MIZERIA
Our first
course was Mizeria, which is basically cucumbers salad (cucumbers in
sour cream). Mizeria means misery, but
the salad was very tasty. Thinly sliced
cucumbers are mixed with sour cream, and other ingredients such as onions,
pepper, lemon juice, sugar, dill, chives, mint or parsley can also be added.
Her mizeria was cucumbers and green onions
with vinegar and dill.
MAIN COURSES
For our main
course, several dishes of food were placed on the table for us to try. They
included Kapustra, Golabki, Kielbasa and a variety of different flavors of
Pierogi.
Kapustra is stewed sauerkraut/cabbage with
bacon, mushroom and onion. The sauerkraut
is typically milder than the German version.
Our hostess made her kapustra with sauerkraut and Polish sausage rather
than bacon.
Golabki is
a cabbage roll made
from boiled cabbage wrapped around some meat filling – pork or beef with
chopped onions and rice. Never been a fan of cabbage rolls, so I skipped this dish. Our hostess made her Golabki with hamburger
meat, onions, and rice and rolled them in a boiled cabbage leaf. She then
cooked the cabbage rolls in a tomato sauce.
Also, there
was a tray of cooked Kielbasa, which is any type of meat sausage from
Poland. I read that Kielbasa is one of the most traditional foods served at
Polish weddings.
Of course,
my favorite of the dishes was Pierogi. Pierogi are filled dumplings with
either a sweet or savory filling. They are boiled and then can be fried in
butter [that’s how ours were served at this dinner]. The first time I had eaten
a Pierogi was probably fifteen years ago.
Why didn’t we have these as children?
We had our choice of three different kinds of Pierogi – sauerkraut and potato, potato and cheese and blueberry. I didn’t try the sauerkraut and potato ones, but I did eat some of the potato and cheese Pierogi. These are the ones I usually eat at home. Then I tried the blueberry ones – those were my new favorite! How had I not heard of blueberry Pierogi before?
