This document discusses the history and culture of food in Poland. It describes several traditional Polish foods associated with Christmas, like borscht, cabbage, fish, and poppy seed cake. For Easter, it explains the tradition of Święconka baskets containing symbolic foods like eggs, bread, lamb, salt, and horseradish that are blessed in church. It also discusses the tradition of decorating Easter eggs called Pisanki in different styles. Later sections outline locations in Poland associated with food production and traditional cooking methods, as well as the cultural significance of dances like the Polonaise. The document suggests students will learn more about these topics and complete evaluation sheets during their visit.

1. HISTORY,
CULTURE AND…
FOOD

2. HISTORY, CULTURE AND… FOOD
 Do
you know any traditional ways of
growing food and preparing meals?
 What
is the correlation between culture and
history of a particular region and its food?
We are going to answer these
questions…

3. LET’S START FORM CHRISTMAS AND
EASTER CUISINE

4. EVERYONE LIKES CHRISTMAS!
STREETS ARE LIT BY COLORED
LAMPS. SHOPS ARE FULL OF PEOPLE
BUYING PRESENTS…

5. The day preceding Christmas – the Christmas Eve
- is unique one. It is believed that everything that
might happen on it can influence the whole year
to come !
Some people say, that if you ask for food on that
day, you will be hungry throughout the year ;/
Another custom is a number of dishes: traditionally
there should be 12 of them and all of them must
be tasted !

6. HISTORY, CULTURE AND… FOOD
The most popular dishes are:
 red borsch
 sour cabbage with mushrooms

fish (usually carp)

poppy-seed cake

7. HISTORY, CULTURE AND… FOOD
Easter customs are even more connected with
food…

We do not eat meat (some people do not eat
anything! ) on Good Friday.

8. HISTORY, CULTURE AND… FOOD








Easter Saturday is the day when people
prepare Święconka – baskets containing
samples of Easter food that are brought to
church to be blessed
The baskets are prepared carefully, because
the foods have symbolic meaning:
eggs – symbolise life and Christ’s resurrection
bread – represents Jesus
a small figure of a lamb – also represents Jesus
salt – is purification
horseradish – a symbol of the bitter sacrifice of Christ
ham (or sausage) – a symbol of great joy

9. But the most important are
the eggs…

10. HISTORY, CULTURE AND… FOOD
The tradition of decorating eggs is common in
Slavic cultures. It originated in pagan times
and then was transformed into the Christian
Easter egg.
Now, every Polish child wants to decorate an
egg!

11. HISTORY, CULTURE AND… FOOD
Easter eggs – Polish pisanki (singular pisanka
) is a common name for an egg ornamented
using various techniques.
There can be…

12. PISANKI – EGGS THAT ARE PAINTED

13. KRASZANKI – MADE BY BOILING AN EGG
TOGETHER WITH SOME PLANTS (E.G. OAK
BARK OR ONION PEELS)

14. DRAPANKI – MADE BY SCRATCHING THE
SURFACE OF KRASZANKA WITH A SHARP TOOL
TO REVEAL THE WHITE OF EGG SHELL

15. - AND MANY OTHERS

16. HISTORY, CULTURE AND… FOOD
In some villages or towns there are
even competitions on the most
beautiful Pisanka!

17. HISTORY, CULTURE AND… FOOD
Eggs are also used in many other types of
dishes:
 An egg is an ingredient of cakes and
noodles
 They can be eaten scrambled, fried, hardand soft-boiled, omelette, pickled and even
raw.

18. HISTORY, CULTURE AND… FOOD
In the past, when hens, geese or ducks could be
found in every village – an egg was one of the
most common and most important thing in
everyday diet.

19. HISTORY, CULTURE AND… FOOD
In English we have some proverbs ‘ with eggs’,
e.g.:
 To pull one’s eggs in one basket.
 You can’t make an omelette without breaking
eggs.
There is also a Polish saying:
 Jajko mądrzejsze od kury.

20. HISTORY, CULTURE AND… FOOD
During our meeting we are going to learn
more about Christmas and Easter cuisine.
We are also going to prepare something to
eat using eggs.

21. HISTORY, CULTURE AND… FOOD
We will also learn something about
some famous places in Poland and
their connections with food.
These will be…

22. HISTORY, CULTURE AND… FOOD
Tokarnia – the great museum of village, with
its numerous windmills where flour was
produced

23. HISTORY, CULTURE AND… FOOD
Kraków (Cracow) – and its Reneissance
restaurants and places where people were
sending and buying food

24. HISTORY, CULTURE AND… FOOD
Wieliczka – the historic salt mine

25. HISTORY, CULTURE AND… FOOD
Wąchock – a place where monks through
centuries were growing vegetables and animals
and took care of the local community in the times
of wars and crop failure

26. HISTORY, CULTURE AND… FOOD
Learning about these places, we will
see how people were preparing meals
in the past and what are the traditional
ways of food production.

27. HISTORY, CULTURE AND… FOOD
However, in the past, no Polish feast could be
started without a proper dance. In case of the
most solemn feasts when the guests were
especially important, they danced Polonaise.

28. HISTORY, CULTURE AND… FOOD
Polonaise (Polonez) – despite the French name –
the origin of this dance is Polish. It is one of the
five historic national dances of Poland. The
Polish composer Frederic Chopin is famous for
writing Polonaises.
It started as a peasant dance known under various
names. The most common is chodzony (walker)
because everyone, even elderly people, can
dance it just by walking!

29. HISTORY, CULTURE AND… FOOD
From about 17th century, Polonaise gained
popularity among the nobility and
townspeople.
During our meeting we are going to learn
something more about this dance
connected with history, culture and
traditional Polish feasts !

30. HISTORY, CULTURE AND… FOOD
Ok., balls, feasts… but what happened
when someone got sick??
We will learn about some plants, food
products and herbs that were real
medicines in the old times and… that
are still in use!

31. HISTORY, CULTURE AND… FOOD
Now, you will get some evaluation
sheets to fill in during your stay here.
On Thursday I’ll collect them to see
what you know. But be careful – you'll
have to make some investigations, to
ask some questions and cooperate
with others.
Good luck
And thank you for attention !