A Taste Of My Heritage

Wendy and I journeyed to Hamtramck this past week where our nephew's band was playing a gig. Hamtramck is a largely Polish enclave in the heart of metropolitan Detroit. I told our little entourage that I would go if we could leave early and stop at one of the locally renowned Polish restaurants there for dinner.

My family on my father's side is Polish so I thought I could indulge my ethnicity with a taste of Poland at the Polish Village Inn. It turned out to be a rather crowded and lively downstairs venue very reminiscent of some ethnic cafe you might find in a New York movie. Their Polish dinner offered the traditional pierogi (potato dumpling), golabki (cabbage roll), and kielbasa (sausage). I ordered that.

But there was something else on the menu that piqued my interest--a Polish soup that I had heard my family speak positively of since I was barely able to walk. Czarnina! I've been to a few Polish restaurants in my time but I don't remember seeing czarnina on the menu. This was my chance to sample an unusual Polish delicacy. So I ordered a cup for myself.

For those not familiar with czarnina, the broth is produced using the blood of a duck. OK, that might not sound appetizing in itself. And I'm pretty sure I had czarnina once at the family dinner table when I was barely able to see over the table from my chair. As I recall, it tasted sour and I labeled it "tar soup" because of its dark appearance.

I remember thinking that my family must have hit poverty row since the broth looked identical to pictures I had seen of those poor children in other countries whose meals consisted of some bread and a bowl of similarly colored soup.

Now that I wonder about it, why would my mother, or ANY mother, give their child soup made from the blood of a duck or any other animal? We weren't entertaining the Draculas if I recall. Then again, my mother will just accuse me of exercising my imaginitive recollection again and deny that I was served czarnina before. But I think I was.

Anyway, I figured the soup should taste better this time. Afterall, I remember my grandfather raving about how good it was, and how it was rendered into a gravy served at a wedding or party he attended. And how some gentleman who swore he would never touch czarnina had more than one helping of the "tasty gravy" without knowing what it was.

But my childhood memory was accurate, at least so far as the taste. Tar soup it was. I offered samples to those around but got no takers. It had a heavy, somewhat sour flavor. But I did finish it, dumping some over my mashed potatoes to make it slightly more palatable. Washing it down with a large goblet of Polish draft beer didn't hurt either.

Later, we stopped at a Polish market where they had some wonderful looking desserts. However, the labels on the packages were all in Polish, which I don't read at all. I bought some babuni cake. What does babuni mean? I don't know. Hopefully, it's not 'goose hair' or something like that.