How to Prepare a Traditional Polish Christmas Eve Dinner

The menu for a traditional 12-course Polish Wigilia dinner served on Christmas Eve may vary, but it is always meatless and usually includes carp. Remember to fill your heart with good will and fast until the first star, Gwiazdka, appears in the sky.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Christmas Gifts
• Gift Ribbons
• Tissue Paper
• Polish Cookbooks
• Christmas Tree Ornaments
• Candles
• Gift Bags
• Gift Bows
• Wrapping Paper
• China
• Silverware
• Table Centerpieces
• Tablecloths
• Polish Christmas Carol CDs
• Candles
• Tissue paper

1. Collect family recipes, or find new ones in Polish cookbooks or on the Web.

2. Check major book dealers, secondhand book shops, antique malls and flea markets for old Polish cookbooks, or link up to Polish bookshops through periodicals such as the "Polish-American Journal."

3. Plan a menu based on traditional foods, but adapt it to suit your personal tastes. Dishes customarily served include oplatek, a blessed bread representing communion; barshch, a vegetable stew; fish soup; herring; fish in aspic; carp; stewed cabbage or sauerkraut.

4. Serve sweets such as the following: dried fruit; kutia, a treat made from wheat, poppy seed, honey and almonds; poppy seed or honey cakes or strudel; rolls or bread. Coffee, tea and cold drinks are standard beverages.

5. Consider substituting more common Polish favorites such as kielbasa (Polish sausage), peirogi (filled dumplings) or stuffed cabbage rolls.

6. Make a list of ingredients, shop and prepare dishes.

7. Set the table with a white tablecloth, including an extra place setting for missing family members.

Tips & Warnings

• Cooks worn out from preparing this huge Christmas Eve feast might be relieved to learn that in Poland tradition dictates that no cooking is done on Christmas Day.
• If company is coming, consider asking each guest to bring a particular dish.
• Depending on where you live, you may be able to buy ready-made Polish foods fresh or frozen in local stores.

[rno102408]

on 12/31/2008 the 12 dishes represents the twelve months of the year

[Bonnie]

on 12/26/2006 why 12 dishes

on 12/16/2005 Before beginning to eat, it is traditional to have the breaking and sharing of oplatek – a thin wafer (similar to communion host). The host and hostess face one another, then brake and share a part of the other's wafer. They wished each other fulfillment of their wishes. Then each guest brakes and shares the oplatek with each person present.

on 12/15/2005 We always place straw under the table cloth to remind us of the manger.

on 11/22/2005 It is also traditional to put a piece of wheat in the corner of the room you are eating in to represent a good harvest.