Bigos

06/10/2012 15:20

Most people think of pierogi as being the quintessential Polish dish. While it is true that you can find them nearly everywhere you go, many Poles would actually tell you that the national dish is bigos. As a young kid, I don’t even remember hearing about this, let alone trying it. It was only when we got a Polish priest in Trevorton that we started to see these at our church festival. So, what is bigos? It’s a hearty dish that is often referred to as hunter’s stew. It is cabbage-based, but infused with many other flavors, including forest mushrooms, prunes, sauerkraut, tomatoes (sometimes), red wine, spices, and a host of different kinds of meat: smoked sausage, fresh cooked sausage, beef, pork shoulder, ham hock, basically any kind of meats that you might have left over from other meals. Add to this juniper berries, peppercorns, marjoram, caraway seeds, and who knows what else. Of course, the recipe varies, as you might not have all of these things on hand. The whole thing cooks for a good number of hours, and then gets heated and reheated on subsequent days, with the taste improving each time around. This, with some fresh bread, is one of my favorite Polish dishes. Sometimes it’s a little difficult to get in the summer, but I’m sure that we can find it somewhere.

Here’s a little homage to bigos that the Polish poet, Adam Mickiewicz, wrote in his novel in verse “Pan Tadeusz.”

“In the pots warmed the bigos; mere words cannot tell

Of its wondrous taste, colour and marvellous smell.

One can hear the words buzz, and the rhymes ebb and flow,

But its content no city digestion can know.

To appreciate the Lithuanian folksong and folk food,

You need health, live on land, and be back from the wood.
Without these, still a dish of no mediocre worth

Is bigos, made from legumes, best grown in the earth;

Pickled cabbage comes foremost, and properly chopped,

Which itself, is the saying, will in one's mouth hop;

In the boiler enclosed, with its moist bosom shields

Choicest morsels of meat raised on greenest of fields;

Then it simmers, till fire has extracted each drop

Of live juice, and the liquid boils over the top,

And the heady aroma wafts gently afar.”