It’s that time of year again. And no, I’m not talking about the lighting of the Christmas decorations in downtown Warsaw, or the smell of mulled wine which wafts its way through Christmas Fair in Kraków’s Market Square, I’m onto a lightly more fishy matter than that. That’s right, ladies and gentlemen, it’s time to take a look at the Christmas carp.
Now legend has it that carp started to hit the Christmas Eve menu in Poland around a century ago, and was introduced from either Germany or Austria. Apparently, the fish is supposed to bring good luck. Nevertheless, I never quite got the idea of putting a fish, which in my humble opinion really doesn’t that great, alongside the other marvellous delicacies which adorn any Christmas Eve supper across Poland. My grand-parents use to love tucking into jellied carp, which could quite possibly be the biggest criminal dish of them all. Call me a party-pooper, but why oh why must we be subjected to such dreadful food? Just think about it: why, when you have delicious home-made pierogi, or marinated matjas fillets with onion and apple, or the much more traditional bigos hunter’s stew – without the meat of course – should you subject yourself to such torture?
Well, last year, Poland’s Union for the Promotion of Fish sent over 120 live Polish carp to the Vatican to be prepared for the Swiss Guard, with some twelve different carp dishes being prepared by Tomasz Lesniak, the Polish football team chef. Why? Because one of the guards’ wives is a Pole, and she organised the carp feast. All I can say is that I sympathise with the Swiss Guards for having been subjected to such a dinner. I mean, twelve dishes? I know the number is typical of Christian symbolism, but really, that is going slightly over the top.
I suppose that’s the point of tradition: that it’s there for the taking, and you just have to grin and bear it. But any trip to a Polish supermarket at this time of year can be quite an ordeal. Go to any fish counter, and lying beside it you see the fish tank of doom, with carp splashing about waiting to be taken home – live or otherwise, back home in time to be prepared for the Christmas table.
It is worth noting that carp, being a traditional dish, also traditionally brings in big money to fishmongers and fish farmers up and down the land. After all, in 2013 Poles managed to fork out as much as 200 million zloty, that’s almost 50 million euro, on carp in the last month of last year, when sales of the fish rocket. In 2014, the carp farm in Zator, southern Poland, has announced that it has 160 tons of its fish, commonly known as “Royal Carp”, ready for the taking, although prices are low in 2014, the farmers acknowledge.
But times they are a changing. A couple of years ago the fate of the humble carp began to brought into the public debate, usually about how it is sold and how it is prepared. More and more animal protest groups have got in on the action, and at the beginning of this year parliamentarians drafted up new laws which protect the welfare of the humble fish, at least in supermarkets. Only qualified staff are allowed to kill the fish on the spot where it is sold, and even when they are packed into plastic bags for customers to take home, they should be given a decent amount of water. After all, tradition also has it that many a bathtub across the country is turned into a temporary fish tank at this time of year, with the head of the family often giving a solid whack to the head of the humble carp before being gutted, seasoned, and put on for Christmas Eve. A year before last, a celebrity chef, Robert Sowa, even went so far as to go on TV to try and get Poles to buy salmon instead of carp. And I’ve got to say, he has a great point. Not only is salmon tastier, it is also… tastier. I mean, I don’t really have any other arguments.
So there you have it. Of course, if you want to stick to tradition then by all means, go ahead, I will promise to stop carping on eventually…