In Poland Christmas starts early. We celebrate something called Christmas Eve, which is a Catholic tradition that involves a very elaborate supper, though entails refraining from certain foods. The whole family gathers on the 24th of December to celebrate. These can often involve a great many of people including extended relatives.
The Big Preparations
Despite the Church renouncing the “no meat” rule, most people still consider it as tradition and in general if you are vegetarian you would feel at home. The day starts with a light breakfast and often nothing more until the evening, as it is supposed to be a fast. Some of the dishes would be prepared beforehand, while others are done during the course of the day.
Christmas table setting
There are different stories about the traditional number of dishes Christmas Eve should consist of - 6, 9 or 12, with the explanation for 12 being that it is the number of Apostles. However what Apostles have to do with the birth of Jesus is beyond me. When it comes to what the dishes are it can vary greatly based on the region.
My own family’s course choice seems to mix up several regions, however considering we live in Wielkopolska, its customs have probably influenced us the most. Also as for us Christmas is more of a tradition, and a cultural event, rather than a religious one, we do not really abide all the rules. Here is the list of our 12 courses:
- Opłatek
- Barszcz - beetroot soup
- Mushroom soup
- Carp - fried fish
- Herring - fish in sauce
- Mushrooms - fried with onion
- Sauerkraut
- Bread
- Pierogi - small dumplings with filling
- Noodles with poppy seeds
- Peas
- Compot - from different dried fruit
Extra plate
The Unannounced Stranger
One typical custom in Poland related to Christmas is leaving one extra setting at the table. The tradition states that any guest is welcome, and if someone knocks on our door you should welcome them in and sit them at your table and share your food with them.
Symbolically we are showing to be more hospitable than the people of Bethlehem. Unfortunately it is more of a symbol as a tv undercover survey has shown a couple of years ago. Most people they asked were not willing to guest a true stranger in their home.
So much for the hospitality I guess.
Polish Opłatek
It All Starts With Oplatek
Traditionally children are employed to stare through the frosty windows into the sky to spot the first star. This would mark a sign to begin Christmas Eve. Unfortunately often it would just be done in theory as a sky full of snow clouds prevents any stars from being seen.
Before everyone sits down to the meal we all share a symbolic “bread” called opłatek. Each person gets there own piece which they then go on to break with others while exchanging wishes of good luck and prosperity.
Soup of Choice
Our Christmas Eve favourites are Mushroom soup and Barszcz (beatroot soup). The later being a great match for pierogi (dumplings). Often my mother would also bake her own bread sticks with sesame or poppy seeds.
There are many ways to serve Barszcz, however in my house we use neither cream nor beans. This broth based soup is created by adding beetroot, marjoram, and a carefuly measured amount of vinager. The final product is similar in consistency to broth with the vegetables sieved out for use as filling for the dumplings.
Carp - Yes, It Is Edible
Fried Carp
Most Poles cannot imagine a Christmas Eve without carp. British newspapers seem to love to exploit this fact to produce sensational news about immigrants fishing straight out of local ponds and rivers. It generally is a bizarre concept in the UK to eat fresh water fish.
However as I have a British survivor as my witness, yes, carp is not only edible, but quite nice when fried and served with bread and sauerkraut.
There is one downside though, you do need to watch out for the tiny bones as they are easy to choke on.
The Many Faces of Pierogi
Pierogi
As mentioned before we do not adhere to the tradition a 100% and the more customary dumplings with sauerkraut and mushrooms have been swapped for meat filled ones. Pierogi do come in a myriad of varieties from cream cheese with salt or sugar, through fruit filled (commonly strawberries), or sauerkraut and mushrooms filled, to meat ones.
Our version is a handy way of getting rid of leftovers and utilising the stock from broth and barszcz. The filling is vegetables and different types of meat mixed into a pulp and then placed inside the dough for cooking.
Old Fashioned Desert
Barszcz And Noodles With Poppy Seeds
Most Christmas Eve dishes are quite savory, however there is one exception. An old fashioned desert consists of noodles mixed together with poppy seeds and other ingredients such as in this year’s case: raisins, almonds, nuts, and orange peel. All this together makes for an intresting treat, standing out against the masses of chocolates available everywhere.
Christmas Compot
Secondly this Christmas we also had compot. The Christmas variation was based on dried fruit like plums, pears, apples, and cranberries. Served cold, this soup like drink again was not too sweet and sat well with the taste pallet of the rest of the supper.
Modern Polish Christmas Deserts
Traditional Christmas Deserts
The three cakes rulling my family’s table every Christmas are: cheesecake, gingerbread cake and cookies, and poppyseed cake.
The first one is not really a seasonal thing. The cheesecake is more of a family tradition, as my grandmother makes the best one in the whole world. Because of that every time I come home I get treated to a delicious gift.
The other two cakes are a lot less of a personal preference and can be found in many more Polish homes during Christmas time.
Gift Unwrapping
Lots of Presents
As everywhere else in the world we do indulge ourselves in the gift giving tradition. Unlike the UK or the States however we open presents on the 24th of December just after supper. As my family has no small kids there wasn’t any Santa Claus visit, instead one of the younger members gets designated to hand out presents to everyone else.
Christmas sweets
Many of the gifts are various kinds of sweets, and the cakes mentioned above are served while people open their presents. Often gifted sweets are shared out among the guests together with the home made cakes.
Christmas Decorations
In Poland people have not yet gone as far as in the USA when it comes to decorating their homes, however we do like to pretty things up. At my home we usually have many twigs and pine like decorations, including pine cones. Moreover there is an abundance of things like gold and red elements, stars, bows, bells, baubles and angels.
Window Christmas Decorations
As the table is the main focal point of Christmas Eve, the table obviously gets a lot of attention. In our case the table is just next to the big bay window, which is also a prominent feature in the living room.
White Christmas outside
Outside the house we also hang Christmas ornaments, again not as impressive as some of their American counterparts. However thanks to the lovely climate as you can see in the picture above we are often gifted with a stereotypical white Christmas.
Ingredients:
Filling Preparation
Next take a small bowl and put the mayonnaise and ketchup in it. It is the simplest sauce you can make. You could also experiment and use other sauces to complement the burger. Mix both ingredients until the blend completely.
After this proceed to the next item - gherkins. To get long slices you want quite a big variety - I used American Giants. Then rather than slicing vertically, cut the cucumber at an angle which produces bigger pieces.
Next if you would like your burgers to be cheeseburgers grab some cheese. The slices shouldn’t be to thin, and you will need about 2 pieces per burger.
Finally cut some salad, or if you are lazy like me buy a pack of already chooped up green leaves. Put it into a bowl for later.
Start by mixing the meat with herbs and pepper. You can use your hands to sqish the mince into a moldable pulp. I use marjoram and pepper, but you could add other spices if you wish.
Start heating up a pan with oil. If you want your buns to be crispy warm up the oven and put the buns in at low temperature to warm up and crispen while you fry the meat.
For an extra taste just before the end you can add butter to the pan and finish of frying with it.
If you decided to go for the option with cheese don’t turn of the oven when you take out your buns.
To finish of add the remaining ingredients and possibly some extra sauces.
