Pierogi: Over 50 Recipes to Create Perfect Polish Dumplings

"I love pierogi. I visit Warsaw quite a lot as it’s one of my favourite cities. I always go to the same café there, the Radio Café, not far from Central Station. It’s not a glamorous café. It’s quite rough and tumble. But it’s owned by a former Radio Free Europe journalist who is now in his eighties, and he is sometimes there. I always order the same thing: a pint of lager and a bowl of pierogi ruskie, which are quite basic dumplings filled with mashed potatoes and cheese and served with a buttery sauce and some chopped spring onions on top. I love it so much. So when I saw this book, I thought: amazing. They’re very regional, these dumplings. And the design is beautiful, it’s quite modern. Whether Poland is Eastern European is very debatable. I actually asked Zuza what she thought, and she said she’d always felt it was Eastern European, because she’d grown up in the time of Communism. When most Westerners think of Eastern European foods, we are thinking of key Polish foods—fermented cabbage, dumplings, beetroot borsch (which Ukrainians claim as their national dish)—so I think we are on quite safe ground, in that the food is Eastern European even though the country is technically in central Europe. I like this book because it helps you master the art of making your own pierogi at home, which is a great thing if you’ve fallen in love with it. She has these very detailed picture-essays, which are super helpful and practical. She also talks about how she had to defend Polish cuisine, how delicious and varied it is. In the north, it’s all about fish, and in the mountains it’s more about cheese and pasta. She has a lovely anecdote about tipping—the word ‘to tip’ is literally ‘for beer,’ napiwek, so you don’t patronise someone. It’s not, like, I’m giving you cash, but a little thing for beer, a bit of spending money. It’s just a cheerful, lovely book. I like to eat in Poland more than anywhere else in the world at the moment. Polish cuisine is so under-appreciated, and so good. The restaurants and wine there are amazing now."