Ren Behan - Wild Honey and Rye: Modern Polish Recipes

I dedicate this book to my Mama, Alicja, with whom I am fortunate to share everything, including a love of good Polish food, and who continues to pass on that heritage to me.

And to my late father, Longin Leon Marczak, who passed away during the year I began writing this book and who was so very proud to be Polish.

ONE
Sweet and savoury breakfasts | Sniadanie

TWO
Seasonal and raw salads | Saatki i surwki

THREE
Seasonal soups and market-inspired sides | Zupy, jarzyny i przystawki

FOUR
Light bites and street food | Zakaski i przekaski

FIVE
Food for family and friends | Przepisy dla rodziny i przyjaci

SIX
High tea: sweet treats and cakes | Podwieczorek na sodko

SEVEN
Fruit liqueurs and flavoured vodkas | Nalewki i wdki

If youre curious about the world, then food is a wonderfully satisfying way of approaching it because all human experience can be investigated through the food that appears on your plate theres always a story. Matthew Fort

A love of good food and pride in my Polish heritage are the two things that inspired me to write this book. When I first started writing about food six years ago, after a fairly bold leap from the courtroom as a criminal lawyer into the family kitchen as a new mother, I had no big plan, other than to weave a little more creativity into my life and to find ways of making the task of feeding my family into something more inspiring than an everyday chore. This leap opened up many new doors and I now spend every day doing what I love: cooking, trying new recipes, writing about food, travelling (when time allows), experiencing new food adventures and feeding my family. I dont believe that there is any secret formula to being a good cook and I am very much against prescriptive styles of cooking. Yes, cookbooks and television programmes can guide you, but theres no substitute for simply getting into the kitchen and experimenting.

These days, we are constantly exposed to new flavours and to new cuisines, particularly via the medium of the internet, and it is perhaps as a result of this explosion in online food tourism that we have become more adventurous and more willing to try something new. The enthusiasm to try the unfamiliar is part of what I hope encouraged you to buy, borrow or read this book. Pushing myself to try something new is how I ended up writing it.

Clockwise from top left: Ciocia Maryisia, Mama Alicja, Babcia Tekla Wilczek; me, leading a Polish Scout camp in Scotland; with my mum and friend Monica at my confirmation/bierzmowanie at the Polish Church of Divine Mercy, Manchester; in Polish national costume at the Polish Ex-Combatants Club, Manchester; my father, Longin (Leon), in the Polish Armed Forces in the West, WWII; my uncle Jeremi, father Longin and uncle Tadzik at their joint 90th birthday celebration (in Polish military uniform); Warsaw, circa 1952, (LR) my father Longin, mother Alicja, cousins Rysio and Jurek outside the Teatr Klasyczny; me and Dad during his 90th birthday celebrations; Polish family wedding, featuring homemade vodka and cakes my dad is on the far right; earliest photograph of my fathers family, the Marczaks, on their farmland in Uanska Dola, Woyn, near Targowice, Kresy, in Eastern Poland, The Borderlands, circa 1925; my father and his twin brother Jeremi in the Pierwsza Dywizja Pancerna the 1st Armoured Division, WWII, circa 1942.

Having been born in England and raised by parents who were post-Second World War migrs, my heritage has given me a unique perspective into the world of Polish food and culture. Polonia means Poland in Latin, but it is also the term assigned to the Polish diaspora: people of Polish ancestry or origin living outside of Poland around the world. We are a strong collective one of the largest in the world. I have grown up eating Polish food, whether through the recipes that my maternal grandmother, Babcia Tekla, passed on to my Mama, Alicja, or enjoying a plateful of scrambled eggs with kiebasa (Polish sausage) with snipped chives prepared by my dad, or sitting down to Wigilia our Polish Christmas Eve vigil meal with at least fifteen others around the table and the traditional spare place for the unexpected guest.

My father, Longin, and his twin, Jeremi (named after two characters in the Henryk Sienkiewicz novel Ogniem i Mieczem With Fire and Sword), were just sixteen and living in Poland when the war broke out. Their father, Stanisaw, had fought in the PolishBolshevik War many years earlier. In 1942, my father, his twin, their younger brother and my grandfather all fought with the Polish Armed Forces in the West after having been deported three years earlier to the far north Russian region of the Oblast Archangelsk, some 2,700 km (1,700 miles) from eastern Poland. My mothers parents were also deported and sent to work in an Austrian labour camp, only narrowly escaping with their lives. Theres no doubt that being forced to leave a country torn apart by war sharpened my parents nostalgia their desire to preserve their memories of Poland was a driving force, perhaps even the key to their survival in a new land, far away from everything they had previously known and loved. I am sure that this is the case for almost anyone who finds themselves displaced the pull to preserve is stronger when you havent been given a choice to leave.

I have often caught myself trying to reconcile the very Polishness of my upbringing with the British sleeve of my passport. Perhaps if I had been called Susan, I might have felt less Polish, but being the only Renatka in a class of British children did make me stand out a bit. We spoke Polish at home, and on Saturdays we went to Polish school. Sundays were usually spent at Polish church and thereafter at the Polish Ex-Combatants Club, where other Poles gathered and where we took part in recitals marking the Polish Constitution of 3 May 1791, or danced in folk costumes to bring some cheer to our homesick parents and grandparents. And then there was the food: my childhood favourites were pierogi with cream cheese, rather than macaroni cheese.

This upbringing, surrounded by a community of other post-war Polish migrs who found themselves in exactly the same position as my parents, is what shaped me. Their nostalgia, resolve, courage and a love of Poland through the good times and the bad has made me who I am today and continues to inspire me. I am proud of my dual-cultural heritage and I wave both the British and Polish flags with equal enthusiasm. Polish blood runs through my veins and yet my home has always been in Britain. Preserving our heritage has enriched me and it has influenced many paths that I have taken in life, from my choice of A levels to include Polish, to my decision to read Contemporary Eastern European Studies at the UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies, to my desire to write about Polish food, and to my travels to Poland, which continue to inspire me to hold on tightly to my roots. Many of my family still live in Poland, and it has always been a great pleasure connecting with them throughout my life and being able to slip into Polish conversation during my visits.