HOUSEKEEPING IN POLAND

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 107, 27 July 1927, Page 5

HOUSEKEEPING IN POLAND

A Polish woman is more than a cook. She is a born connoisseur of good foods, a gastronome” in the truest sense of the word. If she lives in the countrv she scorns shops and stores—they are good for providing raw materials only. The rest she accomplishes by her own skill and ingenuity. She can bake, roast, fry, and pickle—but she can do more than that. She is an expert at curing hams, smoking sausages, brewing beer, and making brandy out of plums and cherries. Her rank in life makes no difference to her knowledge of the most intricate housekeeping problems; she may be a countess in her own right, but she knows all about the breeding and feeding of pigs, and the pruning of trees in her orchard. Warsaw hams are famous for their exquisite flavour. They are called leg” hams, and Polish women excel in baking them in a thick crust of rye bread. In some parts of Poland, where bears are abundant, bear hams are cured, and their meat is delicious. As to sausages, the best is probably the Cracow kind, very spicy and savoury, somewhat resembling the salami of Milan. Polish women make sausages also of liver—both calves’ and gooses’ —and they usually spice them with small chopped onions, garlic, and red pepper.

A Polish housewife possesses a thousand and one recipes for pastry and cakes. She makes an excellent shortbread, but her way of preparing it might seem rather extravagant in other countries, for the Polish woman will use nothing but the richest cream and the purest butter. The favourite national cake is called “Alazurek.” There are different kinds, but the nicest is made with marzipan ai.d walnuts. You can buy “mazurek” in shops, but the best is invariably homemade.

It is to her orchard that the Polish woman turns for the replenishing of her cellar supplies. Her plum brandy (“slivowitz”) is excellent, but her cider is rather “heady,” to put it very mildly. She plants and tends her herbs with an eye to their medicinal properties, and she has handy remedies for most illnesses.

She is thrifty and economical. Nothing is wasted in her house. When a ham is “finished to the knuckle,” she makes soup of -it, adding peas and onions and carrots. The very rye crust in which a ham is baked is used as bran for the cattle and poultry. “PRETENCES” OF THE GIRL IN LOVE When a girl is truly in love, she is on her best behaviour with her betrothed. She takes care to present to him her niicest aspects; her most lovable attributes. And because she is so obviously “different” with the one-man-in-the-world, cattily-inclined onlookers are wont to comment on th« fact. “If only he knew her as she really is!” How often one hears that embittered feminine sotto voce! Yet the truth is that even if the happy girl’s habitual old-time self .is not expressed In her changed attitude, it is none the less a potent indication of what she can be when the right influence is at work. That is why marriage, for which failure is predicted, so often turns out a wonderful success. The one-man-in-the-world has the power to make reality out of unconscious pretence. For let it be admitted that most girls do pretend a little when they are anxious to create the right impression. But isn’t it a fine and stimulating thought that one personality has the power to mould another’s character to a lovelier pattern. And that such miracles can be worked is evidenced in th° number of quite ordinary women who gain both in actual physical comeliness as well as charm, in consequence of their determination to be, in truth and in fact, what their lover-husbands think they are. To be believed is to believe in one’s self! In one’s own latent potentialities for good, that Love’s miraculous agency can develop into active attributes. Only the very small nature stoops to throw stones at the pretty pretences of the girl in love. To the larger and more generous vision they are indicative of one of human nature’s worthiest aspects; the impassioned desire to live up to Love’s ideal. M.C. Cotton-wool dipped in methylated spirit will clean a photograph without destroying the surface.