Oto Pan Bóg przyjdzie

You know, I haven't inflicted many Polish quotations on all of you, and it's about time. Because this weekend (as part of my "work") I heard a carol with the above incipit sung by small boys many times (maybe 6?). And the message of the service was clearly...Christmas is coming. It's almost here. YAY. For those interested, the direct translation of the hymn is that God is coming, the holy day (holiday!) is coming, and a great light will be in the coming days. Alleluja.

So, in the spirit of my avoidance of sausage post-Thanksgiving (no sausage, but definitely gluttony) and preparations for Xmas, I want to get back into talking about Polish food and nourishment more generally. I'm preparing to make a traditional feast for Wigilia (Christmas Eve). It's traditional to "Catholic-fast"--eat only fish and not-porkbeefpoultry. So there will be no sausage. Kind of.

That doesn't mean I haven't been eating it while I browse the carp recipes in my cookbook. (I'm going to cook it "Jewish style". I don't know why it's called that. It definitely has no bacon.) This was chicken sausage. It was so BORING. And salty. Only suited for sandwiches, I tell you.

And, of course, I have no obligation to stick with fish at the big feast. So I bought some pork-centric gifts for myself to unwrap. Krakowian sausage, dried and sliced. It looked really precious. And some pate.

Mikołajek!

It's the time of year during which I can, should I desire to, leave one of the archives in which I spend the day and go and eat sausage within two seconds. That's because there is a "Jarmark" (a Christkindlmarkt, a holiday "fair") right outside the door. In general, it's filled with goodies (mulled beverages, many ornaments, an organ grinder, multiple singing Christmas trees), but the most exciting places for this sausage connoisseur are the meat stands. Ok, also the stand that sells bread with lard and cracklings ....

It's the second Sunday in Advent and also St. Nicholas Day. Have you given your friends little gifts? Maybe they would like some smoked sausage? In a basket?

Mapping Europe sausageologically

So, my roommate having just made a whole mess of delicious chili, I'm about to embark on a little interlude in my sausage journeys devoted to the hot dog, frankfurter, or -- as in the photo above -- Bavarian sausage. With chili dogs on my horizon, I'm looking forward to trying to figure out what the different salt contents of the 10 different hot dog-esque offerings of the butcher are. Will I survive?

I have to say, these little links were really good. Not too salty -- something I cannot say for the beef (!) kiełbasa "with pepper" that I ate last week which may or may not be making an appearance here. I'm still mad that it didn't taste beefy. Anyway, the best feature of this sausage, and you can spot this if you've got a keen eye in the picture, is that it was "knackig". The texture, with bread and mustard, and a teensy bit of ketchup (don't tell) was energizing, like eating popcorn can be. If you don't understand what I'm talking about, I am sorry that you have never had a sausage this good.

Living it up in Berlin

Andres ran a half marathon to raise money for the American Liver Foundation this weekend! (Note: That is not a typo: I would never ever willingly do such a thing.) In honor of him, I want to share my wonderfully comforting liverwurst breakfast from last weekend in Berlin.

Actually, I technically ate this on The Day The Wall Fell (+20 years)! But the meal was more symbolic just because it was an everyday breakfast, enjoyed over delicious espresso and conversation. I just love German bread -- packed with sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, seeds the English language has no words for -- and spread with liverwurst? Excellent. It's creamy and packed with protein, so it's comforting in a way that salami never will be. Plus, ours was "Bio", which means that the people of Berlin will accept us into their fold. We did good.

Sausage in mysterious places

If you can't tell, these pierogi are Ukrainian, ordered in a German brew house in Warsaw. They are very straight-forward. Meat with some seasoning (not much) folded into rather hearty dough. These are boiled, so it's essential to douse them in sour cream. The texture is terrific, actually, warming and filling. This food tastes fundamentally nourishing.

I'm not _quite_ sure if I'd call it sausage, but I think the principle is the same. Package up the less-than-awesome meat in a new way, tastes like new!

Guest sausage: Boudin from Paris!

I don't exactly believe that sausages are universal. Because, that would be universalist. Also, it's not true. I do think, however, that often times people around the world have tried to preserve meat (or "other") using spices. Because meat goes bad, and refrigeration was invented relatively recently. And obviously I know it's fun to try sausages from different places. But, I can't be everywhere at once or eat sausage all the time (rather, that's not a risk I'm willing to take for my heart). So, I get a little help from my friends. Louis and Maggie sent me this picture of a totally awesome meal they made in Paris one night. There was another photo, too, but my computer doesn't like it. Trust me, really awesome. And probably healthy(ier that Polish sausage)!

Louis wrote:
"Well we had a delicious sausage-centric dish tonight that I wanted to tell you about. In France, weisswurst is called boudin and you can get it in the supermarket for cheap (and therefore mediocre). Here, they eat it with baked apple - Maggie had it at the house where she babysits and liked it. Tonight, we tried something different, cooking it, chopping it up, and throwing it in a stew/soup with white beans, zucchini, tomato, garlic, and various spices. It was delicious! We definitely plan on trying it again with higher quality boudin."

"So good, so good, so good!"

The perspective in this photograph makes it appear as though I ate enough egg noodles for an entire family. This is not the case. Well, it was the case earlier in the week, but this portion was actually totally acceptable in size. It is even blessed by fresh spinach and cumin, a recent triumphal find from the nearby Asian market.

What is excellent about this meal is everything. The hearty noodles, the caramelized onions, and the Potocka Kiełbasa. The Potocki family is one of the legendary aristocratic families of Poland, and it is unclear to me whether or not the name of this sausage references the elite excellency of the family or its place of origin (Potok). The internet will not tell me. It's kind of irrelevant, though, because my attempt to grill this in a pan with the onions (yes that means butter and pork fat!) produced something worthy of the elaborate plumage of the coat of arms most associated with it. Smoky, woody, but not salty, so that my chilled Żywiec actually lightened up the meal.