Bursztyn at the seams

Our quest to understand the Polish palate begins at Partisan's Monument in the downtown center. By the end of this May Day food tour, I would feel like the wounded fighter it depicts, but there would be no one to prop me up ― certainly not a sympathetic woman wielding an olive branch. 

We have a full group of eight: a couple from Minnesota who "snowbird" their winters in Green Valley, Arizona; a few Americans living in Warsaw; and a mother and daughter from Calgary. They are all delightful, as people who attend food tours suspiciously tend to be.

Leading our tour is Michal, below, a 40-year-old lifelong Varsovian who will engage on any subject ― the upcoming election in October, the current geopolitical mess, the outsize role of the Catholic Church. 

I suppose that in any culture, the most important cooking takes place at home. This is especially true in Poland, he explains, and over the course of four hours the discussion subtly veers into the politics of food in this part of the world.

Our first stop is Kamanda Lwowska, a seemingly old little cave just below street level at Foskal 10. It's so hard to date things by eye here. If you're being strategic, "sometime after 1950" is probably a safe bet, but you never know. The restaurant's name derives from Lvov (Lviv), a major city in western Ukraine that was a part of Poland before the First World War.

The walls of this place are thick with sentimentality for the "old days." Or possibly these mementos are presented with a wink; it's hard to tell. The "Stop!' sign says something like "We kill rats to make sure they don't reproduce." 

The day's tastings begin with some rye bread smeared with smalec, or pork lard, along with fermented (not brined) pickles, followed by a shot of icy vodka. Some fatty/acidic counterpoints going on here! Sipping vodka can be a chore, Michal warns. Best to down it in one gulp. Twist my arm. 

As the alcohol warms us, Michal describes the importance and varieties of soup in Poland: buttermilk soup with radishes and beet leaves; zupa mleczna, a milk soup with spaetzle-style drop noodles, fruit soups made with cherries or strawberries. During some group banter, he lets slip that Syrena Irena (Irena Mermaid) may have the best pierogi in Warsaw.

On cue, out come the soups. First, a marjoram-spiced barszcz (borscht) with "little-ear" dumplings filled with mushrooms and sauerkraut. I'm not sure if it's antioxidants or vitamin C, placebo or probiotics, but the first spoonful makes you feel good. "Superfood" might apply. Its sourness is created by the spontaneous fermentation of the beets that give it its blood-red color. 

This is followed by zurek (zhoo-rek), a sour rye soup with field mushrooms, hardboiled egg and white sausage.

Michal singles out this dish as Poland's front-runner for catching on worldwide, a la Udon noodles or tonkotsu ramen. It just needs some savvy marketing to get it over the finish line. I kind of agree. If just one popular TV food host sang its praises ... . 

Allow me to throw out some taglines: "Zurek: So Wrong It's Right." "Next Time ... Make It a Zurek!" I'm here all week. Try the schnitzel.

Look at everything on this table, Michal says. The vodka, the bread, the borscht and the zurek, the sauerkraut in the uszka dumplings ― all created by fermentation. And I begin to wonder, is this Poland or Korea? Whether by necessity or design, the Polish palate craves an earthy, sour funkiness. Unsurprisingly, kimchi is popular here.

A couple of blocks away we are introduced to the appealing conception of a late-morning "second breakfast" in the form of pillowy soft, still-warm paczki and drozdzowki, Polish doughnuts and less-sweet yeast dough buns, respectively, from Cukierna Pawlowicz (Chmielna 13). They have run out of napkins, it seems. "Where's a dog when you need one?" says the sticky-fingered Green Valley guy. 

Everybody at the football match the other night was ordering these open-faced zapiekanka klasyczna sandwiches, and I confess to being aghast at the serpentine squirt of ketchup on top. 

This is from a street stall called Lussi, at Jerozolinskie 50, in the shadow of the Palace of Culture and Science. With its mushrooms and melted cheese, the zapiekanka have the umami base to compete with Turkish kavurmali and kusmasili, but the dash of ketchup will take some getting used to. It's not you, Warsaw, it's me. Wait for me and I'll catch up. Ba-da-boom.

Yeah, we're down amongst the giants. Lussi is one of at least three kebab shacks in this plaza. Some of the streets in this part of the centrum are wholly pedestrianized as of May 1 and will remain so until September. For a government with so many (cough) problematic stances, its attention to the visitor's urban experience is on point.

Vodka and doughnuts slosh in my stomach, not to mention fermented soups and the Polish pizza thing, so it comes as a relief that our next stop is a good 15-minute walk from here. I wish it were an hour.

True to its name, Patelina Patera serves its main courses in little frying pans.

But first there are these Silesian dumplings with parsley pesto and bursztyn (amber) cheese, which has a hard, salty Parmesan profile. I like the Poles' generous use of dried and fresh herbs (marjoram and parsley, in order). It inspires me to be more adventurous in the kitchen. And the simple idea of a parsley pesto is low-key genius. My dumb palate is challenged and made wiser.

Historically, here's where things get even more interesting. Two and a half generations of Poles really had no conception of what going out to eat even meant. The very idea of restaurants was discouraged by a political system that viewed them as capitalist, bourgeois institutions. For more than 50 years, Poles ate at home, or at school cafeterias and work canteens. "Milk bars" were (and remain) state-subsidized calorie factories, basically, where a person can have a cheap meal of dumplings and cabbage rolls and get back to work. The biggest meal of the day continues to be lunch, which is a killer if you're trying to build a restaurant brand.

Older people are still suspicious of restaurant etiquette and pricing. The pandemic, of course, was another step backward. 

Not all is sour. Things have changed in Poland's big cities, but the process has been halting. While having the population of Canada, Poland has just one Michelin-star restaurant (in Krakow).

Subversively, this pounded pork cutlet is breaded in slightly sweet challah crumbs, and the braised sauerkraut has been lightly sweetened with honey. The new potatoes are mashed and relatively unadorned. Michal says pork remains king in Poland. He and his compatriots still associate beef with substandard dairy-cow meat that was the only option during the distressed, depleted latter half of the 20th century. 

Three or four of us ask for doggie bags. We are teetering near the end of a semi-religious pilgrimage, and I'd say this is a reasonable accommodation.

We are about to drink not cocoa, but literal melted chocolate. I have long wanted to visit E. Wedel's flagship location at 8 Szpitalna, so I am happy that we wound up here. It reminds me of an old-school Vienna cafe. 

This reborn city is still a zygote. Let's check back in 25 years. Tellingly, Michal describes any food institution lasting 10 years in Warsaw as having a long history. This hot cup of "Jedyna" (64% cocoa) has a rounded, fatty flavor shape with a dry finish. Can I say "dry" referring to chocolate? I think so! Anyone trying to lose weight might benefit from a couple of tablespoons in the morning. I bet you'd skip that "second breakfast."

Michal says his goodbyes, and we tourists are left to talk with one another like eight kids on a field trip to the chocolate factory. I am terrible at idle conversation. 

"Pity me," I ask the half-time Arizonans headed back to Minnesota to escape the sun's pressing anvil. They laugh cruelly. 

The Calgary folks confirm that indeed, they have a big rodeo the second week of July. 

An English teacher living in Warsaw radiates while describing a kid, overwhelmed with confusion in the first weeks of the semester, finally gaining enough confidence and fluency to join the school's debate team. I am overjoyed for them all.

Eventually, one by one, and in groups, we peel off into the Warsaw evening under a deepening amber sky.