A taste of world travel in my tiny town ...

in #travel7 years ago

My husband and I braved the bitter cold earlier this week to visit the little town nearest our place here in Wisconsin. There is a sizable Polish immigrant community in this town of less than 950 people. It's common to overhear folks carrying on conversations in Polish in businesses, the library, etc.

After lunch, Mr. Britches and I popped into a little downtown deli where they have pottery and groceries for sale that originate in Poland. I couldn't resist picking up a few small items.

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It was great fun to come home and play a guessing game with our family as to what each item is. Some were fairly obvious and others, not so much! Google Translate was generally a great help.

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Przyprawa Do Leczo was a mystery to all of us. The photo suggests a peppers-based broth. As I typed in the first word, Google Translate said "relish" but then switched to "spice for" as I entered the second word. When I added Leczo, it came up with "Spice for Leczo". Not very helpful! The ingredients include salt, paprika, onion, tomato powder, garlic, and more. Any directions that might be present on the back are covered by a label that won't peel away. I'm going to give this a whirl in a soup soon and see how it tastes.

Papryka Slodka Mielona seems fairly straightforward. It must be a type of Paprika! Google Translate says "Sweet Ground Pepper". The ingredients simply say Sweet Peppers. I'm in Wisconsin so this belongs in chili.

Kurkuma Mielona immediately brought up guesses of Curcumin and Turmeric. Google Translate said "Turmeric Ground" so we nailed that one.

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The green packet looked to be a tea or coffee; no one hazarded a guess as to which. The first question was which word(s) is the company name and which is the product type. Kawa Zbozowa translates to Cereal Coffee. Fascinating! The ingredients include roasted rye, barley, chicory, and sugar beet. It looks like we need to add 4 Tablespoons to a liter of water. I don't know if this can be used in a conventional US coffee maker. As expected, Kujawianka has no translation, and must be the manufacturer.

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These are pictured as cookies, so our question was what the flavor profiles may be. It smells like spiced cookies. Katarzynki translates to Catherine so we think that may be a common name for this type of cookie. None of the other words were much help, either. It was then that I spied tiny little white words across the bottom front. Torunski Pierniki! They are Gingerbread cookies!

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Finally we have Serca Torunskie. These heart-shaped cookies are visible through the packaging. It translates to "Torun Hearts". Legendarny Smak is "Legendary Taste". The word Lukrowane means glacé which makes sense since the cookies have a sugary glaze.

We had great fun choosing these little grocery items and will enjoy working them into our pantry. I look forward to popping into the Polish Deli again soon.

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haha, I'm polish so I think I can help you out. Leczo is a polish traditional dish containing: stewed pepper, tomatoes, zucchini, onions and sometimes some sausages. Season it with garlic and "przyprawa do leczo". Try to prepare it! That "przyprawa do leczo" will be great for that dish but you can use it for any other soup as well.

"Kawa zbożowa" is roasted grain beverage - you can use it in conventional coffe maker. I personally don't really like this kind of coffe, but it has some fans in Poland. Try it out with milk!

Other translations were perfect! Hope you enjoy the food you bought :)

Oh, I'm so glad someone who understands has commented! Do you have a link to a good recipe for Leczo? It sounds very tasty and I'd like to prepare it.

I don't think there is a recipe in english... at least I din't find any. But it is very simple dish! All you need to have is:
3 peppers (we usually use red but yellow or green will be good too)
5 ripe tomatoes or one can of canned tomatoes
2 onions
one zucchini (or more)
3 garlic cloves
200 grams of sausages (if you are not a vegetarian)
some olive oil
Dice onions, peppers, zuccini and tomatoes (if using fresh). Heat a tablespoon of olive oli in a pan, add onions and sliced sausages. Fry for about 7 minutes. Add pepper and fry for few more minutes. Now it's time for "przyprawa do leczo"! Add a lot! :D fry for a minute and now add tomatoes. Cook for 15 minutes. Taste and add some salt if needed. You can also add some tomato concentrate to strengthen the taste :)

I hope it helped a little bit :) let me know if you decide to prepare it :)

Thank you so much! When I make it, I will post about it and tag you, plus I'll drop a comment here to make sure you see it. It sounds delicious. :)

These are all so neat, and I can't wait for the tasting to begin. :D

What a fun culinary adventure to have! :)

Yes, and we're stretching the tasting out over a number of days so we get to savor it.

You wrote something in tag #polish. Polish community use this tag for posts with Polish language. We don't want to flag your post but we should do that. This is tag spamming and you won't find many voters here. Please use edit and remove tag #polish or change into something else. OR even better - use our beautiful language!

Your beautiful language is included in my post, and a Polish speaker has helped me to understand some of the food items that I purchased at a local Polish store. The owner of the store is from Poland. While I was shopping, the owner was talking with a customer in Polish. The tag was used properly. Thank you for being concerned. Please read the post and view the images to see that the tag was used appropriately.