Pomerania, Poland

Pomerania can make people mad, it can make them shout. This place can cause quite a fuss. But all the baggage this region may carry, that's for somebody else. Please, my wife is hungry, I'm jetlagged. I need a drink.

Pomerania is Poland's entire Baltic coast, and Germany's eastern Baltic shores. Pomerania - mushrooms, wild boar, a sausage with mustard. German and Polish food have these international auras as being fat, heavy, creamy. Sure, but did you ever see a Pomeranian with a waistline thicker than a Texan? Baltic cuisine may be heavy, but then, so is Pomeranian history.

Pomerania is not known for any one cuisine – it is rather, just a place, influenced by time and change. A cross-section of Northern European food before tomatoes, potatoes, chocolate, coffee and chili.

We have a way of signposting history by wars and leaders. Both would make Pomerania look a sad place. Food and commerce make better history; the rest are just stop signs along the way. In most of Pomerania's history, the changing political borders have had little effect on the people anyway. The ruler may have been Swedish or Slavic or Germanic, but the cultures remained intact. Those cultures, despite their various ethnic influences - were Germanic and Slavic; for a thousand years the borderline between these two has shifted. Still yet, as always, Pomerania remains two cultures, one place.