There's a little Polish market just a few blocks from me. They've been open about a year, but just last week I was brave enough to step foot inside.When I was a teenager, my parents would stop at Central Falls Provision Company in Central Falls, RI, to get most, if not all, of their deli meats. Being a Polish run store (I'm a half-a-Polock, the Polish is on my mom's side, btw), you'd run into such meats as what you see on the left.
As a teen, I simply called it "kielbasa loaf". I figured, "hey, it looks like salami crossed with Canadian bacon, but it tastes like kielbasa." Its true name is Kielbasa Krakowska. Yesterday, I bought the stuff for the first time in twenty-some years, at the little store I mentioned in my opening paragraph. And unlike my peers when I was in junior high and high school who were driven nuts by the smell (they could smell kielbasa a mile away -- HEY PAGE, WHAT IS THAT $&!+???!!!), my wife (French Canadian by blood) and kids (only quarter-Polocks) love it! I have to buy it in two-pound increments when I go get it.
Dare to ask someone in an ordinary supermarket deli in the USA for Kielbasa Krakowska (btw, fellow Polocks around here simply call it "Krako", or perhaps "Krakow", after the city in Poland, for short).
"Krakow" rocks!
Peace,
BMP
2 comments:
Hey Brian! Does your wife make meat pie for Christmas Eve? I'm of French Canadian descent and make that every Christmas eve (I'm also 1/4 Polish)...
Hi Lynne!
My wife's an excellent cook, but the meat pies are something we usually buy in one of the smaller stores around here. Plouffe's used to be the big name in meat pies in these parts, but he's retired now. There's another company, Royal, that uses a similar recipe (well, at least it tastes the same). We'll usually throw one of those in the oven. Kicks butt!
Peace,
BMP
Post a Comment