BellaOnline Forums Travel and Culture Polish Culture Christmas traditions

From what I understand - the cheese and potato is the more Amercianized version.

In Poland and Russia it is more common to have meat filled, saur kraut filled, and sometimes even dessert pierogies

Ah, I'll try to answer all the questions in one:)

1) Pierogi in Polish means simply dumplings. But you can put there whatever you want to! The most popular in Poland are Rusenian style (with potatos and cheese), sweet cheese, strawberries, blueberries, cabbage, cabbage and mushrooms, meat, meat and cabbage... etc.:) sausage... hmmm, I have never seen pierogi with sausage but I guess it's possible.

2) During Christmas Eve Dinner (Wigilia) it is forbidden t eat meat. Only fish is allowed. Actually all the long (before the evening dinner) we are not supposed to eat meat...

3) Koleda - means Carol song, to sing Carol Songs is - koledowac... and Pasterka is a midnight mass (night from 24th to 25th of December) when you start singing them (in the period before Christmas you are not supposed to sing carols...)

4) At my home (and my family and friends' homes) you fry Carp. I have never heard of different way of preparing it but who knows:)

5) you put straw under the table cloth as a symbol that Jesus Christ was born in a barn and lied down on a straw and between animals.

uff... I hope I managed to answer all:)

Thanks, Barbara. Pierogi and peroshki are two different things. I have never had the pierogi, but, it sure sounds good. The peroshki are meat filled pastries, like a small tart. I use the ground sausage. Is that Polish? I fix them every Christmas.

persohki sounds like a Russian spelling or Ukranian and they both have something similar. All from the slavic area so I assume they have incorporated this into their foods. (I think even the ravioli evolved from this same recipe...(a pasta recipe with a filling)

Phyllis do you boil your filled pastries or bake them. We boil ours. Then ususally the second day they may be sauted with onion in a pan...or some sauted onions to put over fresh peirogi ...the desert ones are usually served with sour cream.

for the soup pierogi. They are made bite size and my mom would take the cooked beef from the broth and grind it up fine with onions and fill the peirogi for the soup.

Your chef from Washington wouldn't happen to be Michael Baruch who wrote "The New Polish Cuisine"...an excellent cookbook.

Italians use ground sausage to stuff the calzones but they are baked and more on the pizza side.

forgive me for using terminology that some may not understand. roso is broth in Polish.

Pierozki means in Polish 'small pierogi'. But I don't reckon any special dish that we call like this. I indeed think this is Russian or Ukrainian.

The small things in tart dough I don't reckon either. But we make something similar... we make dough that reminds 'tarta' or French dough and fill it either with cabbage (it's called then 'kapusniak') or with meat (then we call it 'pasztecik'). People very often eat it with red borscht.

My last article will tell you also a little bit more about Wigilia.

I bake my peroshki and I will have to get out the recipe, if I can find it, to be sure of the spelling. I was sure it came from a version of a Polish recipe. I serve them warm with a spicy mustard sauce.

I checked peroshki and they seem to come from Russian cuisine.
I would be, anyway, delighted to have the recipe and try them out:)

To get to know about Polish traditions I encourage you to read my latest BellaOnline article on Wigilia.

If you are interested on local traditions that are celebrated during Christmas one fine example is Krakow. You can read more about Krakow Christmas traditions such as Christmas Market, Pasterka, Christmas Cribs contest etc. Many Polish cities celebrate Christmas in more less the same way - although some things described in the article remain unique only for Krakow.

Any of you knows some more traditions? Maybe some that are celebrated within his / her family?

My favorite tradition was cornbread dressing. My mother-in-law started it with chicken on the bone in the dressing. However, everyone always wanted more dressing than chicken. One year it was my turn to cook it so I just used chicken broth and small cut-up chicken. It was a big hit. From that year on, I have always made the dressing. I now omit the chicken since we have turkey, ham, roast, and duck.This a cajun tradition from Louisiana. Happy Holidays

But before Christmas and Wigilia comes the Indica (turkey)

Happy Thanksgiving everyone here in the USofA. http://www.jacquielawson.com/viewcard.asp?code=WQ26144948

Basia we will save you the wishbone.



Polish turkies...so much more handsome than the ones here in the US. I guess that might save them from the table.