to put them in the oven and they are cheap but bread... I prefer to pay more and have something I like rather than this "gummi"-type American bread.

We buy delicious cheeses imported from many nations--France, Italy, Poland, etc.-- in a gourmet store in NJ. Carl

Lucky you Carl, anything imported from North of DC is considered Gourmand here.

Frankly...

I have spend a year on the French-Swiss border and so I had the opportunity to try out the french food. It's so good and IMO _way_ better than the Polish. Especially the cheese which was just delicious. And much of them aren't available in Poland because they're too expensive and it wouldn't pay off to import them. Well, there are some kinds of camembert or brie made in Poland buy they're far worse and their quality is very unstable... For instance, one day they're almost liquid, then the other they're dry and hard.

The most propagated kind of cheese in Poland is called "ser zolty" (yellow cheese), and it's a common name for the Polish versions of Emmental, Gruy�re, etc. But they're different and without any smell at all. (Well, you can read about this quality thing in many Polish forums; it's not just my opinion.) Maybe the cheese in the States is made in some different way?? But I'm sure if you bought some expensive kind, it should be better?

And, the cheese that is missed in the west is called TWAR�G (or TWAROZEK or SER BIALY (white cheese)). It's literally a white cheese (fromage blanc, i don't know how it would be in English) but with large "grains". Sometimes it could be reffered as "cottage cheese" but it's somehow different. I don't know why it's difficult to obtain it in the West, but it is... ;-)

...

And, I would agree here that most food in Poland is very cheap compared to the western prices. However, apart from the summer, the only Polish vegetables one can find in stores are potatoes, carrots and probably green salad. Most of the other things are poor quality (low price) imported stuff...

You learn something new every day. I didn't know that there were Polish cheeses. The only cheese that I saw in my folks house was a 'Farmers cheese'.