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A Fried Pie and a Fish Dish

8 bytes added, 22:18, 15 March 2022
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{{data|24 October 2018}}
[[File:{{#setmainimage:Paszteciki-Szczecinskie.jpg}}|thumb|250px|PS1]]
Szczecin – formerly known by its more pronounceable German name, Stettin – is a port city in northwestern Poland and home to two peculiar snacks. They’re called ''pasztecik szczeciński ''and'' paprykarz szczeciński'', pronounced: {{pron|pahsh|teh|cheek}} {{pron|shcheh|cheen|skee}} and {{pron|pahp|rihRih|kahsh}} {{pron|shcheh|cheen|…}} oh, you know what, never mind, forget it; let’s just call them '''PS1''' and '''PS2''', alright?
PS1 is a kind of hand-held deep-fried pastry filled with ground meat or some other stuffing. On 20 October, Szczecinians celebrated the PS1 Day – a tradition that dates all the way back to 2017. As far as I know, this treat is virtually unknown anywhere in Poland outside Szczecin itself. PS2, on the other hand, is a canned fish spread that is popular throughout the country. It doesn’t seem, however, to have its own holiday yet.
[[File:Thiéboudiène Boukhonk with tamarind.jpg|thumb|250px|''Ceebu jën'' served with tamarind paste on the side]]
Instead of searching by the name, let’s try to search by ingredients. Is there a West African dish made from rice, fish, tomato paste and hot spices? Yes, it turns out there is! It’s the national dish of Senegal, also popular in other West African countries, which goes by the name spelled ''ceebu jën'' in Wolof and ''thiéboudienne'' in French; it’s pronounced roughly {{pron|cheh|boo|jen|link=no}} and means simply “rice with fish”. To make it, you take an Atlantic fish called dusky grouper, cut it into steaks and stuff each one with finely chopped parsley, onion and garlic. Then you sauté vegetables (onion, chili pepper, potatoes, African eggplant, okra) with tomato paste and possibly a dried sea snail called ''Cymbium olla'' (also known as “Senegalese Camembert” due it its pungent smell). Then you add water and cook the fish steaks in this soup. Once it’s cooked, you remove the fish and the veggies from the pot and replace them with some rice to let it absorb all of the broth. The fish and the veggies are served on the rice.
Okay, and what about the “pima”? This happens to be quite easy: the mysterious spice appears to be nothing more than a Polish phonetic spelling of ''piment'', the French word for a chili pepper.