Poland’s milk bars offer a taste of the past
KRAKOW, POLAND It is dinnertime in Poland and I am waiting in line in a drab canteen, getting ready to eat like it’s the 1950s, ’60s, ’70s and ’80s again.
There is a good reason for that: This eatery, called “Bar Mleczny” (“Milk Bar”), is a throwback to the country’s communist past, a grim period in Poland’s history when food was rudimentary and often in short supply.
After ordering from the menu posted on the wall, I wait for my meal to be handed to me from the kitchen and then take it to a table. The staff is a bit grumpy, but what else can you expect from a communist-style service?
Fortunately, the food makes up for the surliness. I start with a bowl of barszcz, a hearty soup made from beets, cabbage, onions and potatoes.
Next is a generous portion of pierogies, crescent-shaped raviolis filled with potatoes, which I am washing down with kompot, a tepid drink made from boiled fruit. It’s not exactly fine dining but, to my surprise, I actually like the food, carbs and all.
Interestingly, these canteens are far more than just a place to grab a quick and inexpensive home-style meal; they are also a unique historical, political and social phenomenon.
The first milk bar opened in Warsaw at the end of the 19th century. But the concept really took off after World War II when Poland became a communist state, the economy tanked, food was in short supply, and the majority of people were poor.
Still, even in times of austerity, workers had to be fed. Government-subsidized milk bars provided just that: cheap, traditional Polish fare for the masses. In their heyday, 40,000 such eateries operated throughout the country.
As the name suggests, these diners served dairy-based food. Meat was a luxury back then, so dishes such as pierogies, kluski (dumplings made from cheese, flour and eggs), and milky soups with noodles, rice, barley, buckwheat, millet or potatoes were the usual staple.
As a Polish acquaintance told me, “in those days, we didn’t complain about the lack of variety or the blandness. We ate what was put on the table.”
And sometimes, it seems, also took the table.
A scene in a 1980s Polish film shows a milk bar where forks and knives are attached to chains, and plates are screwed to tables. Though the movie was meant to be a comedy, the portrayal was not far-fetched: Apparently, times were so hard that some milk bar patrons resorted to stealing cutlery.
After the collapse of communism in 1991, Western-style restaurants sprang up across Poland, providing exciting new alternatives to utilitarian milk bars. But these vestiges of bleaker times refused to disappear, and about 150 of them still exist throughout the country, including a handful in the Krakow area.
Today’s milk bars continue to serve many of the same dairy foods, but traditional Polish meat dishes are also on the menu: ground pork cutlets called kotlety
mielone; golabki — cabbage rolls stuffed with rice and meat; and
bigos, a stew made from cabbage, mushrooms and chunks of meat.
Despite Poland’s transition to capitalism, the milk bars I ate in on this and previous visits still have the distinctly proletarian vibe. At lunch and dinnertime, the place is crowded with the elderly, students and young families for whom, I am told, these venues are still the only places that offer a filling and affordable meal out.
And speaking of affordable dining, the tab for my entire dinner was equivalent to $5. That is a VERY reasonable price to pay for a big meal and a little bit of nostalgia to boot.