Big Potatoes: The History of Potatoes in Poland

In 1821, Adam Mickiewicz wrote a poem. One perhaps less well-known than Pan Tadeusz, but worth discovering. The poem Kartofla (Potato), which Mickiewicz never finished and wasn’t published during his lifetime, describes the pleasures of life in the countryside, when suddenly… a potato jumps off of the stove and demands attention.

Adam Mickiewicz:

“While a poet praises vegetables with his lyre
Suddenly, a potato pipes up from the fire:
Orders now the lute to be set to song
So the poet rhymes as he goes along:
Thanks to God's great power, the old is now new,
From disordered worlds a construction grew;
How then, when grand millennia passed,
A certain Hebrew man made new faith for us.
While the auld Greek gods, suffering sorry fates,
Made worlds out of chaos, fleeing in great haste,
That Columbus frightened them with his brave attack
As he sailed the seas, then came roaring back,
And the Lord our God with his saints judged worth
Of Columbus' trail … so on and so forth.”
(Shetato – A Wee Poem in Four Songs, translation by Marek Kaźmierski)

A king & his gardener

Bringing potatoes to Poland is attributed to King Jan III Sobieski (he is said to have sent a big sack of potatoes to his wife Marysieńka during the Vienna siege), but it was Paweł Wienczarek, a gardener of the Wilanów Palace grounds, who planted the exotic tubers in the gardens of Wilanów.

Later, his son-in-law, Jan Łuba, popularised potato-growing in Warsaw, during the reign of King August Mocny. As the story goes, Łuba would bring carts full of potato seedlings all the way from Saxony.

The king, craving this delicious treat, demanded to be served a plate of fried potatoes ­­with his meals each day. As popularity of this luxurious treat grew, gardeners in noblemen’s estates began experimenting with the controversial vegetable.

Although, at first they did not have much success – no frost-resistant varieties were known at the time and their experience in potato preservation and growing was lacking.

In his Opis Obyczajów za Panowania Augusta III (A Description of Customs under the Reign of August III), Jan Kitowicz points out:

“Poles were disgusted with potatoes and considered them harmful to human health.

Some priests even tried to convince simple folk that potatoes had adverse health effects. The priests didn’t believe what they were saying, but wanted to make sure that Poles would not acquire the German liking for potatoes and would not replace wheat flour with potato starch in the altar offerings, which would be an act of sacrilege.

Nevertheless, by the end of the reign of King August III, potatoes were known all over Poland, Lithuania and Ruthenia.”

Sustenance for the poor

However, it was only in the 19th century that potatoes gained economic significance in Poland. More and more cookbooks were published containing a growing number of recipes, some of them quite weird, with potatoes taking centre stage.

Jan Szyttler, the author of pioneering cookbooks of the age of Romanticism, next to recipes for potato dumplings or pâtés that seem banal and common today, added a somewhat surprising recipe for potato pickles, the so-called kartofla wiosenna (spring potato):

Very small potatoes should be used for such pickles. After boiling, the potatoes had to be cooled in icy water and when cooled completely: ‘each should be peeled separately, placed in a jar and covered with boiled white vinegar flavoured with spices’.

Along with German and American potato farming methods and recipes, ways of producing starch and alcohol from potato bulbs were also transplanted to Poland. In the first half of the 19th century, vodka-making handbooks, such as Praktyczne Gorzelnictwo (Practical Distillation), published in 1841, were quite popular. Some authors claimed that potato bulbs could be used not only to make vodka but were also perfect for… the production of wine.

A brochure entitled O Syropie Kartoflanym i o Winie z Syropu Kartoflanego (On Potato Syrup and on Wine Made of Potato Syrup), published in 1861, provides information about such a wine, for use by ‘those less well-off’.

‘Potato-starch syrup (…) produced in Lachowice, in the factory of Izydor Pietruski, a widely respectable citizen’, was behind the attempts to make potato wine, using fruit as the fermenting agent. Wine produced this way, containing potato syrup and some potato gum, could be stored for as long as 20 years:

Potatoes are an essential ingredient of the famous Rumford’s soup, which was often fed to those less fortunate. This nutritious soup was served by philanthropic-minded people in Munich as well as Warsaw and Kraków.

The recipe was invented by Benjamin Thompson Rumford, an American living at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries, who escaped to Europe during the American War of Independence.

His research led to the creation of a dish which, according to the knowledge at the time, was perfectly balanced nutritionally and was easily affordable.

According to the original recipe, to make Rumford’s soup you needed 1 part pearl barley, 1 part peas, 4 parts potatoes, and chunks of bread. The name of this soup was even used as the title of a painting by a Kraków-based artist, Hipolit Lipiński, who captured a charity event organised in front of St Mary’s Church in Kraków.

The soup reached Polish lands in the early 19th century. It was cooked by charitable associations that run kitchens for the poor and homeless. In Warsaw, for example, there was a Rumford’s Soup Society. It operated for many years and served tens of thousands portions of this soup to the poorest Varsovians.

The rise and fall... and rise of the potato

In the second half of the 19th century, Henryk Dołkowski bred potato varieties which could compete with the German varieties which were dominant at the time. Polish potato seedlings became popular in Hungary, Germany and Bulgaria, and, in the late 19th century, were even awarded at different agricultural expos.

Potato cultivation continued during the interwar period and brought over 100 potato varieties to Polish farmers and tables, in the form of potato dumplings, noodles, pancakes and pies. Potato-based recipes were not only presented in cookbooks but also in magazines addressed to the working class or women. Cookbooks devoted specifically to potatoes also began popping up.

World War II largely destroyed Polish achievements in potato growing, especially in the parts of Poland incorporated into the III Reich. Thus, as soon as the war was over, Polish scientists immediately started to rebuild the potato industry. They were successful – the potato became one of the most important foods in Poland under the communist regime.

In the 1940s and ‘50s, in the face of food shortages, it became necessary to base daily diets on potatoes, and thus, an abundance of recipes for potato dishes imitating popular meat dishes such as meat loafs, meat balls or meat cutlets were created.

In the 1950s, in reply to a critique of their modest menu published in Życie Warszawy (The Life of Warsaw) daily, the management of Milk Bars Company wrote with dignity: ‘the milk bars that have appropriate facilities will cook and sell potato dishes, accompanied of course by curd milk.’

Cookery books dedicated to potato dishes had also been published before 1939, but in it was only in the 1980s that a book entitled 500 Potraw z Ziemniaków (500 Potato Dishes)by Bolotnikov and Vapielnik was translated from Belarusian and published in Poland. Its introduction highlighted the importance of potatoes in the cuisine of the USSR and other Eastern Bloc countries.

Today, thirty years after the fall of communism, the potato is regaining its prominent place in Polish cuisine, and its different varieties are sought out by Polish chefs. Over 120 varieties of potato are currently grown in Poland, but still, there is little knowledge about the vegetable, even though using the right variety for any given dish will result in a more refined culinary experience.

Type A (salad) potatoes remain firm when boiled (Venezia, Bellinda, Colette, Belana, Anouschka, Glorietta varieties). Type B (all-purpose use) can easily be mashed when cooked and taste best in meat dishes and with sauces (Vineta, Bellarosa, Red Sonia, Jelly, Catania, Marabel, Elfe varieties). Type C (starchy) potatoes are ideal for potato pancakes and French fries. There are also those that easily fall apart when cooked (Augusta, Omega, Agria, Jurata varieties).