Abstract
Continuing with the theme of cultural diffusion and popular culture, Urszula Jarecka delves into the transformation of the present-day Polish culinary palette. Drawn from a range of existing sources such as cookbooks, opinion polls, and culinary magazines, Jarecka describes the intersections between tradition and imported foods or practices. Her descriptions across the three main categories of food and drink production and consumption—bread, meat, and water—reveal how new fusions have developed under globalization, Europeanization, and Americanization. Beyond new foods and eating lifestyles, these developments are playing out at social levels, including ideological battles between groups.
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Notes
- 1.
In 2010 in IFIS PAN began the research project, “Luxury and Poverty,” sponsored by NCN and conducted by Urszula Jarecka with a team of researchers. The results were published in two books: Jarecka (2013a) and Jarecka (2013b). In 2012 another research project began, conducted by Henryk Domański and his team; the book Wzory Jedzenia a Struktura Społeczna (Domański et al., 2015) presents the main results.
- 2.
For instance, in the 1970s two types of milk were produced—low-fat and high-fat—and they were sold throughout the country in bottles with easily recognizable attributes—especially their silver or golden caps.
- 3.
More information about this topic can be found in CBOS report in Polish: “People’s Poland: Experience, Evaluation, Associations,” May 2014. Fieldwork for the national sample: February and May 2014, N = 1074. The random address sample is representative of the adult population of Poland (p. 3: http://www.cbos.pl/EN/publications/reports/2014/061_14.pdf).
- 4.
In many cookbooks, we can identify this tendency (Aleksandrowicz & Gumowska, 1991; Bagińska et al., 1976; Bytnerowiczowa, 1989; Gumowska, 1976). One of these, with a tremendously large print run and with a great number of subsequent editions, was Zdrowo i Smacznie: Poradnik Racjonalnego Żywienia Rodziny w Zdrowiu i Chorobie (Healthy and Tasty: The Guide to the Rational Feeding of the Family in Health and Disease) (Czerny et al., 1965).
- 5.
Sometimes they resembled “kitchen fiction,” in that they were drafted as guides to healthy eating in which the focus was ideology and not the meal itself or how to cook it. Moreover, those books also suffered from “cognitive dissonance,” as when they sang the praises of buckwheat as a base for desserts or lamented the lack of appreciation for stewed fruit juices—and yet included pineapple in recipes for desserts, something that was unavailable.
- 6.
During the late PRL, when rationed goods were of mediocre quality (e.g., imitation chocolates), recipes circulated for home-production of caramels and other treats.
- 7.
- 8.
- 9.
- 10.
This problem was mentioned more than 100 years ago by Lucyna Ćwierczakiewiczowa in the 23rd edition of her famous nineteenth-century Polish cookbook. She mentioned the change of the main meal hours from 12:00–14:00 to the period of 17:00–18:00, due to the changes of working hours in the cities (Ćwierczakiewiczowa, 1988, pp. 384–385). However, during the PRL era, the daily schedule was more stable for every social stratum and age group, and the main meal was served in the school and workplace cafeterias. After the system transformation in some workplaces (in some corporations) “the day is longer” than in the previous epoch, and the mealtime is not as typical as in the rest of society.
- 11.
- 12.
The fast foods emblematic of our rushed culture do not foster the hygienic practices advocated by health centers. How can parents demand that their kids wash their hands before each meal if they are fed kebab or a zapiekanka from a street-vendor, where there is no restroom? One may also wonder how many adults are certain to wash their hands at restaurants and cafés before a quick coffee and cake.
- 13.
“Fat Thursday” (tłusty czwartek) is the first day of the last week of carnival. It is a lay tradition celebrated just before Lent (Ogrodowska, 2009, pp. 90–93).
- 14.
This problem was discussed in the press, and on internet sites: http://biznes.newsweek.pl/spada-spozycie-pieczywa-piekarnie-upadaja-newsweek-pl,artykuly,279640,1.html.
- 15.
One example is an issue in the series, Kuchnia Polska (Polish Kitchen), entitled Potrawy z Rusztu i Grilla, or “Dishes from Grate and Barbeque.”
- 16.
- 17.
People used to drink tea for breakfast and supper, and compote for dinner. Coffee was consumed at work and/or carbonated water that had been “produced” at home was consumed in the afternoon, popular during summer months.
- 18.
Report on the mineral water market prepared by GfK Polonia Sp. z.o.o. https://www.gfk.com/es-co/insights/press-release/rynek-wody-mineralnej-w-polsce/.
- 19.
Some non-Polish brand names and advertising slogans convey their purity for health, such as “Good water – Dobrawa” (Good).
- 20.
Some non-Polish brand names and advertising slogans convey their purity for health, such as “Good water – Dobrawa” (Good).
- 21.
To analyze the changes in tastes and experiences in food processing I used cookbooks from the nineteenth century such as Lucyna Ćwierczakiewiczowa, 365 Obiadów [365 Dinners] (1988), and from the twentieth century, especially from the communist era in Poland, such as Czerny et al., Zdrowo i Smacznie [Healthy and Tasty] (1965) and Irena Gumowska, Wenus z Patelnią [Venus with Frying Pan] (1973). Examples are taken from these books and from the popular press.
- 22.
Włoszczyzna literally means “vegetables of Italian origin,” “a bunch of mixed vegetables (usually carrot, leek, celeriac and parsley, used for cooking soups)” (Bulas &Witfield, 2003).
- 23.
The number of globalization waves depends on how the corporations’ activity after World War II is treated; some researchers claim that countries from the Eastern Bloc were excluded from this exchange of goods.
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Jarecka, U. (2021). Bread, Meat, and Water and the Taste of Globalization: New Trends in Food Consumption and Production in Poland. In: Pearce, S.C., Sojka, E. (eds) Cultural Change in East-Central European and Eurasian Spaces. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-63197-0_8
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