Mexican cuisine gaining popularity in Poland

Warsaw, Aug 26 (EFE)- Mexican cuisine is gaining more and more traction in Poland thanks to the proliferation of Tex-Mex restaurants and the enthusiasm for Hispanic culture in that country, though diners there are wary of challenging their taste buds with the spicier fare.

"The Poles especially like the enchiladas, quesadillas and pork loins with pasilla chile sauce," Mauricio Blanco, head chef at the Taqueria Mexicana chain in Warsaw and apparently the only Mexican chef working in the Polish capital.

But he said that despite repeated attempts, he hasn't been able to win Poles over to spicier dishes. "They're interested, they try it, but not in great abundance." Polish diners do like seasoning with vinegar and "the acidic flavors, the plates that have sauces with some acidic taste," said the 41-year-old, who left a restaurant in Mexico to try his luck in faraway Eastern Europe.

Poles also haven't yet taken a liking to entrails and insects that have no place in traditional Polish cuisine, which is heavy in sauces and abundant in pork, potatoes and mushrooms.

"We haven't even tried with ants, worms or grasshoppers," Blanco joked.

U.S. Tex-Mex chains are partly responsible for popularizing Mexican cuisine in Poland and peaking Poles' interest in authentic Mexican food.

"Due to the increase in U.S. chains with Mexican products, or Tex-Mex, the public has become interested in authentic Mexican cuisine, little by little more products have been imported, there's much better prepared dishes and a better representation of Mexican culinary culture," said Yunuhen Hernandez, an importer of Mexican products to Poland.

Both Mexicans agree that another factor in the growing popularity of Mexican cuisine is the current enthusiasm in Poland for Hispanic culture and for studying Spanish, which has become all the rage there in recent years.

Hernandez, a native of Uruapan in the western state of Michoacan, mainly sells jalapeño peppers and tortillas. He says Tex-Mex establishments - which offer a regional American cuisine that makes abundant use of melted cheese, beef, beans, and spices, as well as Mexican-style tortillas - offer an Americanized version of Mexican cuisine yet also have left Poles with a desire to experience the real thing.

"Gradually some dishes are being prepared in the pure Mexican style, although most of them have to be adapted to suit the Polish palate," he said.

Authentic or not, Mexican cuisine is making more and more inroads in Poland, a country whose population of 38 million includes a tiny community of roughly 100 Mexican immigrants. EFE nt/mc

Terra/EFE