Meeting in poland presentation

HISTORY, CULTURE AND… FOOD

HISTORY, CULTURE AND… FOOD Do you know any traditional ways of

growing food and preparing meals?

What is the correlation between culture and history of a particular region and its food?

We are going to answer these questions…

LET’S START FORM CHRISTMAS AND EASTER CUISINE

EVERYONE LIKES CHRISTMAS! STREETS ARE LIT BY COLORED LAMPS. SHOPS ARE FULL OF PEOPLE BUYING PRESENTS…

The day preceding Christmas – the Christmas Eve - is unique one. It is

believed that everything that might happen on it can influence the whole year

to come !Some people say, that if you ask for food on

that day, you will be hungry throughout the year ;/

Another custom is a number of dishes: traditionally there should be 12 of them and all of them must be tasted !

The most popular dishes are: red borsch sour cabbage with mushrooms

fish (usually carp)

poppy-seed cake



Easter customs are even more connected with food…

We do not eat meat (some people do not eat anything! ) on Good Friday.


Easter Saturday is the day when people prepare Święconka – baskets containing samples of Easter food that are brought to church to be blessed

The baskets are prepared carefully, because the foods have symbolic meaning:

eggs – symbolise life and Christ’s resurrection bread – represents Jesus a small figure of a lamb – also represents Jesus salt – is purification horseradish – a symbol of the bitter sacrifice of Christ ham (or sausage) – a symbol of great joy

But the most important are the eggs…


The tradition of decorating eggs is common in Slavic cultures. It originated in pagan times and then was transformed into the Christian Easter egg.

Now, every Polish child wants to decorate an egg!


Easter eggs – Polish pisanki (singular pisanka ) is a common name for an egg ornamented using various techniques.

There can be…

PISANKI – EGGS THAT ARE PAINTED

KRASZANKI – MADE BY BOILING AN EGG TOGETHER WITH SOME PLANTS (E.G. OAK BARK OR ONION PEELS)

DRAPANKI – MADE BY SCRATCHING THE SURFACE OF KRASZANKA WITH A SHARP TOOL TO REVEAL THE WHITE OF EGG SHELL

- AND MANY OTHERS


In some villages or towns there are even competitions on the most beautiful Pisanka!


Eggs are also used in many other types of dishes:

An egg is an ingredient of cakes and noodles

They can be eaten scrambled, fried, hard- and soft-boiled, omelette, pickled and even raw.


In the past, when hens, geese or ducks could be found in every village – an egg was one of the most common and most important thing in everyday diet.


In English we have some proverbs ‘ with eggs’, e.g.:

To pull one’s eggs in one basket. You can’t make an omelette without

breaking eggs.There is also a Polish saying: Jajko mądrzejsze od kury.


During our meeting we are going to learn more about Christmas and Easter cuisine.

We are also going to prepare something to eat using eggs.


We will also learn something about some famous places in Poland and their connections with food.

These will be…


Tokarnia – the great museum of village, with its numerous windmills where flour was produced


Kraków (Cracow) – and its Reneissance restaurants and places where people were sending and buying food


Wieliczka – the historic salt mine


Wąchock – a place where monks through centuries were growing vegetables and animals and took care of the local community in the times of wars and crop failure


Learning about these places, we will see how people were preparing meals in the past and what are the traditional ways of food production.


However, in the past, no Polish feast could be started without a proper dance. In case of the most solemn feasts when the guests were especially important, they danced Polonaise.


Polonaise (Polonez) – despite the French name – the origin of this dance is Polish. It is one of the five historic national dances of Poland. The Polish composer Frederic Chopin is famous for writing Polonaises.

It started as a peasant dance known under various names. The most common is chodzony (walker) because everyone, even elderly people, can dance it just by walking!


From about 17th century, Polonaise gained popularity among the nobility and townspeople.

During our meeting we are going to learn something more about this dance connected with history, culture and traditional Polish feasts !


Ok., balls, feasts… but what happened when someone got sick??

We will learn about some plants, food products and herbs that were real medicines in the old times and… that are still in use!


Now, you will get some evaluation sheets to fill in during your stay here. On Thursday I’ll collect them to see what you know. But be careful – you'll have to make some investigations, to ask some questions and cooperate with others.

Good luckAnd thank you for attention !

Education

Meeting in poland presentation