Polish-American Wedding Food Recipes

After the wedding march into the dining room, the priest, who had said High Mass in the morning and performed the wedding ceremony, prayed over the food before guests tucked into a golden bowl of chicken soup with kluski or czarnina (see below).

The soup course was typically chicken noodle (above) or duck's blood soup, known as czarnina, served with kluski . Sometimes, a blood-free version, known as slepo czarnina (blind czarnina), was offered. Lest this is upsetting to you, read about the global practice of cooking with blood.

Then it was time for either a lettuce salad or a mayonnaise-based salad like Polish spring salad - Salatka Wiosenna.

Fresh, pan-roasted Polish white sausage - biala kielbasa - was usually the kielbasa of choice, but occasionally smoked sausage or skinny stick sausages, known as kabanosy, were served according to the family's preference. Regardless of the sausage type, it was always served with horseradish condiments known as chrzan and cwikla.

This baked chicken dish became known as Polish wedding chicken because that's when it was most often served. It was an economical dish that could be prepared in huge quantities for the, usually, huge numbers of guests. But there is nothing ordinary about this poultry if smothered with onions and baked slowly until it caramelizes and almost falls off the bones. Delicious!

Some type of cabbage dish was de rigueur, either brined sauerkraut or braised fresh cabbage. Sometimes it was mixed with noodles or dumplings, or smoked neckbones or hocks and barley. Often it was at the whim of the female Polish cooks who ruled the roost at many reception halls.

Steaming bowls of mashed potatoes were supplemented with vegetables like cauliflower or green beans prepared a la Polonaise, that is with buttered breadcrumbs, or one of the ubiquitous beet recipes Poles are so well-known for.

Breads of all types were featured in baskets on the long tables where guests were served family style. Typically, however, the two most popular were rye bread and braided egg bread.

Wedding cake was not served at the end of the meal. Instead, it was sliced and wrapped in napkins and given to guests as they were leaving. The most popular desserts served with pitchers of steaming coffee at Polish weddings were angel wings known as chrusciki, kolaczki, babka and paczki. A traditional Polish wedding dessert is a wheel cake, known as kolacz, and common among the gorale in Lesser Poland in the southeastern part of the country.