Forking Around with History

Szczecin – formerly known by its more pronounceable German name, Stettin – is a port city in northwestern Poland and home to two peculiar snacks. They’re called pasztecik szczeciński and paprykarz szczeciński , pronounced: pash- TEH -cheek shcheh- CHEEN -skee and pahp- RIH -kash shcheh- … oh, you know what, never mind, forget it; let’s just call them PS1 and PS2, alright? PS1 is a kind of hand-held deep-fried pastry filled with ground meat or some other stuffing. On 20 October, Szczecinians celebrated the PS1 Day – a tradition that dates all the way back to 2017. As far as I know, this treat is virtually unknown anywhere in Poland outside Szczecin itself. PS2, on the other hand, is a canned fish spread that is popular throughout the country. It doesn’t seem, however, to have its own holiday yet.  PS1 Source:  Pasztecik.Szczecin.pl When it comes to Szczecin – or western Polish borderlands in general – it’s difficult to speak of any long-held culinary traditions. The G

Pan Tadeusz is a heroicomic poem penned by Adam Mickiewicz (pronounced meets- KYEV -eetch ), one of the greatest Polish poets that ever lived, in 1834. Even though it begins with the words "Lithuania, my country" and its only two entirely positive characters are a Jew and a Russian, the poem has somehow attained the cult status as Poland's national epic. Thanks, in part, to its mix of humour with nostalgia for the lost world of the Polish-Lithuanian civilization, which came to its demise during the poet's lifetime, and for the old way of life of the Polish-speaking Lithuanian gentry. Some of this nostalgia shows in the depictions of food and drink; in fact, Pan Tadeusz may be seen as a great literary monument to Old Polish cuisine. Some of the dishes you can find in it – like bigos and zrazy – are still Polish favourites today; some other, like kontuza, arkas or blemas – had already been forgotten by Mickiewicz's times. It's also interesting to see