Polish Cookery : Poland's Bestselling Cookbook Adapted for American Kitchens

"Polish Cookery" is a good cookbook for Polish food. It does have some drawbacks. There are no photos. The number of cakes is limited. There do not seem to be any breads. There do not seem to be any sections devoted to holiday food for Christmas or Easter. Also, I am not totally satisfied with the clarity of some of the directions or with the lack of coverage of the multiple variations possible with some dishes. However, there is a good and diverse collection of recipes. I would supplement this cookbook with one or two other Polish cookbooks that would cover the areas that are lacking in this one.

Very happy with the book and the condition, thank you. Now if I can just the wife to use it.

This was my first Polish cookbook in America and it is still one of the most handy ones. First of all it has a variety of recipes for all ocassions. The dishes' names are in Polish and in English (easy for me to find the recipe by its original Polish name). Each recipe has enough information to prepare a dish but the book is nor overcrowded (like some other cookbooks where there are tens of recipes on one page). My only complain - there are no any pictures. But this is probably a compromise - it would be difficult to pack so many good recipes and photographs together in a relatively small size and cheap book.

`The New Polish Cuisine' by Chicago chef Michael J. Baruch and `Polish Cookery' by Marja Ochorowicz-Monatowa, translated from the Polish by Jean Karsavina are two common extremes in the presentation of a national cuisine, if that cuisine is not French, Italian, Spanish, Indian, Thai, Chinese, Japanese, or Mexican. I have seen many of the latter style for virtually every nation from Norway to Rumania, most especially from the central European countries. Many of the recipes are presented in the most simple of forms, with little or no discussion of technique. Their primary virtue lies in their containing a lot of authentic recipes so that if you are handy around the kitchen, you should have no trouble with the simple instructions. After all, Elizabeth David started her prodigious career as a food writer by doing a book on Mediterranean recipes with relatively simple recipe descriptions. As a native Pole wrote `Polish Cookery' in Poland, I have to assume the authenticity of the recipes is unimpeachable. And, in spite of my picturing the recipes in books of this class as `bare bones' descriptions, I am especially happy to say that the general introductions to all the major sections have great suggestions on how to get the best out of each type of dish. The introduction to the section that includes pierogies is an especially good example, as it gives excellent general rules for preparing pastry fillings. These rules are: 1. Cook meat until tender, but do not brown, or it will be too dry. 2. Grind meat at least twice through a meat grinder. 3. Pates may be baked, but they are best steamed, as baking dries and toughens them. These three simple rules contain an enormous amount of wisdom as they clearly distinguish this cooking style from braising and sauteeing and show a great common ground with the famous steamed meat filled dumplings of Chinese dim sum. This second rule also points out that the author is talking about a kitchen where a meat grinder is a common appliance and a blender and food processor are not. This may seem odd, except that my Hungarian grandmother did have a meat grinder and used it on a regular basis. (One warning is that while the index is excellently done with both Polish and English entries, it may be just a little difficult to find some familiar dishes if you only know the English name. I had to look carefully to fine pierogies recipes, as the only reference to pierogies was in Polish.) I give this detail to warn anyone who may be inclined to ignore this book in favor of the volume with which I will compare it. This little book is marvelously inexpensive, hard covered, and sound. As complete as it is, I am surprised that it does not include any bread recipes and most basic pastry recipes are attributed to the French. This is one thing which pleases me so much about Michael Baruch's book, as it starts out with a chapter of excellent recipes for fresh yeast breads, featuring great rye and pumpernickel bread recipes, which are

An excellent abbreviated edition of a best-selling cookbook in Poland, the more exotic recipes (e.g. peacock brains 21 different ways...) pared out in favor of the classics, such as Pierogi, golabki (cabbage rolls), barcz (borsht), and bigos (hunter-style soup).While the book is on the whole quite strong, there are no pictures, which doesn't bother me much, but I am disappointed that the book entirely lacks a section on Polish baking, which is the only reason why the book didn't get 5 stars from me. Don't let these trivialities keep you from picking up this bargain book!