Polish food

Here are a few of the more traditional Polish dishes;

• Pierogi is a filled dumpling; they can be boiled, fried or baked and filled with anything you can think of.
• Pierniki is the famous Torun gingerbread, delicious!  Even better is pierniki flavoured ice cream.
• Lard on bread.  (That's right)
• Naleśniki - filled pancakes; sweet or savoury.  I think savoury pancakes are almost like a folded pizza, I prefer sweet, especially chocolate and banana.
• Bigos is a pork/sausage/boczek/cabbage stew - I haven't tried it yet but it is supposed to be very good on a cold day.
• Boczek is very fatty pork, or even a porky fat.  It's mostly fat with just a slither of meat on top.
• Soup - worthy of another post altogether.  There are too many different soups to mention here, but they are very popular in Poland.  Barszcz z uszkami (beetroot soup with stuffed pasta) and żurek (sausage and egg soup) are two of my favourites.
• Kapusta - cabbage goes with everything.

Polish food is quite stodgy and often fatty, but looking around very few people are overweight here.  Part of that may be due to genetics or perhaps that Poles traditionally haven't had the money to be gluttonous; however I do think there is a healthier lifestyle here and the sense that food/dieting is just not an issue here like it is in England.  

Unfortunately, despite all this lovely traditional food Poland has to offer I've been eating nothing but toast for a couple of days while I eagerly await payday.