Gdańsk was beautiful, sure... but who was cooking up its mysterious pies? |
The place:
Gdańsk.
The year: 1994, only five years since the Solidarity trade union had swept Poland’s communist regime from power.
The month: November, in the week containing All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day.
As most of
the week was a public holiday in Poland, Narrelle and I had some
time off our English language teaching jobs to visit the Baltic port city of
Gdańsk.
Enter the paj
And this is when we came upon the pie, at one of the many food kiosks scattered around the centre of the city. Or I should say the paj, for that was its Polish spelling, close to “pie” in pronunciation.
Intrigued
by the sight of these familiar-looking objects in what appeared to be classic
pie-warmer ovens, we proceeded to a taste test. They were much – but not
exactly – like an Australian meat pie.
Square or round, the right size, but with slightly thicker pastry and solid mince fillings sans gravy. And presumably made of pork rather than beef... but still eerily similar.
Pie mania
I’m ashamed
to admit that in the following days we went on a paj-eating frenzy, consuming significant numbers of them. Call it
research. But more honestly, call it nostalgia – we’d been away from Australia for
two and a half years at this point, the sort of time period that has expats’
eyes inexplicably moistening at the thought of Vegemite.
Tasty as
they were, these pajs were a
conundrum, though definitely bearing an
Australian connection. One of them was handed over in a paper bag
bearing the legend paj australijski,
which translated to “Australian Pie”.
At that point I really was intrigued, but there was no time to unravel the mystery, and in any case my Polish wasn’t up to quizzing stallholders on the provenance of their products.
The legend of the pie
But it
turned out the puzzle could, like a cheap milk bar pie, be left on the top
shelf for quite some time while still staying warm. Twelve years later I
returned to Poland, now a travel writer on an assignment for Lonely Planet.
Researching
the Poland chapter in the Eastern Europe book, I was obliged to cover the
entire country over several weeks in sub-zero temperatures, thanks to the
unseasonable dictates of publishing schedules.
The paj was low in my priorities, but not quite forgotten. Before
leaving home I’d done a quick Web search, locating, to my mild surprise, the
company that manufactured them in Gdynia, north of Gdańsk.
Their
mysterious creator and convenience food mastermind
agreed to tell me all about them when we met at the bar of the Willa
Lubicz, a posh hotel on a hill with a view of the Baltic Sea...
Next: The story of the Polish-Aussie pies continues, as I learn about the Dutch guru, the trouble with gravy, and the reason why 'pies' isn't a good look in Polish... [click here to continue]
This post was sponsored by AFerry.co.uk.
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