The first time I tasted a cheese pierogi was the first Christmas that I had teeth. And I’ve tasted one every Christmas since. The browned onions, the salty dough, the sweet farmer’s cheese filling. It is the long-awaited dish after a day of fasting. There are a few courses before it, but only to tease you. The piece of oplatek leaves your stomach gurgling for more, like communion in church. The borscht is essentially a bowl of saltwater, and I can only eat the kapusta with a lot of salt and pepper. Waiting for the pierogi each Christmas is like a dog being teased with a bone – squirming, whining, with slobber dripping on the floor.
Polish Americans have strong emotions tied to the material elements of their Christmas traditions. With migrants struggling to balance assimilation and tradition, food plays a big role in finding their identity. The Polish Christmas is a deeply emotional experience, with rituals about the passing time and human connection. The presence of pierogis on the Christmas dinner table is more than a tradition, but has an emotional value tied to a Pole’s identity in America (Burrell).
I don’t remember how old I was when I first made pierogi, but I remember my hands being too small to do it well. I was in my grandma’s kitchen, where snow piled up to the windows. She would shovel the snow herself, refusing to accept help from my dad. My grandma was tough – built with New York attitude and Italian will power. She had blonde hair back then and was a lot taller. She was patient with me, more so than she is now.
“Press and roll,” her New York accent was undeniable. “Harder. Like you’re wrestling the dough with it.” She was a strict teacher with high expectations of me.
The block of dough that sat in front of me was bigger than my head. Back then, we’d make hundreds of pierogis in a day – enough for the whole year. I grabbed at the dough, pulling at a piece and fighting as it clung to the block. My sous-chef threw flour on the counter and it landed like new-fallen snow. We rolled and rolled, piece by piece, until the mighty dough divided into little pancakes, too many to count.
The origins of pierogis are disputed. They originated somewhere in Central or Eastern Europe, which is why they can be found in Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, and elsewhere. My favorite origin story is a Catholic one. Legend says that when Saint Hyacinth visited Kościelec, Poland, a storm destroyed all of the crops. Hyacinth told everyone to pray, and the next day, the crops rose to the sky. The people of Kościelec then crafted pierogi from their crops to thank Saint Hyacinth (Pierogi History).
Passing down recipes in Polish American culture is the equivalent of oral stories being told for generations by Native Americans. Recipes are books full of history and tradition – a material manifestation of past, cultural experiences (Gunkel). Hundreds of years ago, they were a food for peasants because of their simple ingredients – dough, cheese, salt. Today, they are a celebratory food in Poland, with different shapes and fillings for different holidays (Pierogi History).
Pierogis have been my favorite food for as long as I can remember, specifically, pierogis filled with cheese. As a kid, I begged my grandma to have them more than once a year. From then on, every visit was accompanied by the smell of buttery onions, remnants of flour on the granite, and the subtle but sweet taste of farmer’s cheese in the silky pierogi dough. The filling is simple – farmer’s cheese, drained cottage cheese, and sugar. It is lumped into the smooth pancake-like dough using an ice cream scooper, and the dough is folded over. Cheese pierogis were no longer just a Christmas tradition, but a “grandma” tradition.
The pierogi trail goes as far back as my great grandmother, who my mom called “babu.” She immigrated to America from Warsaw when she was 16 years old and married a Polish man. When my mom was young, she would watch her babu craft these pierogis with the three other women of the house. These women worked like a factory, each with a specific job they’d repeat hundreds of times.
Making the dough took the strength and patience of a specific woman; I picture it as my grandma. Rolling it flat would be Cioci Mary, adding the filling was Betty Ann, and Babu would pinch it closed.
Pinching is always the hardest part because of the cheese in the center. The balance of flour and water is key, with enough water to make the dough sticky, but not so much to make it soppy. The corners of the dough must be folded over thin enough to make it firm, but not so thin that it breaks. It must hold while it boils but be soft when it’s served. It is a thousand contradictions in a single action, and it will make or break the dish. Babu was the woman for this. Now, it is my grandma.
Forty years later and the image of women making pierogi in that house is nearly unchanged. It is the same kitchen with the same cabinets and dishes. The recipe is still written in cursive on a butter-stained index card with printed green vines around the edges. Since my mom watched babu, three women have passed, and one has been added. We are a team of two – my grandma and me. My mom never learned.
“That’s too much filling,” my grandma stopped her rolling and reached onto my tray. Her hands are calloused from thousands of pierogis over the years. There are black bruises on her arms the size of kiwis, not caused by anything, just there. Her skin is darker, looser, creased. “If you put that much in, you won’t be able to close it and it’ll break in the pot. Then we’ll have pierogi soup.”
She used to stand, but she now sits on a stool while cooking. I towered over her, and watched her scoop out half of the filling that I had put in. She painted the circumference of the dough with water, and pinched the edges closed. It took her seconds. It took me minutes.
Hers always looked different than mine. They were plumper – full without being overloaded. Her pinches were thin and tight, stronger than if they were glued. Mine were thick and always had a tail from pinching all of the dough to one side.
“You’ll get there,” my teacher encouraged.
Years of making pierogis, and I have yet to make one that looks like hers.
Cheese Pierogi Recipe (Kierstzyn)
Dough
6 cups flour 2 tsp salt
1 egg
Oil (roughly 2 Tbs) 2 cups warm water
Form a well with the flour and salt. Add one egg and oil into the flour. Mix with a fork. Slowly add the 2 cups of warm water a little at a time. Move the mixture to a bowl and knead. Then place the mixture on a floured board. Roll it into a rope and cut small sections in order to roll those out to flat pieces uses a rolling pin. The rolled-out section should be the size of a small cereal bowl – about 4 inches in diameter.
Cheese Filling
One brick of Farmer’s cheese
1 lb. of drained cottage cheese – drain overnight with cheese-cloth – place a weight on top to squeeze out excess liquid.
Sugar – to taste, the sweeter the better (Splenda is okay to use)
1 egg yolk
Mix all above together. Taste test and add more sugar for sweetness. Use about 2 Tbs of filling per 4” rolled dough. Wet the sealing edge slightly with water (a small paint brush works well). Tightly fold in half, and pinch the edge or seal with a fork (like ravioli).
Cooking
Boil a large pot of water (once boiling add a pinch of salt and olive oil) Prepare diced onion and salt (fry together until translucent). To cook pierogi, gently place in boiling water – like for ravioli. Avoid overcooking or the filling will release. Cook for roughly 8 minutes. Remove cooked pierogi from water and place into a serving bowl. Add the melted butter and onions, season with salt – Enjoy!
Work Cited
Burrell, Kathy. “The Objects of Christmas: The Politics of Festive Materiality in the Lives of Polish Immigrants.” Moving Subjects, Moving Objects: Transnationalism, Cultural Production and Emotions, edited by Maruška Svašek, 1st ed., Berghahn Books, 2014, pp. 55–74. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt9qch27.7. Accessed 17 Mar. 2020.
Gunkel, Ann Hetzel. “Of Polka, Pierogi and Ethnic Identity: Toward a Polish American Cultural Studies.” Polish American Studies, vol. 62, no. 1, 2005, pp. 29–42. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/20148714. Accessed 17 Mar. 2020.
Kierstzyn, Anna Marie. “Cheese Pierogi.” 1929.
“Pierogi History.” Polish Villa, New York Marketing, 20 Mar. 2017, www.polishvillaunion.com/polish-villa/pierogi-history/.
