Sometimes I'm surprised by what's found in the international or ethnic food section in grocery stores. If you're in a place called Little Italy or Chinatown or something, you expect to see that country's food products for sale, but sometimes I see unexpected ones. Anyway, as the title gives away, I'm talking about a wide variety of Polish foods that I found in a store in Southington, Connecticut. So evidently there's a decently high percentage of people in the area with Polish heritage. I bought several kinds of biscuits/cookies, and one tinned meat, Spam-style product (see November 8, 2013 post for more info on these).
Sokolow S.A. made the canned meat, pork loaf. This company dates back to 1899 and specializes in meat--in fresh, canned, and cold cut form. There was a 9 minute video on the company website which may have provided more company history details, but, not shockingly, it was in Polish, so I couldn't understand it. Fortunately for me, the rest of the website was translated into English. Their "Did you know..." section had some amusing tidbits. They mentioned that one of their branches makes enough wieners in one month to stretch from Warsaw, Poland, to New York City in the U.S. Or enough pate in one month to equal the weight of 100 elephants (they didn't specify which kind, Asian or African elephants, which I think can make a significant difference, but oh well). Then there's the odd statement--"The Debica branch is the only facility in Poland able to produce products with natural moulds on the surface." (I assume that this refers to some safe-for-consumption, flavor-enhancing molds, like in various blue cheeses like Roquefort and gorgonzola, or otherwise they'd be bragging about selling spoiled food!) An American company, Square Enterprises, distributed the tinned pork loaf, as they do with other canned vegetables and juices. (Many of their beverages contain carrot juice, which I find revolting.) Square also distributed one of the cookie brands, Pulaski. Otherwise I wasn't able to find out much about the other companies, or food types. Krakus is manufactured in Poland for Prime Choice Foods in the U.S., but I could only view a very large product list, including meat, canned vegetables, jams, and other baked goods.
1) Krakus flakes--strawberry yogurt cream filled wafers: These were long thin wafers (about 8.5 cm. by 3 cm. or about 3.25 inches by 1.125 inches) that had two yellow cross-hatched wafers sandwiching a pink filling. Kind of "meh," or average. Rather typical wafer, with a flavor that wasn't very dazzling. (See my May 25, 2016 post to read about Brazil's atypical fruit-flavored wafers.)
2) Krakus wafferio--chocolate covered wafer with cocoa filling: This was packaged individually, as a long rod, about 4.5 inches by .75 inches (about 11 cm. by 2 cm.), with a dark brown color. As expected, this was basically like a chocolate candy bar made using wafers. It was okay, and slightly better than the flake kind.
3) Krakus biscuits with chocolate black currant: This was a limited edition. These cookies were round, about 5 cm. (about 2 inches) in diameter, with a brown chocolate exterior and a white and purplish interior. They were soft and chewy, with a weird taste. The fruit and chocolate mixing was odd, and not that great. Kind of okay, I guess.
4) Krakus biscuits with chocolate raspberry: These were the same size, shape, and color as the chocolate black currant kind. Had the same texture, too. And were also kind of disappointing. This flavor pairing was slightly off-putting. Not terrible, but sub par.
5) Wawei chocolate truffle (? Just about all the writing on the label was in Polish, and I couldn't learn anything else online): These were essentially bite-size chocolate bars, similar to those Americans give out on Halloween. They were about 3.5 cm by 2 cm. (about 1.5 inches by .75 inches) and dark brown in color. I didn't like these very much. However, to be fair, I don't normally like dark chocolate much, so there's that. I could finish these, but just barely.
6) Pulaski wafers with peanut filling: Long and thin, about 11 cm. by 3 cm. (about 4.25 inches by 1 inch), with three yellow cross hatched wafer pieces encasing 2 light brown filling layers. These were quite good, easily the best of all the biscuits/cookies. But I love peanut butter flavoring, so this makes sense.
7) Army Brand chopped pork pattie loaf: Like Spam and its clones, this was basically pork scraps with some spices. This is definitely one of the most disgusting food items I've seen--it was pinkish brown meat with white chunks mixed in it, surrounded by a orange gel. It also had an unpleasant odor--and my family wasn't shy about complaining about this. I had a tough time digging into this, as it looked like it was rotten or something. Fortunately, once I did, it was pretty good. It didn't taste like Spam or the other potted meats--this one reminded my much more of a decent meat loaf. Nice chewy texture as well. Ketchup helped the flavor, too. So, to use a non-food metaphor, for me Army Brand pork loaf was more evidence that you can't always judge a book by its cover.
I'll conclude with some info about the namesake of one of the cookies, Casimir Pulaski. Pulaski was a Polish nobleman, best known for fighting for Polish autonomy with the Bar Confederation, and then helping the colonists gain independence in the American Revolution. Pulaski is credited with saving George Washington's life in the Battle of Brandywine, and is known as the father of American cavalry. He gave his life fighting for the Americans in 1779. As a result, he's had various bridges, highways, boats, and counties named after him. He's also one of only 8 people to be granted honorary American citizenship. (If you're curious, two others were Revolutionary War figures--Lafayette and Bernardo de Galvez, along with William Penn and Hannah Callowhill Penn (one of Penn's wives), Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg (for his efforts to save Hungarian Jews in World War II), Mother Theresa, and Sir Winston Churchill.) One more fascinating item concerns Pulaski's apparent remains, which were exhumed and examined on at least two occasions. There is some controversy about whether this skeleton was indeed his, but various details and injuries found on the bones match up well with what is known about Pulaski's life. Anyway, some of the bones showed distinctly feminine characteristics, indicating that Pulaski may have been intersex.
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