Any Aussie kid that grew up in the 80’s will probably remember McCain’s Pizza Subs. They were a frozen snack comprised of half a hyper-processed white bread roll sliced lengthways, a smear of watery tomato-inspired sauce, a trace of tiny onion and capsicum flakes, a few pieces of a mystery meat-like by-product from the smallgoods industry, and a sparse sprinkling of cheese. You’d bung ‘em in the oven at 180 degrees for, I dunno, maybe 25 minutes, and then you’d have a pizza-like snack to burn the roof of your mouth on. Looking back on them, they were pretty ordinary. As a kid, though, I loved ‘em.
So why am I telling you all this now? Well, last weekend, at the top of a mountain in Poland, my childhood Pizza Subs memories all came flooding back.
Heading south from the city of Krakow, you are soon into the foothills of the mountain ranges that dominate the Polish/Slovakian border region. About 35 k’s from town, you come to the village of Myslenice. In the summertime, you can ride a chairlift to the top of a peak just outside the town. Once up top, you can spread out the picnic blanket, go for a walk, or risk paralysis riding the numerous mountain bike trails that snake back down the mountain. In the winter, you can take the chairlift in your skis for a little alpine action on a couple of downhill runs.
My friend Poli is the ultimate guide to all things Polish, and always makes time to show me around whenever I am in Krakow. Last weekend, she picked me up and we drove south through the city’s Saturday morning traffic, heading for Myslenice. It seemed like most of Krakow was out and about, making the most of the mild autumn weather before winter arrived.
After winding our way out of town for about 45 minutes, Poli pulled up at the chairlift carpark at Myslenice. Stumping up our złoty for a couple of tickets, we made our way through the turnstile. The chairlift infrastructure had a socialist-era feel about it, and I wondered if Russian troops had still been garrisoned in Poland the last time it had received an engineering check.
The chairlift was a single-seater, so after the old bloke on duty had seated Poli and she had been slingshotted away up the hill, I stepped onto the yellow painted dot and waited my turn. The attendant grabbed the next seat and slowed it down while I jumped aboard. With a groan from the chairlift cable, I was on my way.
I have to say, I do love a chairlift, and drifting up the hillside amongst the trees was great. The forest was still and quiet save for the birds, and the occasional mushroom hunter searching for fungi to risk his family members’ lives with.
Thankfully, when we reached the top, we both managed to dismount without going arse up and getting clipped on the back of the head by the seat.
Beyond the chairlift station, walkers and mountain bikers were milling about outside a café that was pumping out coffees and snacks. To my astonishment, I noticed a group of punters eating Pizza Subs!
‘Poli! Look! They’ve got Pizza Subs!’
‘Hey?’ Poli looked puzzled.
I pointed. ‘They’re eating Pizza Subs!’
‘Ohhhh.’ she replied. Zapiekanka’.
Although I have spent considerable time in Poland, the sound of the Polish language still remains a mystery as deep as the meaning of life.
‘Zapa….’
‘No zapi.’
‘Right. Zapibungka.’
Poli finds my incompetence with her mother tongue both amusing and exasperating. Like a parent of a child with learning difficulties, she carefully enunciated ‘ZAH-PEE-KAHN-KA’.
‘Isn’t that what I said?’
In order to save us both from further torment, I didn’t attempt to pronounce zapiekanka again, but rather told her that we used to have something similar as kids.
‘Are they a traditional Polish snack?’ I asked.
‘Well, more from the socialist era. It was our version of fast food. There wasn’t a great variety of foods available when I was growing up, but there were always mushrooms, and bread and cheese.’
And that, dear reader, is the essence of the classic zapiekanka: half of a white bread roll, mushrooms, cheese on top, and then on top of the cheese, mysteriously, a zig-zag of tomato sauce.
‘Let’s get one after our walk!’ I was definitely more excited about snacking down a zapiekanka than Poli was. But despite mumbling something about them being a little crap, she agreed.
After a walk along the ridgeline, which featured some nice views of the forest in all its autumn colours, we arrived back at the café.
‘I think the café might be closed…’ said Poli, trying to hide her relief.
‘Oh you’re kidding!’ I exclaimed. ‘Hang on, I’ll have a look.’
I headed down the stone steps to the door and found it open. It was deserted inside, but I could hear sounds coming from the kitchen. Poli followed me in, and called out to see if anyone was around. A serious looking woman appeared, and after confirming that food was still on offer, Poli ordered two zapiekanki (one zapiekanka, two zapiekanki*). I paid up, and we headed back outside.
‘She said it will take twenty minutes.’ Poli told me. ‘Twenty minutes to put some mushrooms and cheese on a bread roll!’ And they were expensive too.’ Unlike me and Pizza Subs, I was getting the distinct feeling that Poli didn’t hold nostalgic feelings towards the humble zap.
We waited in the cool mountain air until the serious woman plunked two cheesy rolls down on the counter and announced: ‘Dwie zapiekanki’ . Our late arvo snacks were served on a piece of long, thin card. Upon inspection, it appeared that the reason the serious lady had needed the full twenty minutes to prepare the food was to ensure she could burn one side of each zapiekanka.
Poli and I clunked our zapiekanki together, said ‘cheers’, and took a bite. The base sure was crunchy, and a little cloud of bread dust blossomed from my zapiekanka before coming to rest on the front of my shirt. The zap tasted ok, with something in the flavour that I recognized but just couldn’t put my finger on. After a couple more bites, I’d worked it out: it was that buttery sauce you get in a can of mushrooms.
Our mountain top zapiekanki were clearly a bit low brow, having been thrown together using canned instead of fresh mushrooms. Apparently the ones you can get in the tourist hotspots of central Krakow are more upmarket, using fresh mushies and offering a range of toppings unavailable back in the socialist times. However, our zaps were warming, and being of generous size, very filling.
Poli battled admirably through her zapiekanka, which I assume will be her last until some other tourist forces another upon her. Truth be told, I probably won’t be seeking out another one for a while either. However, as my dear Mum used to say, they ‘filled in a corner’, and with full tums and little smears of tomato sauce on our cheeks, it was time to ride the chairlift back down the mountain in the late afternoon light.
Our zapiekanki might have resembled the Aussie Pizza Sub from the 80s, but they didn’t taste much alike. Still, I enjoyed trying a little Polish socialist-era snack up on the mountain overlooking Myslenice, and laughing with Poli as we swapped stories about foods from our childhood.
Do you remember Pizza Subs? Or have you tried a Zapiekanki? Let me know in the comments below!
*‘One zapiekanka, two zapiekanki, three zapiekanki four, five zapiekanek make a bunch and so do many more…’
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