Travel Photography > Northern Seas > Pomerania, Poland

According to uncle, a certain Mr. Martin Gauger 'paid himself out of bondage', and married a woman called Eva Bliesener in 1687. Forty years later, another Bliesener married another Martin Gauger. A grain mill had existed in Regenwalde since at least the fourteenth century. But it burned during the thirty years war, and was later rebuilt. The Bliesener family took over this mill's lease and handed its administration to this same Martin Gauger. From then on until 1945, Gauger's would stick close to the milling industry. Even today, of my generation's six Gauger's, half of us earn our keep through agriculture.

For lunch, I order duck liver with peach and orange sauce, herring, onion soup, cabbage stuffed with meat and rice. I order Golabki - cabbage leaves stuffed with rice and pork, served with tomato sauce. These cabbage dishes are as old as populated Northern Europe itself. Cabbage never initially existed in the traditional civilized lands of the Middle East, and so in the west, has always been connected with early Northern Europe. Its ancestral relation - wild cabbage, still grows wild on the Baltic coasts. Traders found that, like herring, the cabbage could be preserved in brine. Instead of protein, it yielded vitamins. And so the cabbage, like the herring, would cross seas in barrels. This preserved cabbage, the Germans called sauerkraut. The Poles took sauerkraut and added it to their dishes. Sauerkraut to Scandinavia and Poland on Hanseatic ships.

We are on the Palace veranda with brothers and cousins, and I'm trying to order a glass of water for Hans and Jane. A glass of water, in America this is free. In Europe ordering water is expensive and nearly impossible. And when you get it, it's like a teacup, a mouthful. If you drink your teacup in a single sip, as Americans do with water, you are fucked. It will be another fifteen minutes before your waiter comes by to fetch you another bottle of overpriced water. What you do is you say you want your water in a beer glass, what you do is you say no gasienko – that’s Polish for give me some water without those euro-bubbles. What you do is you order three waters at a time.

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