Traditional Polish taste

Once upon a time, when McDonald's was not on the every corner, the process of preparing dishes could take a long, long, time - and eating lasted even longer. The latest exhibition at the ethnographic museum in Warsaw entitled "Polish cuisine - how the traditional taste is created" looks to bring back those times.

The exhibition focuses on Polish food and the methods for preparing it. "We show the way, from basic ingredients to dishes, how they were prepared and with what kitchen utensils. The exhibition starts in two cellars, where products such as potatoes, groats and dairy products are kept. Then visitors are conducted through the following stages of preparing food to the final stage - the table, where all the dishes are exposed," says Alicja Mironiuk-Nikolska from the National Ethnographic Museum.

Visitors will see traditional basic ingredients, such as different types of bread, dairy products, meat, fish as well as fruits and vegetables. For hundreds of years these ingredients have been typical of Polish cuisine, and despite the invasion of fast food, many Poles cannot imagine lunch without them. Visitors can also discover tools which were once a mainstay in the Polish kitchen, and have now vanished from use.

Meals in Poland serve more than the purpose of simply satisfying hunger. They also have an important social role, and the display also demonstrates the ritual function of Polish food and compares the various cuisines eaten by different social classes throughout Poland's history.