Reviews and recommendations are unbiased and products are independently selected. Postmedia may earn an affiliate commission from purchases made through links on this page.
Our cookbook of the week is Pierogi by Zuza Zak. To try a recipe from the book, check out: honey drop dumplings, barley and lamb knysze, and fragrant herb pierogi.
When author Zuza Zak moved from Communist Poland to England in 1987 at eight years old, misconceptions about Polish food abounded. Especially when it came to pierogi.
Nearly 30 years later, in her cookbook debut, Polska (Quadrille, 2016), Zak dispelled the notion that Polish cuisine begins and ends with dumplings. After “an explosion” of Eastern European cookbooks, though, she felt the time was right to give them their due. In Pierogi (Quadrille, 2022), she takes a deep dive with more than 50 recipes for traditional and modern Polish dumplings.
The idea of writing a book about pierogi had long been in the back of her mind. ”It just seemed like such an obvious thing to do. Maybe it seemed too obvious,” says Zak, laughing.
People from outside the region are now more aware of how interlinked and multi-faceted Eastern European cuisines are, she adds. Writing a book devoted to Polish dumplings without people judging the entirety of the cuisine by them suddenly seemed possible. “I feel like they need to be better represented on the market. And I feel people are ready, as well, to receive a book about pierogi.”
https://smartcdn.gprod.postmedia.digital/nationalpost/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/pierogiCoverInline.jpg?quality="90&strip=all&w=576 2x" height="1181" loading="lazy" src="https://smartcdn.gprod.postmedia.digital/nationalpost/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/pierogiCoverInline.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=288" width="902"/>
Before the pandemic, Zak had planned to travel around Poland to gather regional recipes. Her plans dashed, she turned to the internet, asking her social media followers what their favourite pierogi were, and which ones they remembered from their childhoods. Roughly 10 people from around the world ended up sharing recipes from their great-aunts and grandmothers, which Zak developed for the book.
Pierogi is Zak’s third cookbook exploring Eastern European food traditions and her second focusing on Poland. As with Polska and Amber & Rye (Interlink Books, 2021), Zak spent time in the library at the UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies, where she is working on a food-related PhD. Her research also involved a “special place” just outside of Warsaw, the Muzeum Lwowa i Kresów. On previous trips, she made note of items of interest in old photographs. Unable to travel during the pandemic, she sent her mother to pick up the threads on her behalf.
Zak offers a window into the regionality and variety of Polish cuisine by breaking down the traditional recipes by area (north, south, east, west and central). “Sometimes, I think it’s not seen from the outside how the regions of Polish cuisine are very different. There are a lot of dishes that are universal, and I guess a lot of them are known outside of Poland as well — for example, pierogi ruskie (filled with twaróg, a.k.a. farmer’s cheese, fried onions and potato). But then, when you dive in, you’ll also get a lot of dishes that are not known from one region to the next. So, I really wanted to explore that kind of regionality through this book.”
She offers the example of Janina’s sweet kasha and twaróg pierogi, which she features in the east section of the book. Zak has travelled extensively in southeastern Poland. Though she has eaten gryczaki in various forms — dumplings from the Lublin area, which is where most of the country’s buckwheat is produced — she had never come across the sweet, twaróg-filled version her friend Magdalena obtained from her grandmother, Janina.
“They’ve become my family’s favourite pierogi. They’re so delicious. And I didn’t try anything like that when I was travelling around. And I tried a lot of different buckwheat types of pierogi, pies, all kinds of things. But not quite that sort of magic combination.”
Following the traditional section of the book is the modern, with themes and variations, creative, vegan and gluten-free dumplings. Zak’s recipe for fragrant herb pierogi falls into the creative category. With fresh parsley leaves encased in the dough, it shows how traditional ingredients such as bryndza (a sheep’s milk cheese similar to feta) can be used in original ways.
“I see a lot of things like pierogi tacos, pierogi pizza and stuff like that, which is quite funny. But I feel like it’s not that true to the whole nature of pierogi. So, I wanted to explore them just using those authentic ingredients, but then seeing how far you can go with them. So, adding different (natural) colours to the dough, like beetroot and cacao and things like that, and then different flavours to the fillings. But then a lot of them still have a twaróg base. And you can do so much with twaróg. It’s so versatile that you’ll find it in a lot of the modern pierogi, and you’ll find it sweet and savoury.”
While in the modern section, Zak proves pierogi have room to grow, she took a more anthropological approach with the traditional recipes, staying as true to the original versions as possible.
Pierogi started as peasant food and, over time, grew in popularity across classes. “There is definitely a pride to peasantry in Poland. Because all the beautiful folkloric art and crafts, and those sort of traditions and the songs, it all comes from the peasantry. So, even if you’re of noble birth, you’re still going to feel a pride in the people’s arts, because it really represents Poland and it’s very beautiful.”
Love for pierogi extends far beyond Poland’s borders and the Polish diaspora. Zak credits the enduring appeal to their simplicity and the comfort they bring. “They’re fluffy. They’re filling. They’re like little pillows of joy. And also, they’re cheap. I think that’s why they were such a great peasant food. It could fill a lot of people with not a lot of money, and really all the ingredients that you had.”
As simple as pierogi may be, younger generations tend not to know how to make them, says Zak. If dumpling making isn’t part of family tradition, they buy them. She fears that some of the traditional recipes in the book, such as knysze, might be endangered. “A lot of these traditions are going to die out with the people if we don’t preserve them. The younger generations love eating them, but if they’re not actually continuing (to make them), then those traditions will get lost. And that’s what worries me and that’s what keeps me motivated.”
Post a Comment