In praise of the Polski sklep

[Catalogue of ills]

I discovered my local Polski sklep during the first lockdown and it's great, I'm now in there a couple of times a week. It has the very misleading name of All Nations Food Store. It stocks food from only one country, and that country is Poland.

This is what you can get in my Polski sklep that makes it great:

Vodka

Various sorts, including Zubrowka, all of which are to like, yes?
Also, loads of flavoured vodkas if that is your thing

Smoked cheese

Hello, Mr Polish shopkeeper, have you any cheese?

Yes. We have smoked, smoked, smoked or smoked. But they come in different shapes so they are different, ok?

Not as far as I can tell, really, but they are good. A gratin with the Polish smoked cheese and celeriac (also always available in the sklep) is amazing.

PAPRIKA CRISPS

Sour cream

AKA Smietana. Very tasty. You can also realiably get double cream (Smietanka).

Buttermilk

Always in stock. Great for cornbread and pancakes.

Horseradish

Raw, or jars of the stuff, with various additives such as cranberry or wasabi, which is a bit odd really.

Everything you need to make this delicious borscht

Bread

Pumpernickel, rye bread, honey bread, 'gladiator bread'. All delicious.

Dried mushrooms

And not expensive, like in the supermarkets.

Massive doughnuts

Almost the size of your head, no lie.

All the denominations of pierogi

Anything to do with tomatoes

Passata, tinned tomatoes, tomato puree, ketchup, spicy ketchup, tomato juice. They love tomatoes.

Grains

Mostly buckwheat, but others too. Loads of it.



Also, by way of very dubious reasoning (i.e. they haven't fled back to Poland) I make the unstable assumption that they are not run by the kind of hideous bigots they have running around that Poland these days, because they don't melt into a pathetic puddle of hatred if they meet a Gay or a Brown.

Visit your local Polski sklep today! Tell me about your local Polski sklep!

[Pink Gregory]

Horseradish with wasabi?

looking for a cheap thrill, are we sir?

[paruses]

Horseradish with wasabi?

looking for a cheap thrill, are we sir?

The speedball of condiments.

[Icehaven]

We used to live directly opposite one, not actually sure if it was specifically Polski as it just called itself an Eastern European supermarket, but stopped going in there at the start of the first lockdown when all the prices suddenly disappeared from the shelves and they charged whatever they felt like at the till. Things we'd been buying for ages suddenly cost more with no explanation, so I didn't bother going in there anymore. Shame as they had an excellent deli counter which sold 'lucky dip' packets of offcuts of all kinds of different cheeses, but not worth getting ripped off for. There was another one further up the road but they were much smaller, didn't have as good a deli and they didn't do this very sweet wine I used to get from the first one so I didn't go there as often, but they still did some nice meats and crisps. 

[monkfromhavana]

Soured gherkins are what you want, plus their vastly superior mayonnaise. Also, their lovely sausages. and sauerkraut.

[wooders1978]

My local one isn't as bountifully stocked as yours by the sound of it but yes for smoked cheeses, salamis and decent quality fruit and veg - also does a lovely sour cherry schnapps thing which I'm rather fond of, but it's bloody lethal

[Kankurette]

There's one in Northenden that has a pick 'n' mix with some lovely Polish filled chocolates. It also has a bakery section.

[Gurke and Hare]

Again, not strictly a Polski Sklep but I live near the wonderful Lewisham Food Centre that sells nice Polish ham, nice bread from various places and loads of fascinating tinned and jarred stuff.

[The Mollusk]

Whenever I see a Polski sklep I always think about Larry David asking the plumber in the restaurant about schlepping marble.

"You ever sklep Polski? It's a sklep!"

That's it, thanks for reading.

[seepage]

There's a magazin Romanesc near me. Most of the pictures on Google feature lots of sausages and cured meats, so I might have to take a look inside.

[Mr Banlon]

Quite a few of the Polski Skleps round my way have closed as the owners either moved on to better things, or returned to Poland because of brexit.
Some are now Romanian shops. I hope some of the brexit-types who were delighted to see the Polski Skleps close, were double pissed when they re-opened as Romanian gaffs.

[Butchers Blind]

Quite the pick and choose of them round where I live. The added bonus is they're always open late.

[Famous Mortimer]

I like the mustard in the pint-glass-with-handle-shaped container.

[Sherringford Hovis]

Universal Seasoning: basically a big bag of Vegetable Cup-a-Soup that I use instead of salt in everything I cook: available from most Polski Skleps and about a quarter of the price of

[Huxleys Babkins]

My ex is Polish so I view the Polski sklep with a mixture of fond nostalgia and PTSD.

My favourite thing is the fruit and veg by the entrance. Apple the size of a child's head? Don't mind if I do.

[jobotic]

Zywiec and Perla

[flotemysost]

There's been a lot of noise about paprika crisps around here of late, but I favour the smoky bacon flavoured rashers of styrofoam with lurid go-faster stripes that come in enormous refuse sack sized bags. Probably made with coloring from crushed insects too.

The freezer section normally yields some treasures as well, I can't remember the name but I love those little snack bars which are I think basically just chilled blocks of sweetened cottage cheese in lots of different flavors (chocolate, vanilla, kiwi, banana, coffee). The Russian ones are better though, soz.

In most parts of London I've lived, even smaller branches of UK supermarket chains tend to reliably stock Polish stuff in the international aisle (it was the only place I could find flour during the first lockdown), should probably support my local sklep though.

[Johnny Foreigner]

Went into one a few years ago and asked if he had any bacon. He said no, so I left.

[dissolute ocelot]

Loving the random Japanese brand name. I'm sure it's what the Japanese all put in their borscht.

My main problem with Polish stores is you can't buy just a few gherkins.

[monkfromhavana]

My main problem with Polish stores is you can't buy just a few gherkins.

You can generally buy a pack of gherkins that have a lot fewer in. As in, it's a packet, but it has the gherkins in the brine inside, so you had better have something to decant them into once you have opened them.

[buttgammon]

There's a Polish (and Lithuanian and Russian) shop just around the corner from my building. It's a treasure trove, but they've sadly stopped selling babka, which was the best thing in the place.

The packets of gherkins are messy as fuck. I normally open them over the sink and try to find a way to use them immediately (i.e. eating them).

[monkfromhavana]

The packets of gherkins are messy as fuck. I normally open them over the sink and try to find a way to use them immediately (i.e. eating them).

I just can't wrap my head around the point of putting something with a considerable amount of liquid in it, in a packet that you have to tear the top off to get into. Mental. It's not even as if it's more environmentally friendly, because glass jars are probably far greener than a packet.

It's not like it's a "top-up pack, cos who in their right mind would top-up gherkins instead of just buying a fresh jar?

[badaids]

No one has mentioned the amazing Kielbasa sausages, and the best Polish food ever which is Bigos.

[Voltan (Man of Steel)]

We had a place called České Potraviny open up a few years and I had to visit it for work. There were a couple of shelves of packets and tinned goods plus a chilled display unit that was operating at only just below room temperature so the sausages within had gone off and the whole shop has filled with a nasty sour smell.

It turned out that the family who ran the place were making regular trips back home to Czechia and, from what I could gather, bringing the stock back in an unrefrigerated van. They hadn't got a clue what they were doing and I felt quite sorry for them.

They lived above the shop and every so often the door behind the counter opened and little girls dressed in what looked like wedding dresses would appear in the doorway to point and laugh at me.

Unsurprisingly it only lasted a few months.

[Sebastian Cobb]

No one has mentioned the amazing Kielbasa sausages, and the best Polish food ever which is Bigos.

Zywiec and Perla

These are what I usually got from the one near me.

Their squashes are good and really syrupy.

[Cold Meat Platter]

Their squashes are good and really syrupy.

Their cherry syrup went extraordinarily well with some bog-standard lager I had. Ersatz Kriek beer.

[Johnny Foreigner]

Morski cheese and Doktorska sausage are Poland's greatest contribution to world cuisine.

They'd like to claim maślanka as their own, but I'm pretty sure kærnemælk was first.

[shoulders]

Yes, those newsagents called Sklep and Magazin Romanesc are worth popping into for the deli section alone.

If you ever wanted to feel like BIG CONVENIENCE are belting you up the arse long and hard then the wealth of choice on offer at world food stores will deliver that feeling pure and intense.

[The Ombudsman]

I love the Jaffa Cake style things with blueberry and raspberry fillings.

[Lisa Jesusandmarychain]

Those big fuck- off packets of peanut flavoured crisps ( shaped like peanuts, too). Freely available in Czechia and Slovakia, too. Fucking lush.