Polish Festival Adventure

Social networking is wonderful. I would never have known about this had it not shown up on my Facebook page connected to the title, Polish. I wandered over to Minneapolis yesterday to find the Polish Festival.

I arrived at lunch time so the first order of business was getting something to eat.

 I chose potato and cheese pierogies and a pascki.  I sat down at a table to eat, knowing no one at a the table. A man asked me what kind of pierogies and when I told him, he said, "Well, you know they are supposed to have sauerkraut in them." I told him I had eaten pierogies just like these in Poland many times. When I went on to describe the marvelous plum pierogies I had eaten at the B&B in Kieslany in 2009, the people looked at me as if I had arrived from Mars.

I noticed the "dance "lessons being offered were for the polka. I remarked that one didn't see the polka in Poland. That was also an amazing statement. I began to understand I knew about Polish culture from having been in Poland, while these people knew about Polish culture from what they remembered from their grandparents. How the polka became so attached to Polish-American culture is a mystery to me. I have seem Americans in Poland react to the fact that bands there will not play a polka with equal amazement, and one unfortunately even stomped off in a temper tantrum because the band didn't play polkas. (That's when one wants to curl up and not be noticed as an American!)

My viewpoint about pierogies was vindicated when I got to the Zupa cookbook and turned to the back and found many different kind of pieorgie recipes. Pieorgies are only limited by the imagination! 

My friends in Poland have told me that we can buy Polish pottery in versions never seen in Poland. I think I found something not sold in Poland.

I was rather amazed to see dog dishes! This booth had many patterns in dishes that were new to me as well, but my cupboards are about as full of Polish pottery as is possible in a small apartment.

All of this was taking place on the banks of the Mississippi River. No mistaking this for the Vistula. I've never seen a place where the Vistula looks this wild, let alone this wild in the middle of a city.

Across the street there was a wonderful exhibit centered on Katyn. This exhibit has been many places in the United States including in the Capitol building in Washington, D.C. I enjoyed seeing it and it made me feel for a few minutes like I was back in Europe again. The display style was European rather than American.

When I got back outside, all I could hear from both entertainment stages was polka music, so I wandered back to the car and headed home.

It is surely ethnic festival time here. Across the river from the apartment is a huge Irish festival. And on the way home yesterday I encountered signs directing me to the Igbo Festival.