I’m making a quick post before the holiday weekend to share this recipe which we make frequently in the summer with our CSA radishes. So that makes it a Maryland recipe.
Burgersub has been making this for years but was uncertain of its origin although he knew it was possibly based on something his Polish mother makes. I google’d it and found “twarożek z szczypiorkem i rzodkiewką”, a Polish radish salad. Some websites call for cottage cheese or a combination with sour cream.
However, the one ingredient that Burgersub insists upon is this Polish style farmers cheese. Well, the radishes are essential but we have used chives instead of green onions on occasion. We get the cheese at Krakus here in Baltimore. I always pick up some chocolate or krówki (caramels) when I go in there.
We like to serve this quick spread on bagels for breakfast, lunch or dinner.
In some roundabout way I’m getting at some melting pot idea, thinking about how these recipes on this site found their way rough and tumble, through confusion, appropriation, renaming and improving, to become what we have. After all, if we didn’t have Google it would just be “radish salad.. a Polish type thing.”
Thomas Jefferson, flawed character though he was, had a much different vision of Independence Day than we know today (John Adams was more on the mark.)
Jefferson had a sort of charmingly naive understanding of (free) humanity and so he thought we would spend the day in quiet reflection or something. “..Let the annual return of this day forever refresh our recollections of these rights, and an undiminished devotion to them.”
I do agree that we should spend some time thinking about what this country means to us, atrocities and all, and reflect upon what we can do in this day and age to build something better and perhaps maintain what is already good.
“Recipe”
- about a pint of radishes
- one or two green onions (or use chives)
- 16 oz farmers cheese (twarog wiejski) [note: don’t get ‘Chudy’ style that means ‘skinny’]
- salt to taste
- optional: a little sour cream to thin
Slice or dice radishes, mince green onion, mix into farmer’s cheese with a pinch or two of salt. Tastes better the second day but the radishes will get chewy on the third day! Serve on bagels, toast, crackers, etc.
