Savoring Polishness: History and Tradition in Contemporary Polish Food Media

The Past in Mediated Food Discourse

These perspectives and the future-oriented use of the culinary past constitute a central topic of our article. Individuals and communities articulate their social identity not only by positioning themselves in time but also by evaluating time periods as positive or negative, desirable or undesirable. In fact, images of the past can be used in representing and shaping the future. ⁴ Scenes similar to those described above recur frequently in the contemporary Polish food media landscape, appealing to cultural memory and tradition. For the purposes of this article, we refer to cultural memory—a form of collective memory ⁵ —as selective public knowledge about the past, produced by groups or institutions through professionals like teachers, journalists, writers, and artists and embodied in different forms of cultural communication, including popular media, in their unobvious, non-commemorative, and unintended framing of the past. ⁶ In this framework, the interpretation of the past should be understood as functional, contributing to a contemporary point of view, more than as descriptive. By tradition, we indicate both the social activity of selecting elements from the past to assemble a new and often “invented” contemporary formation, and the results of such activity. ⁷ Following Hobsbawm, we define tradition as a mechanism for identifying, selecting, using, and interpreting fragments of the past for the needs of the present. ⁸

The aim of this article is to analyze such features in the Polish media food discourse, in particular regarding food that is perceived as Polish both in terms of a national cuisine and its regional manifestations, and to understand how in popular culture different interpretations of food and culinary practices from the past are connected to contemporary debates about what Poland was, is, and will be. Such understandings are subject to constant negotiations among actors that do not command the same levels of power and have access to different forms of culinary capital, defined by Naccarato and LeBesco ⁹ as the use of food, food practices, and food knowledge to improve one’s status and enjoy social distinction. We contend that in the Polish context media representations of the culinary past co-create projects of modernization in which diverse voices vie for hegemony by embracing different forms of engagement with the West and by imagining the future shape of the community.

As a consequence, different interpretations of history, actively conducted through the selection or dismissal of specific elements of the past, provide the building blocks for divergent projects about what the nation was, is, or should (not) be and what sort of modernization it should undergo to achieve the preferred futures that various political, social, and cultural stakeholders strive for. ¹⁰ The analysis of the shifts taking place in the culinary field is relevant because they participate in larger reflections about the past of Poland ¹¹ : its complicated national history, its dismemberment, its reunification after World War I, its occupation by Nazi and Soviet armies during World War II, the four decades of the socialist People’s Republic of Poland (PPR), the post-socialist transformation, and accession to the European Union. In Poland, the revaluation of the past has become particularly crucial in civic debates, as the PiS (Prawo i Sprawiedliwość, “Law and Justice”) party, which currently controls the government, the judiciary, and part of the Parliament, has embarked on a profound and divisive reinterpretation of Polish history. ¹²

The current political debates about the legitimacy of those who took advantage of the fall of socialism and how the resulting power balance should be renegotiated are especially heated, together with controversies that oppose pride for the nation and national culture with forms of nationalism that at times acquire conservative and xenophobic tones. Against this background, definitions of Polishness and tradition in the realm of food have broader implications that reflect similar arguments (beyond the scope of this article) in discussions about museums and their educational mission, the participation of Poles in the Holocaust during the Nazi occupation, the role of art and media, and the centrality of religion and traditional family values in the national identity.

From this point of view, our article contributes to the growing literature on the role of food in cultural politics, especially around issues of nationhood, belonging, and class. Such research has explored context-specific interactions between global trends and local perspectives that require regional and national investigation. ¹³ Literature addressing these phenomena has appeared regarding the Americas, ¹⁴ Asia, ¹⁵ and Western Europe. ¹⁶ Interest in material culture and in particular in the cultural politics of food has emerged in studies about Central Eastern Europe, which have highlighted the presence of a variety of attitudes toward the contemporary market-based food system, ranging from embrace to refusal, from the continuation of pre-existing food networks and infrastructures to the creation of alternative food systems. ¹⁷ Our article builds on the contributions of scholars engaging with the issue of how food-related traditions and memory participate in the construction of post-socialist individual and communal identities in Central Eastern Europe. ¹⁸ As relatively little attention has been paid to the role of media in shaping contemporary foodscapes and the discourses surrounding them in Central Eastern Europe, ¹⁹ we hope our article contributes to closing that gap. ²⁰

Building on Alan Warde’s caveat on the “limits to the capacity of food to express personal identity,” ²¹ we do not assume that all Poles are equally responsive to food discourse in popular culture. However, food studies and media scholarship suggest that, by indicating desirable forms of consumption and aesthetics, representations in food media often offer quasi-pedagogical and aspirational depictions of the good life and establish categories of good taste. ²² A growing body of literature indicates that media representations both reflect and affect ideologies, mythologies, and worldviews. ²³ In this article, we build on the idea that food media, which co-create discourses about buying, cooking, and eating, contain elements of a “life project” in their repetitive message. This, in turn, is an important component in the transformation of everyday culture that is worth studying against the background of political and structural transformations in a post-socialist society. We believe that in such context, just as discourses about the past are not only about the past itself, food discourse is not only about food.

Discourse, however, does not coincide with practice: they are two distinct aspects of social life that are not directly translatable into each other, although they partly overlap and influence each other. In fact, imagination has been indicated in the literature as a field of social activity and interaction in contemporary societies. ²⁴ In this article, we will not make any claims about eating practices and assumptions about what Polish people actually do with the food representations offered by the media. We treat the worldview constructed by food media as a project about the desired future—as seen in the opening vignette—introduced and promoted by editors, food professionals, and trend-setters, instead of taking it at face value as a description of changing modes of consumption.

After illustrating our methodology and our strategic choices in analyzing Polish food media, we structure the article in three sections. The first one deals with the dynamics of collective memory and oblivion that reflect the unstable and shifting identities of successive generations of Poles. The second section focuses on how different and at times clashing interpretations of specific periods in the past of Poland are negotiated in the present through representations of material culture and practices revolving around food, generating both contrasting evaluations of the past and diverging economies of the future. The third section explores the dynamics of tradition as a set of present-day values, attitudes, and practices that are connected with the past, but can be transformed in the present. We finally offer our conclusions about the links between visions of the past and the future, highlighting the limits of this project and offering suggestions for further research.

Analyzing Polish Food Media

This article is based on a qualitative discourse analysis of popular food media (printed magazines and TV) in Poland. We selected our data according to three criteria: popularity in a quantitative sense, thematic angles and content, and diversity of assumed audiences. Following these parameters, we focused on three printed magazines: Przyślij przepis (“submit a recipe”), Przyjaciółka (“female friend”), and Kuchnia (which means both “kitchen” and “cuisine”). The monthly Przyślij przepis (with an average circulation of 142,868 copies per issue in 2020 ²⁵ ) has published recipes received from readers since 2007. Its format consists of recipes, amateur pictures, and very short comments from readers as the recipes’ authors, with very little editorial intervention. Published since 1948, the biweekly Przyjaciółka is one of the oldest Polish women’s magazines and still remains the most popular advice publication in Poland, with an average circulation of 195,341 copies per issue between November 2019 and October 2020. ²⁶ Its food column is extensive, revealing a didactic and instructional character. The general profile of this magazine and its food-related section is conservative and family-oriented. The monthly Kuchnia (subtitled Magazyn dla smakoszy, “magazine for gourmets”), printed between 1995 and 2019, aimed at integrating Polish readers into European culinary culture. Rather niche, with an average circulation of 29,324 copies per issue between October 2018 and September 2019, ²⁷ it became bimonthly in April 2019, finally moving to an online-only version in 2020.

We also selected the TV shows Jakubiak w sezonie (“Jakubiak in season”), which had its first season in 2011, and Jakubiak lokalnie (Jakubiak locally”), which premiered in 2013, both hosted by chef Tomasz Jakubiak. The show format, however, focuses more on the creative usage of the products framed as local by the celebrity chef than on the reproduction of “authentic” and “traditional” recipes. Jakubiak’s shows were broadcast on Canal+ Kuchnia (previously named Kuchnia TV, then Kuchnia+) available on the Canal+ satellite platform and on selected cable TV networks. Nowadays it is also to be found in the popular Polish on-demand video service player.pl.

We also chose Makłowicz w Polsce (“Makłowicz in Poland”), hosted in 2018 by one of the first food celebrities in the country after 1989, Robert Makłowicz. In talking about food produced in Poland, he links cuisine with travel, using a narrative he had successfully introduced in previous series on trips abroad. In Makłowicz w Polsce, broadcast on the Food Network after a falling-out with Polish public TV, he is “coming home,” but still performing the same kind of exploration he conducted when presenting foreign cuisines. Makłowicz w Polsce is also available on the on-demand video service player.pl.

The TV shows we examine are part of a shifting foodscape that shows growing appreciation for local, regional, Polish, and traditional food. Due to the nature of TV production, they reflect the point of view not only of the hosts but also of many other stakeholders such as managers, producers, and script writers. We mainly address media that are meant to entertain while explicitly sharing useful information that audiences can apply in their daily life in the domestic sphere. Therefore, our study does not extend to reality shows like the Polish editions of MasterChef and Top Chef, which highlight professional skills and attitudes, even when embodied by amateurs, and sources whose main goal is to provide advice about where to eat when eating out, such as online platforms as diverse as Yelp and the Gault Millau guidebook. We also did not address food blogs or social media profiles, which have become quite common but belong to a different genre, requiring a separate analysis.

We decided to analyze content from 2012 onward (with the exception of Jakubiak w sezonie, in case of which we use the full series starting in 2011) because in that year a few events took place that brought Poland into the cosmopolitan circuit of food media. Among these, the most important are the launch of the Polish edition of MasterChef and Cook it Raw Poland, a highly publicized visit by internationally renowned chefs including René Redzepi, accompanied by local chefs such as Wojciech Amaro. ²⁸ These events are often been indicated to us by local food professionals (in interviews and observational fieldwork which we conducted for a related ethnographic project) as marking the beginning of the “foodie revolution” in Poland. Following Johnston and Bauman, by foodie we mean “somebody who thinks about food not just as biological sustenance, but also as a key part of their identity, and a kind of lifestyle,” ²⁹ with a strong distinction component despite their embrace of omnivorousness and their declaration of inclusivity and openness to diversity. Our decision about 2012 as our starting year does not imply that nothing had happened in this field earlier—for example, the first season of Jakubiak w sezonie was launched, as we mentioned, in 2011, while Kuchnia magazine had been published for more than twenty years. The change in Polish food culture should be perceived as incremental rather than sudden, but an arbitrary decision had to be made for the sake of analysis. The last year our analysis covers is 2019, but most of the analysis focuses on the years 2012–2015, when new attitudes and perspectives became more visible in Polish food media.

The media we analyze clearly present two main approaches to culinary capital, which, however, are not necessarily directed at radically different audiences. The media that are explicitly connected with the recent circulation of the version of cosmopolitanism embraced by foodie culture are fully aware that they are introducing novel notions and values. Other media tend instead to stick to already existing but largely implicit forms of culinary capital that feel both familiar and natural to audiences. Such media are not immune to the integration of foreign elements, but do not explicitly celebrate it as a cosmopolitan and multicultural form of distinction.

We define the first approach to food communication, which we have identified especially in Kuchnia and the TV shows we examined, as “foodie.” It addresses itself to people linking their interest in food with free time, eating out, and traveling (both in Poland and abroad), all in the form of highly knowledge-intensive activities, while promoting diversity and a certain aestheticization of food that is often linked to global trends and circuits of expertise. The other approach, which is visible in Przyślij przepis and the food column in Przyjaciółka, can be defined as “pragmatic.” It mostly focuses on forms of cooking that hinge in the first place on the idea of “feeding the family” and eating at home. The recipes’ rhetoric seems to assume that readers evaluate them according to the priorities imposed by “family taste” and the preferences of the family members rather than by external sources like experts, reviewers, or foreign reference points. In Przyślij przepis in particular, the recipes, written in the first person, directly highlight not expertise but the approval of loved ones.

We frame these two approaches as ideal types in the Weberian sense—analytical constructions that may not exist as pure and clearly defined in reality. ³⁰ Ideal types have already been adapted and applied in food-related research to identify and select “recurring features and elements across observations that may or may not be present in all instances, while contributing to observing and interpreting the dynamics underlying the observed phenomena.” ³¹ Specific items or texts reflecting one approach may appear in media that mainly feature material representing the other approach, revealing a certain porosity between them. What the two approaches to food communication have in common is the presentation of food as an area of interest rather than simply daily chores, something pleasant more than a burden. They both try to overcome everyday unreflexive cooking practices by widening the culinary repertoire of readers, introducing innovations, or projecting their vision of a better culinary future. They both try to balance between tradition and innovation.

In terms of methodology, we parsed the media material inductively, carefully reading and watching the material and searching for themes that related to the idea of Polish food. Through this examination, we identified the following themes as both recurring and discursively impactful: tradition, nation and Polish cuisine, time and history, memory and oblivion, the attention to specific historical periods, space and places, regions and regional cuisines, ethnic food in Poland, as well as artisanal food production and producers. We then decided to organize our analysis around the past, collective memory, and tradition as the key interpretive categories to analyze the emerging themes.

Memory and Oblivion as Future-Oriented Strategies

What makes elements of the past important and worth remembering, and what condemns other elements to intentional amnesia? In our analysis, we recognized recurrent trajectories of collective (in this case: cultural) recollection and oblivion in the media content that evaluate particular historical periods as good for food production and culinary culture, and others as negative. History legitimizes food products, manufacturing methods, and dishes, which through their mediatization tell a story about a community and how the food experts think it wants to represent itself—for example, by choosing favorite or desirable parts of the past and erasing others. ³² In other words, the rediscovery of “forgotten” food practices and ingredients, as well as the use of language hinging on the idea of “return” (or remembering, reinventing, reconstructing, etc.), reflects larger dynamics regarding cultural memory and oblivion.

As Polish society and statehood have undergone huge transformations during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, contrasting appreciations of historical periods coexist, at times competing with each other. Culinary discourse, which sometimes explicitly covers the topic of national and historical foods, becomes a part of broader negotiations and valuation processes. As we will discuss in greater detail in the next section, debates about the impact of the socialist period—usually interpreted by contemporary Poles as destructive, more rarely as a modernizing force—and the issue of German/Prussian, Russian, and Austro-Hungarian heritage become central in establishing historical interpretations. However, discourse on memory and oblivion is shaped differently in the two approaches of food media content we identified as pragmatic and foodie, with the former embracing a strongly ahistorical approach and the latter intensely engaging with the collective past.

Very little institutional, regional, or national past can be found in the Przyjaciółka food column and in the Przyślij przepis recipes, except for—as we will see—some nostalgic memories framed as personal and coinciding with the socialist period. In this case, we could not speak about complete oblivion of particular historical periods; however, more elaborated narratives about the common roots of culinary techniques, products, and tastes are almost absent. Private, intrafamily traditions become the more legitimate mechanism of framing past foodways.

In Kuchnia, instead, both Polish and foreign history are much more visible. The historical origins of methods and styles of food production play an important role as a distinguishing feature that favors a foodie approach, geared toward readers who are interested in food not only as nourishment and pleasure but also as a form of knowledge. In general, the historical background provides context to better understand food and is also used to stylize it as an aesthetic object. For example, in the Kuchnia article on faworki, the traditional deep fried pastries eaten during Carnival, a photograph of a stained page from an old cookbook (probably a non-existing one) is used to illustrate the text. ³³ Similarly, an article on Easter pastries presents a picture of an old cookbook in the background. ³⁴ In Kuchnia, there is also a regular column explicitly dedicated to food history, with authors such as noted food historian Jarosław Dumanowski exploring and explaining the origins and development of dishes and products. An article by Dumanowski ³⁵ discussing the Polish tradition of fasting in specific periods of the Catholic calendar was accompanied by recipes based on “old Polish” cookbooks and elaborated by chef Maciej Nowicki, who is in charge of public programming at the Museum of the Wilanów Royal Palace in Warsaw. In Kuchnia, the past becomes historical knowledge about food that goes beyond family memories tinted with nostalgia, as we observe in more pragmatic editorial content. Such a historical approach contributes to establish and legitimize objective forms of authenticity, ³⁶ interpreted as knowledge-based accordance to an original model that is verifiable by experts and experienced as accurate. We think that collecting this form of knowledge and understanding of the mechanism of its reproduction becomes inscribed in the foodie cosmopolitan worldview. ³⁷

The loss of particular practices, dishes, and products is a recurring topic both in Kuchnia and in Makłowicz’s show. This content is accompanied by descriptions of the activities undertaken for the purpose of reminding, reinventing, reconstructing, or reclaiming such lost food-related practices. As we saw in the opening vignettes, the motif of rediscovery or restoration of elements that had been almost destroyed during the “culinary barbarity” of the socialist period presents itself in different guises. Dynamics of forgetting and rescuing food from presumed oblivion are crucial, mirroring the complexities of Polish collective memory after 1989, which alternatively exposes or hides selected periods of the past. It results in the paradox that what was old is presented as newly introduced. For instance, in Kuchnia we read about “forgotten vegetables,” as evoked by the Warsaw-based chef Robert Skubisz: “They used to be common, then forgotten, today they return to favor. The best chefs serve scorzonera (black salsify), parsnips, and Jerusalem artichoke, they rediscover celery and parsley.” ³⁸

Part of this collective remembrance in food media are stories of specific people (mentioned by name) and institutions engaged in reconstructing history-based food products and practices, which leave the impression that the past needs not only reflexive advocates and narrators but also practitioners with the necessary skills to bring back tangible elements of material culture. For example, century-old sweet cherry cultivars in the Wojsławice Arboretum, situated in the Niemczańskie Hills, and the agricultural efforts that surround them are described in Kuchnia magazine. ³⁹ In the first episode of the Makłowicz w Polsce TV show, ⁴⁰ host Robert Makłowicz visits the Rządcówka restaurant in a spa hotel complex in the town of Chobienice, where he talks to the chef who prepares and serves historical recipes, as evidenced by books shown on screen. The chef also speaks about crayfish bisque as a historical Polish dish that must be, at the moment, prepared with crayfish imported from the United States, while “crayfish breeding is being restored in Poland.”

Similarly, the figure of “the last person who knows” (or rather, in this case, who makes), often mentioned in relation to almost forgotten dishes and recipes, is quite visible in Kuchnia and Makłowicz w Polsce. For example, in a Kuchnia article in the Tasty history [Smakowita historia] section, author Piotr Krzyżanowski describes the forgotten traditions of the northeastern Kurpie region that are rediscovered and preserved by local enthusiasts. ⁴¹ In an article published in Kuchnia’s Guarantee of taste [Gwarancja smaku] section about the traditional sękacz from the Suwałki region in the Northeast—a type of layered cake, slowly baked over a fire by rotating a spit and pouring a batter on it—we are told that “a real sękacz is slowly cooked over an open fire. Krystyna Mosiewicz from Berzniki is one of the last housewives in the Suwałki region to make it using this method.” ⁴² What we can observe here is the process of how these saviors of allegedly forgotten traditions, skillful in their manual crafts, still need the legitimation of a journalist or a narrator, who has the necessary expertise and culinary capital to discover them. Again, it is not only the practice itself that is important, but selecting, naming, and announcing it as newly restored from the past.

In foodie material, the appreciation of the past is perceived as an almost unilinear evolution, reaching a future goal that is predetermined by frameworks originating from outside of Poland. Let us recall, once again, an excerpt from the Jakubiak show we mentioned in the introduction: “Most European countries are famous for their cuisine based on seasonal local products. This is definitely missing in Poland. I’ll change it.” ⁴³ Using history as a resource for reconstructing old and forgotten food preparations is perceived as an inherently and incontrovertibly commendable endeavor, almost as a necessity that Polish culinary culture must finally engage with. In this approach, the reason for the enthusiastic embrace of fragments from the past, such as old ingredients, disappearing plant and animal varieties, or recipes, is to be found less in nationalistic pride in the country’s history (or regional histories) than in the influence of widely spread foodie cosmopolitan trends, which increasingly consider traditions as an antidote to the globalized, dehumanized, and unhealthy industrialized food system. ⁴⁴ In other words, reaching out to Polish past turns out to be partially an imitative strategy.

The reinvention of the past of Polish food and the focus on the West as a reference point in evaluating it belong to the postcolonial repertoire of mechanisms referring to external sources of social progress and respect in the quest for Polish identity. ⁴⁵ Motivated by the desire to acquire international visibility and recognition, comparisons between one’s “own” Polish culinary past and similar occurrences in Western Europe constitute both a source of pride and an involuntary demonstration of an implicit inferiority complex:

At the famous and now closed Spanish restaurant El Bulli, specializing in molecular cuisine, its creator Ferran Adrià served calamus, young pine shoots, and maple milk. He certainly did not know that these sophisticated snacks, costing tens of euros, were an everyday delicacy for Kurpian children. ⁴⁶

The international comparisons are important because they inscribe references to Polish history into a broader frame of appreciation for what’s one’s own and national without being parochial and antimodern, which seems crucial for the pro-European segments of Polish society after 1989. Local, regional, and national Polish history gains recognition through a gaze that internalizes what Poles assume are the points of views of outsiders, considered as more advanced and modern. In doing so, foodie media material at time displays an attitude that can be described as a form of self-colonization ⁴⁷ that identifies external sources of civilization while decrying internal backwardness.

This frame of mind also leads us to reconsider the two centuries in which Poland did not exist as a country but was divided between the Russian, Prussian, and Austro-Hungarian empires. Makłowicz often refers to the latter two as an antidote to the socialist “destruction” of food culture. Poland’s partition and the period before World War II, when the western areas of today’s Poland were part of Germany, serve as sources of historical narratives that link Polish cuisine with its Western European roots, rather than with its Eastern heritage. This is the case for wine production in former German territory. ⁴⁸ The thorny issue of German heritage in Polish culture may be analyzed within an interpretive framework often used for collective memory and identity construction, although not usually applied to food. Tomasz Zarycki identifies differences in contemporary Polish memory between Western and Eastern influences: while the former (Prussian or Austro-Hungarian) is linked to the idea of civilization, the latter (Russian and Soviet) is almost always unambiguously associated with stagnation or backwardness. ⁴⁹ This mechanism, if we interpret it correctly, serves once again as a tool of westernization in today’s Poland through the narration of selected fragments from the past as a future-oriented, productive resource.

Good Times, Bad Times: Evaluating the Past in Light of the Future

History understood as a particular, agreed upon narrative about the past induces a variety of evaluations not only because it can be used for different purposes but also because it involves diverse actors that examine, discover, and describe the past in ways that reflect their priorities and their values.

Although cultural memory and tradition are collective processes, they both reveal personal dimensions. When referring to periods of the past for which ambivalent interpretations exist, historical food narratives become part of broader negotiations and debates about identity, which are far from consensual in today’s Poland. Private memories and nostalgia are intertwined with divergent evaluations of historical periods. This ambivalence mainly refers to socialism. Although—as we already stated—history is not prominently featured in the Przyjaciółka food column and in the Przyślij przepis recipes, in pragmatist texts the socialist period, if mentioned at all, is framed by nostalgia: “Oatmeal balls: Grandma made them in the 1980s when there were no sweets in the stores.” ⁵⁰ The taste of the socialist Polish People’s Republic (PPR) is associated with childhood positive sensual memories and presented as a personal, although widely shared, experience rather than discussed and problematized.

In some of Kuchnia’s articles and in the TV shows we examined, the role of the PPR is important, although unresolved. On the one hand, the socialist period may be the only food heritage within reach; as in the pragmatic approach, it is remembered nostalgically from childhood or remaining at the disposal of some. On the other hand, nostalgia for PPR products seems to connect individual sensory and affective memories from childhood and youth with collective history, but the process is not necessarily smooth. In fact, the PPR is mostly perceived as a destroyer of culinary traditions, knowledge, and etiquette. For example, the current lack of fish in the typical Polish diet may be attributed to its overuse as an inevitable substitute for meat: “Back then [under socialism, an] there was more fish, it was cheaper. But we underestimated it. We used to say: ‘eat cod, shit is worse’. [. . .] Luckily, people are getting acquainted with fish again.” ⁵¹ In other occurrences, the loss of tradition is attributed by default to the practices of the average and low-quality socialist food industry: “Smoked meats are a Polish specialty that we should be proud of. A specialty, let’s add, which was almost wiped off the face of the earth by the war years and the PPR.” ⁵² Also, wine production is described as completely erased by the centrally controlled food industry of the communist period. ⁵³ Such dynamics are underlined in his TV show by Makłowicz, who—as we mentioned in the introduction—in episode 3 ⁵⁴ presented an empty hill in Lubuskie region as a symbol of the gap in wine production. The archetype of empty land awaiting to be made productive again may be read as a metaphor of a wider lack of human activity in a given historical period which links to issues of civilizing and modernizing power. Polish culture and society—as we already mentioned—tend to overlook or even deny the positive or modernizing aspects of the PPR. ⁵⁵ In the area of food and nutrition, the socialist authorities strived to ensure food for all citizens by making production more efficient ⁵⁶ and changing traditional food habits through food advice. ⁵⁷ As such initiatives often failed, what most Poles remember are the sudden spikes in food prices, the limited availability of many products, the long lines in front of grocery stores, and the corruption that these phenomena generated.

Indeed, very few well-known food products from the PPR are recalled as worthy of a revival; they represent continuity with pre-socialist times rather than post-war creativity. For example, processed fried cheese from Nowy Tomyśl, an industrial product from the PPR period, is described both in Kuchnia ⁵⁸ and in Makłowicz’s show ⁵⁹ as almost artisanal, because it reminds consumers of well-known homemade regional dishes. In his travels through Poland, Jakubiak explores not only individual artisanal productions in the countryside but also small, semi-industrial plants operating in cities since the post-war period. In the first episode of Jakubiak lokalnie, ⁶⁰ we see him visit a small bakery in Lublin, where we are told that during socialism the owners had to produce bread and the typical onion rolls from the region in accordance with official state recipes, while after 1989 they were able to reintroduce their own, transmitted within the family. Vodka, which was widely available in the PPR, is also undergoing this treatment of reinterpretation and refinement. In a Polish vodka review in Kuchnia, we read, “It is a great drink that harks back to the style of exported rye vodkas from the old times.” ⁶¹

The fact that references to the past do not constitute a coherent narrative applies also to the most recent history. We witness the continuation of a “catastrophic chronology” that extends to the period after the collapse of socialism: the post-1989 transformation is interpreted as not generative in terms of food culture, if not entirely destructive. In this chronology, capitalism entered Poland in the 1990s and increased mass production and the wide distribution of industrial items through supermarkets, killing what remained of culinary traditions. The story about the forgotten cherry trees we pointed out in Kuchnia provides an interesting example. The author of the article writes,

First, they [the cherry trees] were hurt by socialism, because when large-scale state-owned farms were created, cherries growing on bordering paths and roads among fields were cut down. Later, under capitalism, trees along the roads are cut down en masse to ensure the safety of drivers, answers the naturalist. Are there any roadside cherry-tree-lined avenues left from before the war? ⁶²

However, the post-1989 period, with the introduction of the free market economy, is also described as a time of “renewal”: its modernizing power is able to fill empty hills and fields. The newly introduced capitalist system turns out to have some benefits in terms of food heritage, according to the foodie media voice. The latter can be observed, for example, in how carp fish production is described in Kuchnia: “It was only thanks to the free market and the growing sense of local identity that the Carp Festival was reactivated several years ago.” ⁶³

How to interpret the tension in the contradictory attribution of values and disruptions to historical realities? Without any doubt, references to a vague past give a stamp of authenticity, even when they end up representing an imaginary lost paradise. In such cases, it may not really matter which past is being discussed, because the general idea, rather than factual details, is crucial here. Second, alternative or competing food histories express the complex path of the reconstruction of Polish identity after World War II and 1989, which includes controversies about what should or should not become part of the national heritage. Such debates are clearly linked to the question of who are the actors that make reference to the past and engage in its reconstruction. The “discovery” of the past by TV shows’ hosts or magazine writers may be read as a move by outsiders who not only look down on the local people by telling them about their own tradition but also make choices for them, all while deciding about the proper identity symbols for the national “we.” Third, juggling with historical elements and using them in different configurations allow chefs and food authors to remain creative, rather than simply reproducing well-known recipes while staying within accepted culinary knowledge that is considered objective and fact-based. The interaction between reproduction and invention is examined in the following section of this article.

Tradition and Transformation

Can the past be modified? What is the place of innovation? Ideas about the past, as remembered through collective memory processes, inevitably interact with concepts, values, and attitudes that hinge on tradition, which we understand as a social construct used to link the past with the concerns and priorities of the present in terms of the construction of a preferred future. The ambivalence about tradition that can be detected in the Polish popular food discourse deserves particular attention. In mediatized food discourse, Polish tradition is treated in different, even contradictory, ways: as self-evident and well-known or in need of discovery and definition, appreciated or criticized, included in or excluded from lifestyle projects. Context and aesthetics that frame discussions of tradition ⁶⁴ contribute to the didactic message of media outlets promoting different kinds of culinary capital. In this section, we focus on the tension between the search for the traditional and the attempts at overcoming it to taste the future by being innovative, original, and unconventional.

The tension appears unresolved in the content from Przyślij przepis and Przyjaciółka, which provide numerous examples of the pragmatic approach. The most conservative in terms of framing the family and gender roles, these magazines adopt two distinct attitudes toward tradition, which nevertheless can appear concurrently. The first attitude mostly emerges regarding well-known and respected practices that must be performed during the holidays, especially Christmas and Easter, which are particularly important in Polish popular culture. For the magazines we identified as tendentially pragmatic, tradition is performed in everyday life and in the present. It can be personalized and individualized as long as the variations come from the family. For example, Przyjaciółka states, “Traditional pork. It is the most popular type of meat in Polish cuisine.” ⁶⁵

The picture that emerges in Przyślij przepis is similar. Some of the recipes’ authors declare, “I cook traditional Polish dishes,” often referring to their mothers and grandmothers as authority figures. Tradition consists of the practices learnt from grandmothers or less often grandfathers, as, for example, in the magazine’s Szkoła babci [Grandma’s school] column, where recipes are presented as prepared in readers’ households “for ages.” Although presented as old, they are far from being traditional in a narrow, “objective” sense that relies on expertise: the judges who can decide about a food being traditional are family members. Tradition is personalized and individualized, connected to emotions, feeling, and memories rather than to external knowledge. It is identified with the domestic and linked to particular people often mentioned by name (like, for example, the “mixture of grandpa Kazio” of fried eggs and cold meats cut into pieces ⁶⁶ ).

Without invalidating this understanding, pragmatic, home-oriented food media present a second, more future-oriented attitude, according to which tradition can be developed into something newer and better. In Przyjaciółka, this problem is solved by introducing the idea of intergenerational differences and appreciation for the occasional slight innovation:

The younger [generation], although it loves the flavors known from childhood, is also eager to experiment a bit with, for example, new ingredients or combinations. They are also in favor of making dishes that are less labor-intensive and in smaller portions. ⁶⁷

According to the pragmatic media approach, however, traditions may be changed and personalized through inter-family food preparation rather than by gathering expert knowledge or following the food elites’ choices:

They [mother and daughter] will definitely bake cakes together: yeast cake, cheesecakes, and mazurkas. They learned to do them together. First, the daughter watched the mother, then the mother took some recipes from her daughter. This is how they build their own tradition. ⁶⁸

In Przyjaciółka, we encounter the motive of the comparison between mothers’ and daughters’ ways of cooking for celebrations, which acknowledges existing intergenerational tensions but defuses them by consistently co-opting new elements.

In Przyślij przepis, despite the official praise for what is understood as traditional, many recipes are far from reproducing widespread notions of tradition, even to the extent of being hilarious, like in the case of head cheese with curry and noodles [salceson z curry i makaronem] ⁶⁹ —an unusual combination to say the least. They may also, for example, recommend preparing traditional dishes “in a different way” [inaczej]. Old recipes may be transformed by adding ready-made, industrially produced seasonings: “The recipe is over 100 years old. I found it in grandma’s notebook. I changed it a little by adding broth cubes and vegeta [a popular, ready-made condiment, based on dehydrated vegetables, salt and flavor enhancer].” ⁷⁰ Some recipes are really unusual and leave an impression of baroque excess. Readers presenting recipes declare they “invented” or “created” them. Words that are repeatedly used to describe dishes and recipes presented in this magazine include “experiment,” “invention,” “innovation,” “improvisation,” and “improvement,” as opposed to plain and expected. This kind of discourse does not deny the evolution of tradition through individual creativity, but it frames it within the continuation and reaffirmation of family values and traditional culture that are implicitly placed at the core of national progress.

The media content we have identified as foodie also suggests mixing well-known Polish dishes with other non-traditional or even anti-traditional elements. For example, we find references to grandmother’s and mother’s dishes that have undergone some changes, as in the case of specialties from the Leszczyński region (“from the heart of Poland”) in the interpretation by chef Patryk Wróblewski of—among others—pyry (a typical boiled potato dish from the city of Poznan), presented with fried cheese and roasted vegetables instead of the usual fresh soft cheese, cream, and onions. ⁷¹ There is also nothing wrong about serving shrimp curry on Christmas ⁷² or suggesting that a change in Easter dishes is needed. ⁷³

In Kuchnia, which we identified as prevalently foodie, we find examples of negotiations between the “old” (“local, “Polish”) and the “new” (“foreign,” “exotic,” “newly introduced”) that may be understood as another incarnation of the tension between tradition and creativity. As we already mentioned, in this magazine culinary inspiration from the past is highly valued. However, although playing with the ingredients or general concept of the dish, the experts’ interpretations and innovations seem less free-wheeling than in the pragmatist material and more preoccupied with accuracy, authenticity (both anthropological and historical), and categories of taste shared in cosmopolitan foodie circles.

In Makłowicz w Polsce, the host declares in the first episode of the series, when he travels to the Wielkopolska area in Western Poland,

We touched on the subject of the first Piasts [the first Polish royal dynasty], but that does not mean that I will go here and look for guys dressed in leather or armor, who mix prehistorical groats [prakasza] with honey from wild bees. It is about today’s cuisine from the Wielkopolska region. Contemporary, but still rooted in the past, but not so distant past. ⁷⁴

The erudite mention of ancient Polish history links the present culinary traditions with a glorious past, while it is made less threatening by connecting it with the contemporary. Leaving a narrow space for innovation, while at the same time asserting its necessity, means that desirable forms of cultural capital are elusive and not readily available. One should know what it means to go “too far” in the authorial interpretation of tradition. Therefore, proper usage of tradition is, again, an exclusive resource entangled in identity tensions, all while being a part of an “us” project.

Tradition in foodie media is often observed from an outsider point of view. This approach—particularly evident in Kuchnia and in the Makłowicz’s show but also detectable in Jakubiak’s series—reveals the above-mentioned self-colonizing mode of knowledge that implies an external, superior, more refined observer as the one who is able to truly appreciate what is good and claims legitimacy to do so, based on expertise, education, and fame. This point of view is external in a twofold sense: as elitist inside Polish society and in consonance with what is considered “European.” The respect for tradition—and for history as a source of legitimacy—is an aspirational reflection of value globally circulating among cosmopolitan foodies, possibly counterbalancing feelings of shame toward Polish culinary traditions. Understanding one’s own history and the traditional practices that are rooted in it is also a process that must be learnt or taught, as in Jakubiak’s show or this restaurant review in Kuchnia: “Tomasz Trąbski does not stop in a place, he travels, tries, and learns new tastes. He found the best flavors in Polish products, which he proudly displays on the menu of the Concordia Taste restaurant in Poznań.” ⁷⁵ In this worldview, the contemporary appreciation for traditional food and the innovation that derives from its expert use are somehow outward-oriented, associated with a future and a project of national progress that look for legitimacy in external sources.

What Future?

The discourse on food, as shaped by popular media, is not a mere description mirroring reality, but instead it contributes to its construction. In both pragmatic and foodie Polish food media content, the past may not be the main dimension of the discourse, but we claim it is central to understanding the role of food and cooking in contemporary Poland. Our analysis suggests that somehow paradoxically usage of the past is a part of the narrative about the future.

The use of categories linked to the past is more visible in foodie material, as it contributes to establishing authenticity, expertise, and externally legitimized prestige, while it tends to be taken for granted in the pragmatic approach, as part of everyday life. What the pragmatic and foodie types of approaches have in common is a certain resistance to banality and the desire of overcoming it in the future. However, what lies ahead is understood in different ways.

In the pragmatic approach, the future is immediate. The horizon is the next meal or the next holiday celebration where you want to appear innovative and above all to please friends and family in ways they can enjoy. The future is about a personal and domestic idea of progress, making home more interesting, even entertaining or surprising, against the background of well-known and cherished traditions. Any projected change is focused on domesticity, the sphere of close affective ties, and the appreciation of the cook, a very important aspect when introducing new foods or variations on familiar ones. Family and the values it reflects emerge as central in a vision of the national future that fundamentally continues the present; such a model of modernization shuns radical upheavals in existing social structures and looks for internal sources of legitimacy rather than for foreign models.

In the foodie approach—upheld by food elites and experts—there is also a more distant horizon. In this vision, Polish cuisine becomes part of a cosmopolitan circulation of ideas, values, and practices, and as such it has the potential to measure up to the highest international standards. This is a “Polishness” that uses the past as building material while providing fuel for these visions of the future. This perspective reflects what foodies are doing everywhere in the world, which includes rediscovering history and traditions as elements in legitimate forms of expert and authoritative innovation. This future is predicated on exploration and transformation, and it aims at redesigning (some might say reinventing) Polish food in ways that can be compared to other important national cuisines. Words like “finally” and “eventually” [wreszcie, nareszcie], used to describe the new food trends in Poland, suggest not only an implicit purpose but also external reference points against which the state of Polish food culture needs to be assessed. Its uniqueness and originality are sought after as a remedy to what foodie circles criticize as global uniformity, which does not appear to be a concern in the pragmatic material. In the language used when speaking about Polishness and personal, regional, and national history, we can recognize a self-colonizing attitude that, in a search for its own character, accepts and internalizes external standards and projects about the future, and that at a deeper level pursues imitation and assimilation.

As we based our argument on the analysis of specific media, it would be useful to test our conclusions on other magazines and TV shows. The exploration could be further expanded to include websites, blogs, and social media, in which it could be possible to conduct different forms of digital ethnography. The examination of visual and audio material from the Internet would surely provide interesting elements that could be integrated in our analysis or question its conclusions.

Regardless of its inevitable limits, we believe our research has shown the relevance of framing the past in Polish food media. An extremely important building block for the present and the future, the past is also a resource to establish progress, whatever this may be according to one’s cultural and political persuasions. The appreciation and proper interpretation of personal, regional, or national culinary history become tools for cultural upgrading. It is not surprising that by enforcing particular types of aesthetics, food discourse—with its influence on lifestyle formation—can be understood as part of deliberate projects of modernization, which in the foodie approach includes comfortably sitting at the same table with other modern, Western nations, while the pragmatic material is focused inward, on the betterment of family and community. Media eagerly evoke a past which becomes not only a safe tool for individual creativity, but is supposed to allow Poles to catch up with an imagined collective future in which their country has overcome the painful transformation process that followed the end of socialism. The outcome of this process is still up for grabs, causing continuing social and political strife. Food discourse and its reflection in the media can provide a unique entryway to explore such tensions in everyday life and the attitudes that underlie it.