How we eat: a Christmas Eve feast with Margaret from My Polish Deli

Visit Margaret at the Polish Deli and the first thing you’ll notice is cabinet a filled with a vast array of sausages, speck and other cured meats, so it may come as a surprise to find out that the traditional Polish Christmas dinner is actually a meat-free affair.

It’s all about Christmas Eve

We celebrate on Christmas Eve. I spend the day mostly with my customers! I get home and say I am so exhausted but then my daughter and I prepare the food. It was complicated for me because in Poland Santa brings presents on Christmas Eve – my children would ask why not on Christmas day like on the shows?

It’s a meat-free affair

We are Catholic. We avoid anything that is meaty on Christmas Eve. My daughter makes mushroom soup which we have with pasta. The day before I make sauerkraut with pear and we have a few types of pierogi – cottage cheese and mushroom and sauerkraut. Oh and a traditional polish salad: carrot, parsley, potato, pear, egg, salty cucumber, mayo, mustard and apple. This is really, really good. It’s a lot of food, a lot.

But fish is allowed and it has to be herring

We get herring fillets in oil but the best is if you can find rolled herrings with a plum in the middle. We wash the fillets, put some diced onion on the bottom of the plate, then pieces of herring, vinegar, pepper and salt. And a line of onion on top. Some people put sour cream but we don’t.

My son-in-law always looks at the herrings and says maybe later. But last year he tried for the first time and he said it’s not as bad as he thought. The herrings are very salty!

After midnight mass the meat comes out

At midnight we go to church and then after we have some vodka and some meat. Ham, pork neck, speck. Anything smoked! We have it with beetroot horseradish and mustard.

There’s nothing wrong with a good short cut

We have red borscht. I don’t cook it because I have it ready imported from Poland in box. It has all the spices - just open and heat it up. We have it with uszka, little dumplings, and the filling is porcini.

It’s important to appreciate your family

We have opłatek, a special wafer bread. We sell in my shop. Before you sit at table you all break off a piece of the bread and make a wish for the other person for the next year. We all do it, for everyone.

Visit Margaret at My Polish Deli, Stall 37 in the Deli Aisle.