2015-01-23: The Road Back To AwesomeVille

Ewa is being a Lady and getting haircuts and associated froofrooery today. I am flying solo.

Tourist Checklist: Markets, Giełda Spożywcza - Białstok

With a sexy name like "Food Industry Marketplace" you know it is going to be good. The parents-in-law shop here regularly. The prices are okay but the real attraction is the quality of food.

So many colours (and I am not being sarcastic, comparatively huge range of veges)

The market is definitely of the "industry" type. Little in the way of advertising or presentation. Vendors are also supposed to have a license and meet government standards. They are also supposed to pay tax. I am not sure an awful lot of either is actively going on. Taking photos of things was questioned a few times but fortunately none of them believed even an undercover government inspector could be as dumb as me. I suspect the father-in-law was standing behind me making gestures regarding my intellect for the benefit of the mafioso questioning my motives.

Getting home I could translate all these, at the time attracting more attention seemed questionable

Słonina looks interesting. I am guessing it can be used to make your own smalec.
You can also see that meat in aspic (Salceson, possibly from the French Saucisson but not the same thing at all) is very popular.

Without my Official Translator I didn't even think enough when looking to realise I have missed a chance for eating blood; Salceson Czarny is called black because it has blood in the aspic. We shall have to return here.
Włoski means Italian. Once again the Poles are naming their food after other countries and those countries have no damn clue.
Jelita Grube is intestine, presumably for sausage makers.
Pasztet is an interesting one as it translates as pie/cake or pate but mostly looks like a terrine to me.
Pasztetowa is liverwurst.

Anything with a second word starting with "dom" probably means home style and anything with "Babcia" means grandmother style.

I believe the difference is that Babcia will force the whole sausage into you and you will be too scared to say no. Homestyle means you will eat too much out of choice.

I like the salad that sneaks into frame.

Cuts of meat are different and much less varied than in Australia. Certainly far fewer "on the bone" cuts

But they do seem to have the whole animal there.

Including the sneaky piggy head "who you looking at?"

Meat needs bread and potato. Here is bread in the butcher shop.

Time to flee before I face interrogation

Unfortunately Ewa does not like my Chinese cabbage coleslaw so I won't bother getting it.

Biały ser / Twaróg / Quark (plain is popular on pancakes)

Poland used to have White Cheese and Yellow Cheese. Now they have so many other cheeses I think the White Cheese people have gone crazy with flavours. I could read all of them except "czosnek niedzwiedzi". I knew czosnek was garlic but had to ask Dr Google what the other word was: Bearish.

Now I am home I find that Bear Garlic is a thing. At the time I figured it meant "So damn much garlic you will scare off a bear".

I was going to make a joke about love apples and so on then I remembered potatoes are not love apples

The US/NATO thing with Russia over Ukraine has meant that the _vast_ Polish apple industry is hurting. Fortunately they have worked out you can make booze from apples (I bet that took them 5 minutes) and now in bars there is a little bit of marketing for "Traditional Cider". I haven't tried one yet but now that I have figured out why it is there I am going to drink cider to give Putin the middle finger.

The Potato Guy was far and away the most Mafia of all the guys. I used zoom for this photo for maximum running away potential.

Fishy! Carpy!

For some reason there is still lots of live carp available. Usually I think it is a Christmas thing only, maybe this year there were bonus supplies or lower demand or something. Either way there will be more fried carp for people so inclined. I will have more schnitzel. Carp is just too damn fishy for me. Maybe after our planned "eat all the sushi" diet in Japan I will be better at eating fish.

Rating: 7/10 (+1 for mafia fun)

Cultural Observations: Spice

Poles do not use spices much. Traditional spices are salt and, if you are feeling fancy, pepper. I think they have tried to have the crunchy burned bits of bacon (called skwarky) classed as a spice. However everyone does have a range of spices in their kitchen.

 

That is why I was so confused by this place. The jars are all "mum style" with little doilies on them. But they are bloody huge. If this means that Polish restaurants are using mum style jars in their kitchens I am even more tempted to try and wangle some time working in one.

Rating 7/10 (they had dried birds eye chilis, I bought some).

Fancy new hair colour. Looks "Creative but Powerful Lady". I like it.

Today's lesson in Polish featured The Shrimp That Walks Backwards. I am a good student and my teacher is proud me.

Industrial student bar yeah yeah yeah. We can be cool kids when we try!

In the evening we met the local Kendo guys for a few beers. If I am going to travel and meet people that ask me opinions / advice regarding naginata I am going to have to learn to ramble less. There were quite a few occasions of "I thought I asked a simple question and your reply took 5 minutes, had 12 digressions, 3 rants and now I don't even remember my question"

I like to think it makes them think for themselves and encourages agility.