After our weekend jaunt to Warsaw, we asked Andrea to take a stab at describing one of our favorite parts of the visit:
"Louis and I may have logged hours of silent and not-so-silent reading time in our shared offices and library corners over the course of our graduate careers, but Maggie and I share something more special. We are from Wisconsin. I won't speak for her, but I find it incredibly appropriate, then, that one of the establishments we had the most fun exploring together in Warsaw was a Polish culinary institution with a name to make our heartstrings sing: the milk bar (bar mleczny).
Before Wisconsinites get all teary-eyed thinking about a heaven with phosphates, frozen custard, cheese curds fresh and fried, and 400 year-old cheddar served to you by happy and generous bartenders in an alternate reality, I should make clear that the milk bar is about more than dairy. In fact, the "milk" in its name is there to distract us from what isn't there: meat.
But I'm getting ahead of myself, because the milk bar has a rich and complex history, like everything in the world. Milk bars are -- to my knowledge -- a Polish institution. (Honestly, I've heard tell that there's something in Australia with the same name. Different goods.) Milk bars serve warm food for very low prices, mostly around lunch time, which begins at 12 and extends to 6 pm. They are, no question, a Cold War product - one that the word on the street tells me had its origins in the early 60s, though I bet no one has done real research on that yet. A bit like a cafeteria or a fast food restaurant, the government set up milk bars to serve workers whose places of employment didn't have the notorious stołówka (cafeteria, for real this time). Ugh, more context, Andrea? Yes: stołówkas can be the pride of an institution. They serve home-cooked three course meals, often brought to your (sometimes linen-decked!) table by servers. And so, workers need not forgo the most substantial meal of the day just because of the demands of the 20th/21st century workday.
The milk bar is literally the poor-mans version of a stołówka. No service, no meat. These two features are, of course, linked, though in post-socialist transition, milk bars generally have added the various pork staples to their menus, since meat is no longer scarcer than cigarettes. Many staples from the meatless days remain fixtures: vats of mushrooom, tomato, and sorrel soup (poured over pasta or potatoes, sometimes with a hardboiled egg), and an assortment of starches that makes carbo-loading a must. Crepes! Pierogi! Potatoes! Cheese-filled croquettes!
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Even more so than the offerings of the milk bar, the experience of eating there is unique. The three of us hit up two milk bars: the Family Milk Bar on Nowy Świat and the Barbican Milk Bar in the Old Town. The later is rumored to be the "oldest", though while we were loitering around being taken in by its extensive ceramics, an elderly Polish woman told me that this was the cheapest place -- with the exception of some other cheaper ones. It's clear that the superlative may not really mean much. Still, the proprietors of the charming Barbican place certainly cultivate a homey feel that lures in tourists. For what it's worth, it's also incredibly comforting in the winter when the bitter cold feels aggressive. On the other hand, the Family Milk Bar is one of the few reasonably priced eateries on one of Warsaw's poshest streets, so one eats among families out for the day, homeless, and many students. It's one of the few places in Warsaw where I can count on running into familiar faces. It's here to serve: lots of tables and no frills (also, when we were there: no napkins).
Family Milk Bar menu
What happens at a milk bar? You enter and spend 5 minutes reflecting on a giant menu, scoping today's availability, indicated by prices scrawled along the side of the items. Then begins the queuing. First, you wait to place your order, keeping in mind that they may run out of your preferred lunch options in the 3 minutes this takes. The cashier hands you a receipt with your order illegibly scrawled on it. Be proud that you've paid at most $5 for a soup + main dish + salad. Now stand in line again! This time you're waiting in front of a little window, through which you hand over your receipt to the kitchen managers. Some food you get the moment you pass off your order (soups, veggies, and salads just sit around in pots and pans). Other food (pierogi! sausage!) is freshly prepared.
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Left: Barbican Milk Bar; Right: Family Milk Bar
All this time, you've been people watching in order to secure a table. Once you've juggled the many small plates of food to your little table, it's time to dig in! The grease washes over your tongue and you marvel at just how! delicious! potatoes can be."
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