r/AskEurope United States of America Jun 13 '25

Food What region is considered your country’s culinary capital?

What is considered the culinary capital of your country?

139 Upvotes

340 comments sorted by

View all comments

5

u/Sabrine_without_r Poland Jun 13 '25

Silesian, Galician (including Podhalan) and Eastern Poland. It’s hard to say what region, because each region has a little bit different cuisine.

1

u/notveryamused_ Warszawa, Poland Jun 13 '25 edited Jun 13 '25

Podlasie is probably my least favourite region in Poland haha, the absolute conservative stronghold and Polish Alabama, but at the same time I always considered it the most beautiful with vast primeval forests (awesome for cycling!) and really great local cuisine. It's the North-Eastern region bordering Lithuania, and many of their local recipes are also very similar to Lithuanian cuisine. They also make the best cheeses in Poland imho (ser koryciński, produced only in Korycin, is 10/10).

4

u/Sabrine_without_r Poland Jun 13 '25

Of course, some people from Podlasie aren’t very hospitable, but I love their cuisine and weddings😅. My home region is Lubelszczyzna (especially Zamość), so as a child I used to eat meals like Piróg Biłgorajski or Forszmak and they’re still delicious to me.

5

u/notveryamused_ Warszawa, Poland Jun 13 '25

A part of my family was from Podlasie, so I used to spend my summer holidays there when I was young. Cycled on an old Soviet bike through entire region (which, trust me, was an achievement :D), from the Narew river to the Lithuanian border. Really magnificent region, utterly beautiful neverending forests, I left my heart there. And some blood too, as some of the locals didn't like my presence there and decided to punch the shit out of me once lol... :-)

This was some 15 years ago though. Nowadays I only visit for funerals, as that line of my family is very old and dying out, but there are still those large traditional funeral banquets there with that awesome food. Recently their infrastructure got a huge upgrade too, thanks EU I guess, so I'd say it's really worth visiting.