Pierogi Problem

The culinary landscape of Poland is significantly changing, reshaped by a new generation of food producers, chefs, and media personalities. The Pierogi Problem examines peoples networks, places, material culture, and media to explain how Polish tastemakers embrace context-specific strategies to localize discourses, practices, and values amid an increasingly globalized food culture. The decades following the end of Polands socialist regime were marked by a rising interest in foreign cuisines and Western forms of consumption. Today, however, ingredients, cooking techniques, and dishes that were once considered ordinary or part of the countrys uncomfortable past are being refashioned to reflect transformations in cultural hierarchies. The Pierogi Problemchronicles how and why local, traditional, and artisanal foods are reemerging for changing cosmopolitan appetites.