Not Polish Sausage

Fusion restaurants embrace the idea that all ethnic food is good and "fuse" different countries' flavors to make what they presume is the food that triumphed in the survival of the fittest. In many countries in which I've lived, usually that's Asian food, what with the flavors that one cannot find at home being the most attractive. However, one day wandering through Praga, we found a fusion Mediterranean place. Well, I'm not sure they would have called it that. But wooing us in with moussaka (MICROWAVED, boo) as a lunch deal and then offering an appetizer platter with salami! Fun! Made me want to buy some of the not fresh pasta on the wall.

The amazing thing about Poland is that I would never order this particular sausage from abroad again [watch out for future posts on Czech, Serbian, and Ukrainian, though]. Because, delicious and peppery as it is, it was exactly what I expected. Fresh mozzarella, though, might be worth the price of the whole platter.

Biała Kiełbasa II: What's in a Name

I insist: I am not an inept cook. In fact, beyond never giving myself food poisoning, I am usually quite sure that something I have created is awful, when it is merely ugly and delicious. I walked home after my triumphant, grammatically-correct purchase of sausage (which left me, of course, dreaming of buying all sorts of meat products, the names of which I know in neither Polish or English. And of course, the physiology of which is probably mysterious as well. But I was empowered! And ready to cook!) I thought I'd planned the best meal ever: lots of peppery broccoli with a wee bit of fennel, and then sausage with my Strong and Old Polish Mustard, chosen at random from the local shop.

But I put the kiełbasa in a pan and covered it with water, just like I would any other raw sausage in the world. Because, at the end of the day, don't we all want a little bit of that crispy brown fat from the pan on the sides of the sausage link! Yes. We do. But this sausage would not, did not cook. For 15 minutes it looked like it does in this photo, refusing to claim the "whiteness" that defines it! I poured water over it, drank a beer, listened to music. Finally, I covered it and waited, resigning myself to over-cooked sausage. Why?! Why would cooking leave me in this time when I can't even order a drink anywhere without revealing my cultural discomfort!

Actually, I'm being dramatic because that steaming pan of sausage conjures up the urgency that I felt while watching the meat luxuriate in its water bath. It was fine, turns out white sausage doesn't really look white, even when it's definitely cooked. And! It was still totally "knusprig" and juicy, even if I could never focus for the intense hunger the long cooking process added. So there.

Kiełbasa Biała

Ok, ok. I've got a home. I bought furniture for it. Now it's time to share some images of the domesticated sausage. On the way home the other day, I stopped by a butcher just on the other side of a nearby church. I was excited to begin the process of figuring out how much meat weighs in kilos. This is critical for keeping myself nourished and preventing the purchase of enough meat for a village. Even if that meat would still only cost 3 USD.

Silly me, because buying sausage doesn't happen by the kilo, of course! This is why the link was invented. With a twist of one's hand, portion size is dictated! These two links of white sausage -- this means fresh (not dried) and lean meat with only light peppering -- were quite a project. But don't they look healthier next to broccoli?

When a hot dog is perfect

I suppose the whole premise of writing about sausages is that lingering on their flavor and individuality is crucial to "proper" enjoyment. After all, since coming to Poland, no sausage I've tasted has been alike. The photo-blog offers me the opportunity to archive my food for posterity. In other words, hypothetically, no sausage is ephemeral.

But that's not true in the real world. Because sometimes food is so perfect and you are so hungry, that you can't even know how much you want to remember the food until you've eaten it (and, maybe, chugged a Coke or beer to wash it down). One recent time this happened to me, I was enjoying my standing room "seats" at Wrigley Field with the assistance of a juicy kosher hot dog. Yes it had celery salt, onions, relish, and mustard, so I was feeling so Chicagoan I couldn't think at all. Whoops, the only way I can prove that this happened is with the above lonely, ketchup soaked fry.

Last week, I bought what felt like 67% of IKEA over the course of 7 hours (one of those numbers -- only -- is an exaggeration). Despite a silly little lox salad consumed before entering the passageway of model bedrooms, offices, and kitchens, I was starving by the time I made it to the concessions stand at the end.

The 2 hot dogs I ate for 1 złoty a piece were perfect even though they were the skinniest little things. You'll just have to trust me, because there's no photographic evidence.

Home-y Soup

After negotiating a plum deal for an apartment in which to live (!), another comforting meal was in order. Well, to be honest, we picked a restaurant that met two requirements: outdoor seating and a "biznes lunch" deal. As is apparent by now, żurek is a common vehicle for sausage. Rather, sausage makes any soup taste like magic. The sour soup at this terrifically idyllic spot in Warsaw's New Town was incredible.

Note the bread bowl? It had been pulled from the oven moments before landing on our table. A hard-boiled egg and crispy kielbasa boosted the soup's protein content while providing crucial texture to this otherwise rather thin broth. It's hardly a meal in a bowl, though, since the wee parsley sprig was the only possible source of vitamins, whatever those are...

Sunday at Wilanów

I think we can all take for granted that sausage isn't the prettiest of foods. It is one of the foods that illustrates that beauty and richness can be embedded deep within. There's no doubt that this white sausage lives up to the pastiness suggested by its moniker. However, chopped up and served in a delicious żurek (sour soup), the creamy and slippery sausage adds substance while contributing to the sense that this soup melts in your mouth.

In Poland one ought to eat soup before every lunch. After spending a Sunday afternoon wandering around the grounds of a palace in the southern districts of Warsaw, the soup course helped make us feel like the 70 year olds who surrounded us at the restaurant. If only we could have sung local drinking songs along with the accordionist roaming the restaurant's patio...

Sausage on the Run

My first week in Warsaw has been flooded with sunlight and only occasionally sprinkled with rain. Nonetheless, having spent a lot of time on public transport in search of a place to live, I've had to resort to buying instantly consumable food from grocery stores, which my friends and I bring back to a teensy hotel room to consume. So here's some "dry" kiełbasa from Cracow, with three types of cured pork in it.

On a sandwich, it tasted juicy, salty, and delicate when complemented by the almost perfect glass of tangy black currant juice perched alongside my plate. Sliced on a pumpkin seed roll that's already spread with cheese, this gave us just the energy to escape the tower, one of Warsaw's well-known apartment "bloks," and run off to view a perfectly located apartment with nary enough space to live...