Dave Wood

My Beautiful Wife and I have one thing in common: We both grew up surrounded by people of the Polish persuasion. Ruth in Chicago which reputedly has more Polish dwellers than does Warsaw, and her southside suburb Oak Lawn has a Polish delicatessen that features 25 varieties of bread, each from a different Chicago Polish bakery. And wooden barrels of dill pickles from which you can help yourself.

I hail from Whitehall, Wis., which is five miles from Independence, a little town which can’t numerically equal Warsaw in population but beats Chicago percentage wise when it comes to counting the Polish citizenry.

And I can’t hope to rival Ruth’s Oak Lawn when it comes to culinary offerings. I have eaten my share of Polish oven white rye baked in outdoor ovens, Monica Przbilla’s potato dumplings stuffed with pork tenderloin bits, all slathered with melted butter, washed down with vodka martinis not garnished with olives, but with “Giba,” pickled button mushrooms which my late Polish brother-in-law called “The Polish national fruit.”

And finally, the piece de resistance, which Independencers call “Grits,” a concoction of pig blood, buckwheat groats, and exotic seasonings all stuffed in an intestine blutwurst casing and steamed until black. I’m not kidding. It’s delectable! It makes Norwegian blood krub and German blutwurst sausage and French Boudin seem fit only for the porkers wallowing in the sty behind the corn crib.

Thus, when Poland began to slip away from under the Soviet heel, we headed for the birth of Polish cuisine, Krakow, site of what once was Europe’s largest spice market, where “marjoram” is called “Majonica.”

Poland turned out to be a surprisingly exciting venue with its huge Jagiellonian University, its Old Town, its religious relics, the Black Madonna. But soon on we learned to close our eyes when our guide made fun of the monstrous new architecture introduced by the cloddish Soviet intruders, who thankfully were moving out.

Unfortunately, we arrived too soon to avoid some of the Russian influence, which still was at fault for the food. To our dismay, the restaurants we could afford were still managed by the government, which apparently figured the commoner didn’t need anything except plain bland beets to provide energy to create a strong Bolshevik economy.

So instead of the Globus-offered meal one evening, our slightly larcenous guide gathered a number of his more rebellious-looking clients and said, “If you promise not to tell my company or anyone else, I’ll take you out to a farm in the country. For $30 apiece, including my commission, the family will entertain you, feed you a real Polish meal, and pour you all the beer, wine and vodka you can drink.

Twenty-two of us signed up, and as the evening came, we boarded a nondescript bus the guide had privately rented, and off we illegally went to visit our first and likely last Polish version of an American speakeasy!

The farm, with a trout stream running through it, was beautiful, the family was cheerful and gracious as they served us all we could manage: Unlimited cocktails, appetizers of various pierogis, cheese and sausage, roasted trout caught out of the stream, stuffed astonishingly with carraway seeds (from then on the only way I cook trout!), kielbasa so delicious American makers should not be allowed to call their version by the same name. Rich poppy seed and farmer cheese, dessert of fresh-picked wild strawberries, and more vodka and beer than the price seemed to cover. We were well-oiled when the entertainment part of the ticket began: Six family instrumentalists including a son-in-law who was principal clarinetist with the Krakow symphony. While the waiters danced a peculiar type of polka, they invited the audience to demonstrate how Americans dance the polka, and Ruth and I were eager to show how much faster we stepped to it in Wisconsin!

Our larcenous guide got us back to Krakow and dropped us a few blocks from our hotel, I suppose to avoid the eyes of any Globus employees who might ask where we were coming from.

Recently I have come to know that Polish cuisine in general has caught up with the standards of that rural restaurant. Just take a look at “Flavor of Poland” on Create TV, hosted by the beauteous Polish-born Alexandra August, who visits restaurants fit for a king all over Poland. Filmed in Poland, but produced, you guessed in—in Chicago! SCHAZANEGO!