The Polish Touch: Creative Cooking by the Members and Friends of the Marie Curie Sklodowska Association

J.V. Rahilly was an engineering librarian in Ontario.

To celebrate their 25th anniversary and to raise funds, the Marie Curie Sklodowska Association decided to create this cookbook, which is basically a book of traditional Polish recipes adapted to Canadian kitchens. It also includes descriptions of various Polish customs, together with details of the origins of some of the dishes. Some menus are also suggested, such as the twelve dishes for Wigilia (Christmas Eve).

The first sixty pages have the real traditional recipes. When the cookbook proceeds from “soup to nuts,” other cuisines intrude with such dishes as “avocado gazpacho” and “salmon log” made with canned salmon and cream cheese. But the soups are especially good, as one would expect from this very basic earthy cuisine for family dining. Other highlights include tortes, cheesecakes, sausages, and cabbage preparations, from among the 530 recipes. All the food is easy enough to assemble, and there is an index in both English and Polish. Illustrations, generally of the non-food type, include such Polish artifacts as hand-carved mountaineer canes, wooden plates and candlesticks, leather-tooled slippers and belts, pottery, and so forth — all line drawings.