Christmas Eve in Poland means fish flavors.
Even if it’s just herring and carp, there must be fish.

Herring, the basic fish of Hamburg and North German street food (Fischbrötchen, the classic fish-in-a-bun), is a people’s fish — staple food for fishermen and villagers along the Baltic and North Sea coasts for centuries.

In plant-based cooking, the essential way to achieve a fishy — or, as I call it, “oceanic” — flavor is to use seaweed.

For about fifteen hundred years, borscht has been one of the foundations of Polish and, more broadly, East Slavic cuisine. Originally made from fermented leaves of Heracleum sphondylium (which gave the dish its name), it later came to mean soups prepared on various types of sour starters — that is, fermented vegetables. Today the most popular version is beet borscht, which often isn’t truly borscht at all, since it’s acidified with vinegar or, in better cases, with sauerkraut or pickle brine.

On the internet, you can find everything you’re capable of imagining—and plenty of things you’re absolutely not.
One of them is “culinary Marxism.” The moment I saw the phrase, it stole my heart, and I’ve since enjoyed calling myself a “culinary Marxist.” Whatever that may actually mean. And I found a very intriguing interpretation of the term on a certain blogger’s page.

Traditionally, Christmas Eve dinner is a fasting meal, so you really don’t have to try very hard to make 12 fully vegan Christmas dishes.
But we also have no reason to limit our creativity — especially since today’s Christmas Eve customs are guests from abroad anyway: from Germany (the Christmas tree), from Ukraine (kutia), or even from China (pierogi).

In the fasting season, people didn’t necessarily eat “fasting food” in today’s sense of the word — bland, meagre, diet-friendly.
Fasting could be lavish. Of course, only on the tables of the small part of society that could afford it.

The fish that replaced ham during fasts had, for centuries, been unavailable to the majority of the population. Rivers and streams belonged to the King and the nobility, and poaching on their lands was a crime punishable by death.

Is it possible to host a vegan Christmas Eve? Absolutely — and it can be fully in line with Polish holiday tradition. Much more so than the Western-inspired habit of serving roasted poultry for Christmas Eve dinner.

Born and raised in Poland, I've only been living in Germany for a few years now. Nothing illustrates the phenomenon of Polish Christmas Eve (Wigilia) better than the reactions of my German friends when I tell them about the traditional and widely practiced Polish Christmas Eve.

The most unique and shocking tradition for other nations is the Christmas Eve dinner consisting of 12 dishes, the selection of which is governed by an algorithm as mysterious as Facebook or LinkedIn.

I have the feeling that traditional Polish cuisine—our classic dishes and ingredients—is often being neglected and replaced by foreign culinary influences. Not that I have anything against outside influences: I love Asian, Mexican, or even African cuisines (don’t know what fufu is? You’ll find out soon, because there’s a packet of it waiting for its turn in my cupboard of magical ingredients).

Stuffed vegetables are my personal comfort food — not just for the taste itself, but for the memories they bring back of the best thing from my 

INGREDIENTS

50 g TVP (soy protein granules)
Marinade for the TVP:

• 2 tbsp soy sauce
• 1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
• 1 tbsp Crema di Balsamico

Filling: