Ireland's 150,000 Polish people were missing the taste of home until alert shopkeepers spotted the gap in the market, writes Corinna Hardgrave
Every Polish person you ask gives the same answer. "The bread," they say. "Polish bread is so different." They all say it was what they missed most when they came to Ireland. Four months ago Karl Tracz spotted the gap in the market and opened the Traditional Polish Bakery, which supplies shops, including its own outlet, on Capel Street in Dublin, from its base in Walkinstown.
"Everything about this bread is Polish," says Tracz, surrounded by sacks of rye and wheat flour. "Our bread is a sourdough, so we use a natural yeast starter, which I brought over from Poland myself. The flours, the bakers and even the ovens are Polish." And this, apparently, makes all the difference to the more than 150,000 Poles living here. "It's all been word of mouth," he says proudly. "I started out with one delivery van, and already I have increased to four. It's not just Polish and Eastern European people who are buying my bread. About 20 per cent of the customers are Irish or another nationality."
As well as being delicious, Tracz's bread packs a nutritional punch through its high rye content. It doesn't have the large holes of a slow-rise artisanal bread, but its denser texture means it makes excellent toast - although this is something that Poles, surprisingly, never do.
Among the many fans of Tracz's bread is Ania Danicka, a 23-year-old communications graduate who lives in Rathmines. "We like a firmer bread which is good for making sandwiches," she says. "In Poland we don't break for lunch in the middle of the day. Instead, everyone brings their sandwiches to work and eats them at their desk. But our eight-hour working day finishes at four, so dinner is much earlier than it is over here." The Polish diet includes plenty of oily fish, salads and vegetables, making it a nutritionist's dream. It's the sort of food we should all be eating.
Danicka brings me to Polonez, a Polish shop that has taken over the Stella cinema, in Rathmines. It is packed with rows of Polish and eastern European canned food. You might dismiss it at first glance as little more than pork, pickles and sauerkraut. But you would be mistaken. Danicka's eyes light up as she descends on a large bag of pirogi from the freezer. "These are very special in Poland," she says, smiling. "My mother makes wonderful pirogi. They are a bit like ravioli. The savoury pirogi are filled with meat and cabbage, potatoes, vegetables or cheese, and the sweet ones are filled with fruit and served with cream, for dessert."
We wander down to the fridges. They are stocked with what an Irish delicatessen might call charcuterie. There are no charcuterie prices here, though, and some items are positively cheap. Sausages of different colours and lengths battle for space with hams, cured meats and pancetta-type specks. A deeply smoky aroma wafts from an open bag of dried pork ribs - Ukrainian, apparently, and something that's going to make it on to my table.
Farther up is a jar of salmon roe at about half its usual price - perfect for my first attempt at sushi. Across the aisle are jars of wild forest mushrooms that would make a respectable quick-and-easy pasta sauce with cream. It doesn't take long to get the gist of how to shop in a sea of foreign jars and cans: if an educated guess doesn't work, a close look at the labels, for illustrations, is a good idea.
No Polish supermarket has yet moved into the Irish market, but enterprising retailers here - mostly of Russian, Lithuanian or Ukrainian origin - are establishing their own chains. The big players are Supersam, in Dublin and Cork; Polonez, which is also in Clondalkin, in Dublin, and Naas, in Co Kildare; and distributors such as Rasputin, in Clonsilla, in Dublin. There are an estimated 40 eastern European shops in Dublin and another 30 or so scattered around the country, including three in Newbridge, Co Kildare.
There are also Lidl and Aldi. "We regularly shop in Lidl in Coolock," says Kris Napiontek, an IT worker who lives in Malahide, Co Dublin, with his wife, Agnes. "We used to go into Polski Sklep, on Talbot Street, quite often, but now we're 'borrowing' food from other countries. Many of our friends are Spanish or Italian, and we love learning about new cultures."
So do his colleagues. Seeing Napiontek come into work every day with his perfectly prepared Polish sandwiches, an Irish colleague suggested that the company should have an annual Polish day. Which was fine by Napiontek, as Agnes is an exceptionally good cook. So out came her family recipes, and, a few days later, Napiontek presented his colleagues with a platter of chocolate-filled rogaliki, croissant-shaped pastries that lesser cooks find too time-consuming to make at home. (Napiontek seems to have started a trend. A colleague of his from Lisbon recently treated the office to a Portuguese day.)
You don't need to make rogaliki to entertain in the Polish style, though. Just gather together a bottle of frozen vodka, a tin of sardines, a jar of baby onions and a jar of gherkins. Then serve the vodka in shot glasses, followed with some fish, onions or gherkins. Repeat as many times as you like.
WHERE TO BUY
Traditional Polish Bakery's bread is stocked by most Polish and eastern European shops in Ireland, as well as some branches of Centra, Londis, Spar and SuperValu. You can also buy direct from Traditional Polish Bakery, Capel Street, Dublin 1 (087-2705136). Polonez is on Rathmines Road, Dublin 6 (01-4971605); 9th Lock Road, Clondalkin, Dublin 22 (01-4136950); and Shopping Mall, North Main Street, Naas, Co Kildare (045-856731). Supersam is on Dorset Street, Dublin 1 (01-8734130), and Washington Street, Cork (021-4279183).
Rasputin, a distributor, is based in Clonsilla, Dublin 15 (085-7413584)