Eat Smart in Poland: How to Decipher the Menu, Know the Market Foods & Embark on a Tasting Adventure (Eat Smart) [Paperback]

Joan Peterson (Author), David Peterson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1, 2000

    This smartly designed, richly photographed and illustrated culinary travel guidebook tells travelers how to find the most delicious, authentic and adventuresome eating experiences in Poland. The authors share the secrets they’ve uncovered while hunting for something good to eat—from restaurant dining to home cooking to fresh market produce to street-vendor fare—to allow you to get to the heart of the culture through its cuisine.
    Eat Smart in Poland contains a quick, easy-to-use menu guide, a helpful glossary of foods and flavors, tips on how to shop the fascinating food markets, useful phrases in Polish when ordering or buying food, a collection of recipes to try at home, and more. If you are traveling or moving to Poland, take this book with you!

Distributed for Ginkgo Press

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Eat Smart in Poland provides a good introduction to the still rather exotic and little-known world of Polish cookery. This stimulating, easy-to-read book presents a lively historical background on Poland, once the biggest country in Europe, and contains what is probably the most extensive Polish culinary lexicon ever published in English. It also includes everthing visitors need to know before they start restaurant hopping in Warsaw, Krakow, Gdansk and places in between. An added bonus for culinary do-it-yourselfers is a nice selection of authentic Polish recipes from both sides of the Atlantic.”—Robert Stybel, author of Polish Heritage Cookery

“Poland is quickly becoming one of the great travel destinations of Europe. I hope everyone who decides to visit Poland will take a copy of Eat Smart in Poland. It picks up where almost every other guidebook about Poland seems to stop. There’s history, a regional food guide, recipes and a guide that would help visitors to Poland make just the right selections from a menu. A keeper.”—Sophie Hodorowicz Knab, author of Polish Customs, Traditions and Folklore

From the Publisher

Distributed for Ginkgo Press

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Product Details

• Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: Ginkgo Press; 1 edition (February 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0964116855
• ISBN-13: 978-0964116856
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.4 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,056,272 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #36 in Books > Cookbooks, Food & Wine > Regional & International > European > Polish
  • #42 in Books > Education & Reference > Dictionaries & Thesauruses > Foreign Language > Polish
  • #62 in Books > Travel > Europe > Poland

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

41 of 42 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Must" reading for anyone traveling in Poland., June 5, 2000

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Eat Smart in Poland: How to Decipher the Menu, Know the Market Foods & Embark on a Tasting Adventure (Eat Smart) (Paperback)

Eat Smart In Poland is "must" reading for anyone traveling in Poland for business or pleasure. The Peterson's provide the reader with a rich historical perspective on the origins and varieties of Polish food; extensive background on regional dishes, and easy-to-use menu guide to help make "surprise-free" selections from restaurant menus; a comprehensive glossary of foods and flavors; Polish phrases for ordering and buying food; handy shopping tips for outdoor food and spice markets;; and recipes to preview the taste of Poland before departure. The informative and engaging text is wonderfully illustrated throughout with "on location" color photography by the Peterson's, and with black-and-white illustrations by Susie Medaris. Eat Smart In Poland is also highly recommended for ethnic cuisine clubs, and armchair traveler kitchen cookbook collections!

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great book containing much more than just food recipes, February 24, 2005

By 

Jagoda Urban-Klaehn "PolishSite Host at: http... (Idaho Falls, ID USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Eat Smart in Poland: How to Decipher the Menu, Know the Market Foods & Embark on a Tasting Adventure (Eat Smart) (Paperback)

This is really an unusual book, the authors share their great knowledge not only about Polish food and dishes, especially the dishes which are unusual outside of Poland. They describe how Polish cuisine developed through history, they explain how to read a menu in the restaurant, how to shop for food.. and all of this information is in a very concise form - also with the dictionary of Polish "food" language, the dictionary of Polish dishes, recipes, beautiful photographs.
I recommend this book for your trip to Poland!

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Take this book on your next trip to Poland!, April 30, 2007

By 

Sharon Hudgins - See all my reviews

This review is from: Eat Smart in Poland: How to Decipher the Menu, Know the Market Foods & Embark on a Tasting Adventure (Eat Smart) (Paperback)

EAT SMART IN POLAND

Reviwed by Sharon Hudgins, author of The Other Side of Russia: A Slice of Life in Siberia and the Russian Far East

I wish I'd had a copy of Joan and David Peterson's "Eat Smart in Poland" on my trips to Poland in the early 1990s--and maybe on my last trip to Chicago, too (where there's a large Polish community and some good Polish restaurants). Reading this excellent travel guide for food lovers brought back fond memories of the Polish dishes I've eaten from Warsaw to Krakow to the American Midwest. And it made me want to eat my way around Poland again--following the authors' recommendations for "national favorites" and "regional classics" served throughout the country.

Like all the guides in the "Eat Smart" series, this book is well researched, well written, and lives up to its promise of telling you "How to Decipher the Menu, Know the Market Foods, & Embark on a Tasting Adventure." After an explanation of the historical and geographical influences on Polish cooking, the authors provide a description of Polish regional cuisines followed by more than two dozen recipes for classic dishes from appetizers and soups to main dishes and desserts. You'll definitely want to try the recipes for Bigos (Hunters' Stew) and Sernik Przekladany (Layered Cheesecake).

If all those consonants in Polish food names leave you bewildered, just turn to the two sections of the book that translate all those strange-looking terms for you. The Menu Guide is an alphabetical menu translator from Polish into English, from A to Z. The Foods & Flavors Guide is a comprehensive glossary of "foods, spices, kitchen utensils, and cooking terminology in Polish, with English translations," which you can use for shopping in open-air markets and grocery stores. (Don't miss the smoked sheep's-milk cheese from the Tatra Mountains in southern Poland.) You'll definitely want to take this book with you on your next trip to Poland--and maybe your next trip to Chicago, too! Highly recommended!