Cześć!

I think everyone has read ballsofsteelandfury’s excellent intro by now, so let’s get right to it.

Today’s country is : Poland 

Country ‘Fun’ Facts:

Poland had a pretty awesome 700 years starting around 970ish AD, sure they were overrun by the Mongols, but so was everyone else and that part really wasn’t that bad.  They had a bunch of kings called Casimir, probably the world’s only female king, Jadwiga, and they teamed up with Lithuania to generally kick some butt up through the 17th century.  Then they put a cheap bottle of vodka (Sobieski) in charge of the country and everything fell apart, ending with Russia and Prussia and probably some other countries ending in -ussia splitting up the country.  This led directly to Chopin writing the Polonaises, as well as large Polish diasporas forming in New York, Chicago, Paris, Toronto, and, oddly enough, Curitiba.

Notable events since then:

• Overrun by Germans (aka Prussians) again in WW2
• Overrun by Russians again in WW2
• The Chess brothers emigrated to Chicago and founded Chess records, releasing songs by Muddy Waters, Chuck Berry, and others
• John Paul II appointed as the first Polish pope
  • This was a HUGE deal since Poland is 92.9% Roman Catholic
  • If you ever need to make up an address in Poland, every city has a street or square named after him
• Their president and most of the current government died in a plane crash in 2010, while they were on their way to commemorate the victims of the Katyn massacre
• Joined the EU and Schengen, pretty sure this caused Brexit when a whole lot of attractive young Poles got jobs in the cities and the rest of the country got jealous
• Co-hosted Euro 2012 with Ukraine

Team Schedule:

Poland is in Group E with three countries starting with ‘S’: Spain, Slovakia, and Sweden.

Team Preview / Top Players:

Their captain, Robert Lewandowski, is arguably the best player in the entire tourney.  He was named 2020 FIFA player of the year, scoring 32 goals in 20 Bundesliga matches this season.  If you’re looking for some interesting side bets, you could do worse than putting a few $$ on him for top goalscorer (+1600).

They switched managers back in January, hiring Paulo Sousa.  He’s managed loads of other teams, but has only had 3 games with this Poland national team.  No one is quite sure what to expect from him yet, but things seemed promising in the qualifiers.  There’s a decent chance Poland makes it out of group play (-200), but their chances in the knockout rounds are middling.

The Food

Everyone knows pierogis, and while they are awesome and delicious, the best thing about Polish food is the mushrooms.

Poles love foraging for mushrooms, it’s practically the national hobby.  A wide variety of edible mushrooms grow in the forests of Poland, and they pick and eat all of them.  There’s mushroom soup, mushroom sauce, various types of mushroom dumplings (yes pierogis, but also uszka which go in barszcz, more on that later), and pickled mushrooms.  My personal favorite is having naleśniki (crepes) filled with mushroom sauce.  And of course, people dry the mushrooms so they can add flavor to soups (like barszcz) and other dishes all year long.

About barszcz, it’s frequently thought of as a Russian dish, but they both spell it wrong (borscht?  Pfff) and make it wrong.  I still can’t make Babcia-level barszcz, but I’ve been getting progressively closer and will share my learnings with you lucky folks.  The best barszcz is rich, with a mildly sweet and sour flavor, a deep pink color, no chunks, and dumplings.  This picture is the closest I could find to what it should look like when done – note the fatty shimmer:

Start with a good homemade broth, chicken backs, beef bones, seasoning and veg.  While that’s bubbling away, get some beets, trim off the greens, wash the beets, but don’t bother peeling and don’t trim the tap root at the bottom.  Drizzle some oil on the beets, wrap in foil and roast those suckers.  Once they’re roasted through the peels just slide off, you can pull them off with your bare hands  which has the fun side effect of making your hands look like something out of a gory movie.  Take your broth (with all the stuff strained out of course), chop the roasted beets and add those, throw in a handful of dried mushrooms, salt and pepper to taste.  You’re also supposed to add beet sour at this point, which is basically fermented beet juice, but I’m lazy and have never made beet sour.  Red wine vinegar seems to work perfectly well as a substitute.  Let that simmer for an hour or 2, or stick it in a slow cooker (you can actually make this entire recipe in a slow cooker if you are so inclined).  Strain out the beets and mushrooms, you can just throw the beets away, the mushrooms can go in the filling for the dumplings.  At this point the broth should be a clear, deep red, and already pretty tasty.  For the last step, take 2 or 3 egg yolks, whisk gently, and drizzle into the broth while stirring.  This is what turns the soup pink, and it adds richness.  Toss in some dumplings and enjoy!

Dok, Have you ever been to this country?

I have! According to both my parents and 23andme my heritage is largely Polish with a healthy dollop of Ukrainian and a wee bit of Portuguese. Most of my family still lives in Poland, and I went on one trip with my mother to both meet a bunch of family and see the country. Not exactly a wild time, but I did go to a club with a couple of my cousins that played a lot of really solid 80’s music, and I drank beer with my mother at one of the 3 breweries in the Wrocław main square (like a lot of Eastern Europe, cities in Poland are all centered around a market square where there are now lots of restaurants).

I would highly recommend Wrocław, it doesn’t have the party reputation of Krakow, but it’s got an amazing beer culture. The city once went to war over beer and still has a thriving microbrewery scene today.

Why you should root for this country

• You’re Catholic
• You enjoy living deliciously and dangerously by consuming foraged mushrooms and unpasteurized beer
• You feel sorry for a country that’s stuck between Germany and Russia
•  Chopin is your jam
• You put money on Lewandowski for highscorer
• Gronk is your favorite NFL star because he’s Polish-American

Why you should not root for this country

• You oppose the Catholic church, either because of all the abuse scandals, because of their highly conservative stances on things like birth control or LGBTQ rights, or just because
• You are Russian or German or Prussian
• You’re a middle-aged Englishman who is still bitter that you weren’t able to hire a hot Polish nanny
• You aren’t brave enough to eat a mystery mushroom your great-Aunt swears is edible
• You put money on some other player for highscorer

Prognoza

I’m gonna go with finishing second in their group, narrowly edging out Sweden for the spot.  They’ll play the runner-up in group D in the round of 16, which will probably be Croatia.   No idea how they’ll match up, but Croatia would be the favorite.  Poland does have the advantage of a couple of excellent goalies, and Croatia doesn’t have any superstar high scoring players, so what the heck, who doesn’t like an upset?  Poland gets to the Quarterfinals and we all party like Gronk!